Phrase “crop-top shirt“Not in Laken Brooks’ vocabulary before March 2020. However, the months of working from home at the start of the pandemic brought this 27-year-old Dr. candidate a chance to reevaluate her fashion choices.
So when she got the chance to own a cropped T-shirt – short-sleeved and charcoal gray with wildflowers on the chest – for herself, she took it. While for many, style is, at best, a secondary concern during the pandemic, some, like Brooks, find personal style.
Before Disease, Brooks primarily wears business attire to teach her students at the University of Florida at Gainesville. A few weeks into working from home, she decided to step out of her comfort zone and order a pair of leggings, which she had vowed to get rid of for fear they would be seen as too unprofessional.
She realizes that she doesn’t feel confident with her clothes from the life before the failure. Brooks has a health problem that causes intense bloating but wears uncomfortable clothing to appear professional.
“I’m just trying to ignore what I’m wearing and focus on my work,” she said.
While leggings Comfortable For teaching from her home desk, they are also an important step in her style journey. This seemingly small act “made me feel at ease in my body for the first time,” says Brooks.
Style in solitude
For many, the isolation of early times Disease Day means no reason to dress up. Wearing sweatpants every day in 2020 has become a social media ploy, and articles about how the pandemic’s ruined style has gone viral. But that solitude is what saves some people from the noise that once influenced their style decisions.
Lillian Gray Charles, a personal stylist in Atlanta, says dressing up during a pandemic is also a form of control, and dressing makes people feel better.
“We have less choice about where we can go, where we can visit people, travel Charles said. “Something that we have control over is what we put into our bodies.” Customers will email her to share that taking off their yoga pants and doing something together lifts their spirits.
Alicia Kennedy in San Juan, Puerto Rico (Source: New York Times)
With the removal of the structures of pre-pandemic life for Amelia Crook, a 43-year-old mother of two, she feels compelled to rediscover her style more than a year after her first significant one. closing order. With his tech expertise and passion for the connecting power of TikTok, Crook, who lives in Kyneton, Australia, posted his first video in May 2021. It’s a plea: “Hi, I’m Amelia, I’m 42 and I’ve misplaced my personal style. And I need you to help me figure it out.”
“I’ve bought clothes to fit in the past,” Crook said in one Reportage interview. “It was a big revelation for me. It’s like, I have my work wardrobe, I have my mom’s wardrobe, and these are acceptable things to wear. While she didn’t necessarily dislike her clothes before the pandemic, she realized that she was dressing someone else.
With the help of her 127,000 followers, Crook has refined her style into one she describes as “structured with a feminine whimsy”. In her video, Crook tries on outfits that include clothes from her closet and new purchases (which she likes). old clothes from stores like Depop) and try on makeup and jewelry while getting feedback from her followers.
When Crook steps out in her new outfit, it’s a better feeling about which clothes make her feel comfortable.
“I have a more refined view of how I want to appear in the world,” she says.
Dress up for fun
The quest to improve the mood is why Sara Camposarcone, 25, embraces her maximum fashion trends. Before the pandemic, she worked in a sales role at a technology company in Toronto, where she wore traditional business attire and couldn’t transform her creative style.
Wear sleepwear Every day at the start of the pandemic upsets Camposarcone, so she decided to plunge into the exaggerated aesthetic even while she stayed. Before the pandemic, her clothes were mostly black and her style was trend-focused, she said.
Now she wears vibrant colors, layers and textures. For example, one of her favorite outfits is a yellow suit with shorts. She wears it with a puppy print shirt and a matching vest over it fleece jacket.
“Then I also got a matching bag with the puppy print. That’s the puppy full look going on. I feel great,” Camposarcone said. “I would probably wear that outfit a million times because it’s so pretty.” She buys a lot of secondhand and describes herself as a sustainable maximalist.
Laken Brooks poses near her home in Gainesville. (Source: New York Times)
Camposarcone shares her outfit on TikTok. While some of the comments may not be kind, she brushes them off because her outfit brings her joy.
“It’s really what I look forward to most every day,” she said. “Sometimes I like to plan my outfits the night before, and even just putting them together, the excitement I get from doing it is second to none.”
Dress up in front of the camera
It’s not all puppy blouses and kitten purses when it comes to finding style in times of pandemic. For some people, it’s as simple as streamlining their style. Alicia Kennedy, 36, a food writer living in San Juan, Puerto Rico, feels more clearly than ever as the pandemic unfolds. Instead of phone calls, people suddenly wanted to meet on Zoom. She was also new to San Juan and wanted to create a visual identity for herself. She started investing in products by sustainable designers like Mara Hoffman and Puerto Rican brands like Luca and Muns.
Kennedy’s style evolved from chunky boots and crop tops to white button-down shirts and oversized cycling shorts as her work-from-home uniform. When she’s not dressed like that, she’ll likely be found in a slouchy dress or lacy buttonhole.
“I became more interested in really simple silhouettes and really adaptable things,” says Kennedy.
When the world feels chaotic, Kennedy finds structure in his attire even while working from home.
“Just the thought that I still need to wake up every day, still need to work, even when things are unpredictable and weird, means I need to add an identity through what I wear,” she says. . “Besides, it’s easy to be absolutely sloppy. So it’s a conscious choice just not to do it. “
For Camposarcone, fashion experimentation during the pandemic led her to a new career. She recently started a marketing role with Cakeworthy, a clothing company.
For Brooks, embracing her new look has given her a whole new appreciation of her body.
“Now that I can try on different outfits and especially wear a crop top, I realize that I really like my booty,” she said. “It made me feel a lot more confident in myself.”
Of course, one’s sense of style can be a work in progress, says Crook, and the search for it never really ends. She is a different person now in many ways than she was five years ago.
“My children have grown up. I don’t burp my baby anymore,” she said. “So it’s an evolution. Something will continue, and I am ready for it. “
(This article originally appeared in The New York Times.)
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