Use Your Brain
Went into Berlin today to actually buy some clothes, which after too long felt like something that needed doing. The city was a zoo. Every other person was either trying to sell you something, recruit you, or had faster hands than eyes. I just moved through it all with my head down.
Found what I was looking for without much trouble. A white shirt, a checked one that looks like a kitchen towel but works under my black sweater, and this ridiculous branded shirt from some charity campaign that came with condoms printed with celebrity faces. Nothing special. Took an hour, cost less than it should have.
Waiting to pay, I caught myself already composing it in my head—how I’d describe it, what I’d say about it, how it all fit together. Which meant I was becoming the exact thing I’d spent the last year mocking. Every idiot with a camera and a blog was posting thrifted garbage as vintage, filling the internet with the same tired style, and there I was about to do the exact same thing.
Except I knew it was stupid. That was supposed to be the difference. I could see how oversaturated it all was, how performative, how ridiculous the whole fashion-blogging thing had become. And I was doing it anyway, knowingly and ironically, which just meant I was complicit like everyone else but at least I could be honest about it.
The clothes were fine, though. They fit. They looked fine. That was enough.