You can trust your inner eye

I'm inspired by a one-page intro to a fashion spread in the February 1950 issue of Flair, a long ago and short-lived magazine. I've written about it before here and here. This paricular article was written sixty-four years ago I find the  sentiments true today. It's about the doubt we all experience when trying on clothes and seeing ourselves in the dressing room mirror. It's about telling ourselves to let go of the self-doubt and trust our inner eye. Reading this article makes me conscious of the internal conversation I have when trying on something new and looking at myself in the mirror and I realize my thinking is more complex than I realized. In fact, there are a few categories:

The imaginary life:
"I can see myself wearing these flats to a cafe in Paris. Even though they are velvet with rhinestones and not practical for travel, I would be in Paris so I would make them work. And they are on sale! (These shoes have never left the shoebox, much less visited Paris.)

The impossible outfit:
"All I have to do is find the perfect top, shoes and belt and this skirt would be perfect. And it's on sale! (With sighs of regret and relief, months later these impossible items end up in the donation bag.)

The sales person knows best:
"I'm not sure, but the cute sales person says this looks great on me, so it must." Or "The cute sales person didn't say anything, I like it, but maybe it's not right."

The bandwagon:
"This is so great on other women, it will be great on me too." (Something I've told myself since I was seven and wanted a pair of white go-go boots because everybody else had them.)

But what is the "inner eye"? We all have it. But it does take some conscious effort to clear the static of outside influences. Think about three outfits that you've worn and that you felt great in. Ask yourself why. Is it color? Style? Fit? Do a quick search through magazines or online and save photos of clothing items that reflect the qualities that suit you best. Take these with you the next time you go shopping. It's a bit of extra work to begin with, but it will save time and give you focus when shopping. And with all the distracting choices now, developing your inner eye and having focus are great tools to arm yourself with at the stores and online shopping.

The Flair article follows. It's got quaint and old-fashioned writing, but it's a good reminder that we can rely on our own eye and feelings when shopping. And it helps to have a trusted friend to shop with to remind you of that and even be the best of your eyes for you. You are a lucky person if you can count even one friend like that!

From Flair, February 1950:

You will find her, the brooding and uncertain woman opposite, wherever a dress may be bought. The scene might the Place Vendôme, a New York store, a small-town dress shop. Maybe she hasn't even bothered to ask the price; or she might have scrimped for months to allow herself this one purchase, Whoever she may be, whatever her purse, she is a soul in misery - a fact the men in her life would never suspect. Probably she could not tell them why. The unwelcome presence of other customers may have contributed. The most casual glance she interprets as a hard scrutiny, and her pleasant suit suddenly appears faded, worn. The sales girl may have held up one dress too insistently and aroused the cringing suspicion that some impossible thing is being palmed off on an easy victim. Or, worse mischance of all, this unhappy woman may have faced the mirror and found in it sly depths an unfamiliar reflection, so that every secret doubt she has ever had as to her looks and desirability now furiously possesses her. At last she has decided; she is free to lift herself from her chair. How could she be so uncertain, so confused? Yet often she has reached the street before she regains her normal self-possession and sees, sees with her own eyes, again.

What causes this temporary blindness? Not too little; perhaps too much. Ironically, as far as American women are concerned, this symptom of insecurity may be all the greater because fashion has never given them a wider choice nor made the work of the finest designers available to so many. The public is familiar as never before with significant trends and important names in fashion - a result highly praiseworthy in all respects but one. Fashion has ceased to be personal. In choosing a dress, the American woman is aware of many eyes upon her, and in turn she tries to judge what is before her by every high standard she knows...except her own.

Fashion is an eye. Every woman's eye. Your eye. And inevitably, fashion begins with the inner eye, with self-awareness, with understanding of all your powers, physical, mental, spiritual. It must calmly estimate all that you may claim as potentials for beauty. It demands the fullest expression of your own nature. It insists that you absorb the influences, the knowledges, the disciplines that will be permanently useful to you. It gives mature direction to the outer eye, guiding it to those possessions that are rightfully yours. It forbids you from seeking refuge in those eccentricities of taste that reveal an insecurity far more destructive than the most slavish acceptance of the usual arbitrary norms. It allows you to contemplate the fashions that Flair will report for you, to claim only those that are your own. Serene and sure, your eye will no longer waver from the image of beauty you have set for yourself. You will then be free to communicate your gaiety, your warmth, your self-confidence.

Back to School with Flair: College Review Issue, August 1950

I've always loved magazines. It's with pleasure and anticipation that I turn the pages of my favorites, dipping into another world of color, glamour and possibilities. More than "wish books" the best ones open windows to inspiring lifestyles and spark concrete ideas that I can incorporate into my wardrobe and home and what I want to see, read and do.

One of the best, Flair, was created by Fleur Cowles, and published from February 1950 to January 1951. Cowles was a visionary and created a magazine that was unlike anything at the time or since. Covering fashion, travel, art, interior design and literature. In addition to the fabulous articles featuring contributors such as Jean Cocteau, Katherine Anne Porter, Gypsy Rose Lee, Salvador Dali and Tallulah Bankhead, each issue is a thing of art in itself, with an artful mix of photography, illustration, intricately cut pages.

Once again, it was my BFF (Best Fashion Friend) Karen, who introduced me to this wonderful find and loaned me the original copies that she's collected. And because it's back-to-school season, below are some spreads from the college issue with excerpts from the actual copy. The writing is a bit quaint and fun to read. All the issues are so visually rich, I have plans to feature more in upcoming posts.

Inside front cover. 

Big men on campus. Such as Bob Jennings, president of the Triangle Club, the local high-kicking, song-hitting drama and social group. He majors in English, is polishing up a script to try out on
Hollywood and will round the world on a three-year cruise in a private schooner after graduations.

The mouton-collared greatcoat originated in the stiff cold weather bouts of the upper Midwest, has in the past few years blown into every northern campus town, many a big city. Collegians find these coats recapture the rah rah of flask-era raccoon without as much weight. They also recreate the bygone swell's mink or caracul-collared coat without like expense.

The photo on the left: Commonsense fashions have a way of spreading from East to West, or West to East. This Princeton man looks right, is right, in his Eton cap with backstrap. Today's high fashion news in shirts, the round-point pin collar; a constant favorite, the madder foulard tie.

 On right: A well-thought-out wardrobe relies on color and shape and endless combinations, is best when compact. It is, at first, as basic as freshman courses. Color is the first consideratjion. Which basic color is basic enough to take us through the entire year? Bright red. A good contrast and companion to red 365 days of the year? Black. We need a third color to accent and relieve the intensity of red and black. White. A well-thought-out wardrobe comes close to being, like college, a four-year plan. Work and fun, but worth it.

How to combine red and black and white into, first, eight costumes; and then, by turning all the flaps, another eight costumes. You take it from there...

Gray Matter -- Gray, dark gray, is a matter of moment at the moment and the darker it is, the better it looks.

It is little effort for Marjorie Clarke, Smith, '51 to maintain her position as a BWOC (big woman on campus). Marjorie is good-looking, hard-working and serene, combines her hearty interest in local Smith doings with frequent weekends at Yale and Dartmouth.

Tall, brown-eyed Charlene Weiss, a junior at U.C.L.A., has the energy, good health and independent mind which characterize the California coed.

Cocktail parties in upperclassmen's rooms are a Harvard classic, a pause in the day's occupation between the football game and an informal House dance...Short, bare-topped dresses with jackets are a fashionable hedge for uncommitted evenings...The incoming generation knows the ropes, takes the sacred code of student taboos with a grain of salt, recognizes that the simple habit of being agreeable is the secret of that mystic word, poise.