140. Now That My Life Feels Calmer, I Want More Theatrics in My Wardrobe
Notes from my style discovery practice
This week, I revisited a 2024 essay by Cathy Horyn in The Cut. Cathy is among the most respected fashion journalists working today, and one of the most controversial. From 1999 to 2014, she served as the New York Times' fashion critic, and her blunt reviews and acerbic tone earned her feuds with some of the industry’s biggest names. Heidi Slimane banned her from Yves Saint Laurent shows, and Oscar de la Renta called her ‘a stale three-day-old hamburger.’ Her prominence made her style fair game for scrutiny and, as we recently saw with Chloe Malle, outright policing. Lady Gaga sang, ‘Cathy Horyn, your style ain’t dick.’ Cathy’s 2024 essay—‘How I Lost (and Found) My Style at 67, after four decades of covering fashion’—recounts how her career, relationships, and her mother’s barbed remarks shaped her style: ‘Cathy, all your problems would go away if you would just lose some weight.’ and ‘You? A fashion writer?’ In 2016, she moved from New York City to a farm in Virginia, where, between shows, she runs a small operation growing cut flowers to sell to local florists. You can read her review of Rachel Scott’s debut for Proenza and other shows from the past week, here.
I love reading about women who discover or rediscover their style in their sixties, seventies, and beyond. I think of style discovery as a practice, not a process. Clothes change as the self evolves, and for women, that never stops. Style discovery should be unhurried: no schedule, no mad dash down the platform, no last call. It is never too late, despite what our ageist, paternalistic Western society would have us believe: this week, The Independent published an article titled ‘At 56, you can’t be a dedicated follower of fashion anymore.’
The older I get, the more I trust that things happen when they’re supposed to. I lean on time like a reliable friend. I left a decade-long relationship five years after I stopped wanting to be in it, to understand much later that I needed these extra years to be ready. I fell in love again three months later. It seemed too soon, but he turned out to be worth it. More recently, I cut ties with a parent after decades of enduring. I hope we’ll mend things at some point, but I don’t wonder when or how the healing will happen. I spent 2025 shedding, rebuilding, and clawing my way back to creativity (it feels good to write these Sunday essays again after a long hiatus). Needless to say, my style discovery practice took a back seat. And that’s OK.
Since the start of this year, I have felt more curious. I’m more attentive to inspiration and hungry for visual cues. I spend whole evenings scouring Pinterest and watching old movies or the SHOWstudio channel on YouTube. I feel like I’m on my way to reinventing the way I dress. And I don’t care if it takes weeks, months, or years. It feels exciting, like holding a secret. A secret I want to document in this newsletter, starting with today’s: a journal of design elements and visuals I have bookmarked in this practice.
Choosing words to define your style does wonders for many. For me, it’s proving to be a little limiting. One of my tutors at Central St Martins used to say that moodboards are overrated; she believed that finding your style is about putting words specifically