Creative Whizz Kid:
MARTHA BROWN aka BANOFFEE
MARTHA BROWN aka BANOFFEE
How would negative comments towards
your self-formed style affect you now compared to 10 years ago?
I have always had comments about how
I dress, even as a child. But I’ve rarely taken them on board.
When I was younger I had an
irrational and sometimes cruel obsession with wearing clothes that no one else
had.
I think because I grew up with 2
sisters who looked identical to me, I had a complex about looking like someone
else.
Now days I don’t care as much about
what people say or think. I like to find things that are interesting but not as
an attempt to be individual, as I know that that has nothing to do with how I
look.
That is the main thing that has
changed clothes for me are now about having fun not about a deeper meaning. If
I put that much pressure on something so materialistic then I’ll never be happy
and I’d always be broke.
Is your style a product of organic
development or conscious construction?
Both evenly. Just like everything else – nature
vs nurture is an impossible riddle!
It’s in my nature to be jumbled, erratic and
emotional. These things definitely impact the way I dress, but the way I am is a
result of my experiences and so I couldn’t tell you which parts of me I’ve had
since birth and which parts of me are conscious construction.
One thing I do know is that I have to feel comfortable in my clothes and that is
the corner stone of why I dress the way I do.
I think it’s interesting to examine this though,
especially as a woman. A lot of what we believe is organic development has only
been became that way because of how women adapted to their projected role in
society.
Who’s to say the feminine instincts about style
aren’t all at the core conscious construction?
Women were made to dress so impractically as a
way to suppress them and continue their reliance on
Men.
The way both genders dress has to have budded
from something: dresses that impair mobility, pocket-less clothing, a lot of
clothing that I’ve been given as a child has come from a constructed ideal
about what a woman should wear. So I get confused about what is organic and
what isn’t – welcome to my head!
Fashion is important to me though, not in a way
that I couldn’t live without it but in the way a hobby is important.
I could quit and wear country road for the rest
of my life, sure – but it wouldn’t be as fun.
I draw inspiration from Japanese blogs, children’s
books, other people, other era’s etc, so there’s a lot of conscious
construction going on, but at the end of the day if my gut tells me “hey I
don’t feel comfortable in this” I’ll take it off.
I’m a chicken and an egg.
Do you think young adults would
benefit from stronger role models, or better resources to understand, develop
and create their own style/identity?
It took me a long time to realise the
things I hated about my appearance or style were things that other people had
told me they hated about themselves.
I am so tired of seeing gender roles
take such a huge part in the messages we convey to young adults about what is
“acceptable” to wear.
Women are told to be impractical, men
are told to look careless and rugged. Who gives a shiiiiiiiiiiit.
Personally I think people who are
passionate about fashion often mislead people by talking about how fashion is a
symbol of who you are.
I think there should be a stronger
emphasis in fashion advertising about the fun of fabric, texture colour and
just playing dress-ups.
I know who I am it doesn’t change
daily like my outfits, I would encourage people to communicate this attitude to
kids and young adults in more areas of there lives including fashion.
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