What is the Value of Fashion and Style as an Asset?

Many things inspired me to start this blog.... I decided to start with this one.

Obviously, my nerdy business brain is the driving force behind this question.

I made this rubber band dress in art class a while ago (beginning of 2011). I was inspired by fashion designer Hiroshige Maki’s rubber band dress (1993) This is the actual page of the book I read.

This is my dress. 

My friend wearing the dress (without the bra and bustle) at a fashion show

It took me maybe around 10 hours to weave rubber bands together to make the dress. Maybe you can see from the picture how the weaving/looping is done. My art teacher said it resembles some knitting or crocheting techniques. :P I reused party ribbons, tissue paper, and gift wrap that were randomly lying around to make the outside bustle and cone bras.

Now for the ideas behind this… The close-fitting and bonding effects of the rubber bands reminds me of how clothes are restricting yet expressive at the same time. Sometimes we are forced to cover up our bodies, wear certain clothes due to weather and social pressure. However, most often, we express who we are by our clothes, and in turn, receive (good or bad) judgement on that. The world says that everyone is unique. We are all different. We are individuals. That is rubbish…unless you are special or have assets that make you special. We all have a basic skeletal structure, a neural system, limps… That’s why I displayed my dress on a skeleton – it’s what we all look like deep inside. The skeleton suggests that whoever’s wearing my dress is an ordinary person.

When other students saw my dress display, they asked: “Oh, is that Lady Gaga?” or “Is that Katy Perry?” They knew nothing about my project, and yet they expected that the dress was for a famous person who had an unconventional taste in fashion! You see how my dress made a used-for-science-class skeletal structure special! Therefore, clothes are invaluable assets that increase your net worth as a person, whatever that net worth may mean to you. Invest some time in what clothes you buy and what you wear! Don’t try to fit in, stand out! Your style and clothes are assets that continually generate revenue! Monetary revenue if you are good. But if you are ordinary like me, you will at least profit from revenue in self-confidence, lasting impressions, a fashionable reputation within your non-fashion friends, and friendships with fashionable people! ;) That’s why I love Edith Head’s saying: “You can have anything you want in life…if you dress for it.”