In Defense of Bad Taste

[00:00:00]I really hate how some people look at someone up and down who's wearing platform lace cake or five ranked personality and say, "Oh my god, this is too much. I could never do that." And every time when I hear that, I think, "Too much for whom? For your beige sofa?

[00:00:20]For your Pinterest board called timeless capsule wardrobe?" So, today I want to talk about bad taste.

[00:00:31]I mean, bad taste has been too weird, too much, too theatrical, too sincere, too cringe, too obsessed. This I think bad taste is often where the actual taste begins. And I'm saying that as a person who willingly dressed as a undead teacher, haunted painting, minor antagonist in black and white movie, and a woman who definitely warned you not to answer that house. So, yeah. Long live bad taste.

[00:01:04]And before someone starts sharpening their little comment section for mandatory disclaimer section.

[00:01:17]Not all the outfits are misunderstood.

[00:01:21]Sometimes outfits are just pure crimes.

[00:01:23]I'm not saying that every cursed choice is secretly art. Sometimes your outfit doesn't need just confidence. It needs an exorcism, an alien trawler, and I am not your fashion priest. I am not here to absolve you from your polyester sins.

[00:01:41]Also, the taste is not equals the money.

[00:01:44]It's about selection and obsession and be brave enough to continue to responding into it.

[00:01:51]>> [music] >> We live in a time where trends not just influence style. They digest it and then they turn it into a mood board.

[00:02:00]Aesthetics can be fun. I'm not here to hate on any aesthetics, although coastal grandma They can help you discover things. The problem is where the people start treating aesthetic like a costume from vending machine. Your currency is insecurity and you get back already pre-made identity. And I think that explains why everyone kind of looks the same. Not only talking about fashion, even if you look at the cosmetic surgery, it's astonishing how everyone have the same face. People make it not only because they're insecure, but also they afraid to being wrong. They afraid to make a mistake in style, in their look, in their taste. But the thing is that personal style is built out of mistakes. You have to go through some phases. You have to look at your old photos and think, "Oh my god, what is that?" You have to have this spiritual damage. You have to wear something in full confidence that you're looking amazing just to look at it in 2 years and understand how wrong you were. This called growth. Now, as everything is documented and everything is on internet, people are afraid to make that mistakes because evidence is still there. People will find pictures from you 5 years ago on Instagram and say, "That's how you looked. Oh my god." But you still can't follow every trend perfectly and have no taste. To build your own taste, you just have to say, "I don't care if it's trendy. I like how it looks on me. I don't care if it's flattering, if it makes me look older, younger, stranger, colder, softer, less approachable, more theatrical, less effortless." I hate the word effortless, by the way. Effortless is just effort to pretending being morally superior. I love effort. I love to see when someone clearly had a vision, even if the vision is insane, a special one. I rather see someone commit to a strange little universe than to see another copy-paste outfit designed to offend absolutely no one. And that's how the taste dies, not with a terrible outfit, but with acceptable one.

[00:04:26]And if you're still afraid of the bad taste, I can give you examples of things that were mocked, hated, made fun of, and now we consider them as a perfect taste, even classical taste. Exhibit one, impressionism. You look at the water lilies by Claude Monet, and you think, "Wow, this is perfect. I could have this painting, I don't know, in my living room. This is so classical, so stylish." When impressionism appeared in 19th century, people hated it so much.

[00:04:56]It was mocked in every magazine. They called it messy, vulgar, unfinished. And the word impressionism came from critics mocking Monet's artwork. Said that he didn't paint, he just make an impression of painting. And now we see these pictures in dentist's offices and in calendars. And second example of the time is Art Nouveau. Today, people love it. Flowers, flowing lines, the strange women with impossible long hair. But when modernism came along, Art Nouveau was considered as something not serious, too ornamental, too fussy, and too, hm, feminine. And now this style is romanticized. You have it on posters, on canvases, even in tattoos, in jewelry.

[00:05:45]It's a very popular and cute style. So, yeah, bad taste can become a classical taste after enough time passes. And everyone who complained finally stopped talking.

[00:05:59]So, how can you actually build your personal taste? I have terrible news for you. You have to consume things slowly.

[00:06:06]I know we all wanted a shortcut, but in my personal opinion, taste comes from attention. Look at film, look at photographs, look at the architecture, listen to music, my favorite one, look at the people on the street. If you look for long enough, you will notice what is calling you. What keeps coming back?

[00:06:28]Maybe specific type of fabric, maybe 1980s music video, man in a post-punk band, or whatever happened to your brain when you first time saw Nosferatu. I can admire different styles, even minimalism from long distance. My personal taste is a mixture of gothic things, old movies, thrifting. I just like things with a history. But maybe for you it's something very new and very modernistic and very futuristic. And that's why trend-based dressing often feels empty because it hides our personalities. You know, people often say, "She understood the assignment." But with personal taste, it's more like, "I wrote my own assignment." It contains vampires, cool boots, and that's much better.

[00:07:18]Not everyone is afraid of a bad taste, I think. Sometimes people are afraid of sincerity. When you really love something, it's always a possibility that people will laugh. That is true for everything, for music, clothes, art, your life decisions. You can say, "I love this." And people say, "Oh my god, that's so cringe." And then you get dressed again. I think the fear of cringe is the most boring prison that people invented. It makes people abandon that thing that they love. And for what?

[00:07:47]I personally don't trust people who never risked embarrassment. So, yeah, long live bad taste. Sometimes what people is calling a bad taste is just personal style before it was approved by society. Be cringe, be specific, be selective, be a little bit difficult to explain. This is where the good stuff lives. Now, I want to know what is the thing that you love, but probably other people will call it cringe. It can be everything, a clothing item, a film, maybe some decoration, maybe a song, maybe an artist. Tell me in the comments. I want to see your crimes. And if you like this video, subscribe to the channel because this is the place where we gather to protect ourselves from beige authorities. And if you want to have more offering from the crypt, you can consider joining my salon on Patreon. Thank you for watching. And now go wear something questionable.

[00:08:48]>> [music]