I’m a big fan of trying not to take myself too seriously.  I may not always succeed,  of course … we all get sucked into life’s trials and tribulations … but generally I want to be able to find the humor in a situation and to feel comfortable being a total goofball or laughing at myself.

I think my love of fashion can sometimes mask this facet of my personality.  A lot of fashion is built around imagery that is impossibly cool or chic.  The models are generally not smiling in their pictures (even though I would literally not be able to wipe the grin off my face if I got to wear any of those clothes), and the iconic designers intimidate with their dark sunglasses and haughty expressions.  As a result, there’s sometimes an assumption that people who love fashion are a little (or a lot) self-absorbed and humorless and too cool for school and, at the extreme, can suck the fun out of the room (especially if the room has something like a Star Wars or X-Files marathon going on), albeit in a very stylish way.

But is it all an act?  Are a lot of people in fashion having fun with it, like I am, but playing up the narcissistic/vanity side as part of the joke?

I started thinking about this more when my friend Chris posted a link from GQ on his Facebook page titled “Tom Ford’s Guide to Being More Like Tom Ford”  (https://www.facebook.com/gq/videos/10155482879863098/?pnref=story).  Tom offers three tips, the first of which is pretty benign (carry a bunch of mints in your pocket when you go to a party), but the last two of which are so over-the-top pompous (get a full length mirror “to assess yourself in a kind of architectural way” and know the best side to your face, which “may be the back”) that I can’t help but think he MUST be letting us know he’s in on the joke.

And his clothes ARE totally fun!  Take this black, fringed dress with leather trim that I recently got off The Outnet (http://www.theoutnet.com), for example.  The fringe moves great when I walk, the leather-trimmed belt adds shape, and the keyhole top can be unbuttoned for going out (assuming liberal use of double-sided tape, which I need a break from after this weekend).  I paired the dress with black boots from Burberry that I got from Farfetch (http://www.farfetch.com), which made the dress perfect for day, but with some black stilettos, it could easily work for a night out.

Fashion is about image, obviously, but it always helps to remember that you can’t judge a book by its cover and oftentimes there may be some humor or fun behind the image.  I’ll leave you with what I always come back to when I need to be reminded of this … Prince on Muppets Tonight: