Being cool is a forever topic when we talk about clothes and fashion. Some think wearing head-to-toe Yohji Yamamoto is cool. Some think it’s stacking Gucci and Balenciaga. And some just plainly think fashion is for people who are trying too hard to be cool. They think if you are cool, you don’t need clothes; you are just cool. It’s a topic I’m always thinking about, and honestly, I think you guys are as well. Before we fully give up on how we look in others' eyes or how we look in our own eyes, we will be forever chasing coolness. In this week’s post, I would like to give my humble view on it and have a discussion with you all.
To dive into it, we can first look at the Cool Timeline. I know it sounds like a nerd joke and so uncool, but in order to understand coolness, let’s bear the uncool for a second.
The concept of coolness starts in Africa with the concept of Itutu in Yoruba culture. From Wikipedia, an Itutu aesthetic includes the appearance of physical or sexual beauty whilst having a humble, calm, collected face that is found in much Yoruba sculpture. It has been suggested by Robert Farris Thompson of Yale University that Itutu is the origin of the American idea of "cool." And we can also look at coolness in Italy: Sprezzatura. Sprezzatura is when a person acts calm in all circumstances. Nonchalant elegance is Sprezzatura. And in British English, it’s "reserve." Here we can find a common pattern: the idea of coolness, or at least the definition for it in this diagram and maybe for the majority of people, is the idea of a confident person. The more confident you are, the cooler. And as time goes on, coolness starts attaching to different groups, ideas, and subcultures. But the core concept is still the same; it’s being confident no matter what other people think. To me, when you unbashfully work on something you like, that is cool. This is just like being fashionable. To me, fashion is when you wear something that people normally wouldn’t with confidence, and people get persuaded by your assurance and start to consider this "uncomfortable" style might be cool, and that’s "fashionable."
The problem of being cool is that it’s so easy to chase the result of coolness and forget the root. We are so drawn and eager for the final result that we start mimicing and thinking that it will teleport us to the finish point. I think this is exactly why some people stack up in designer brands and think of themselves cool. This might work if you are hanging out with people in the same level of thinking but it will be naked in front of someone in a higher level(for example, an elder who has been through all these shit) Confidence is not something you suddenly acquired. It’s something you slowly earned.
My humble equation for confidence is as following. You face a challenge, you accomplish it and you gain confidence. This works when you judge other people but also yourself. You are subconsciously rating yourself. I know there are many articles out there saying you can get your confidence from within. My experience is that it’s liberal bullshit. How can you trust something without any evidence? If so, you are lunatic.
We can now conclude that we need to work hard to be confident, and to be cool. In every master, there is a kid painstakingly crawls up a hill. But ironically, that’s the exact opposite definition of coolness. You first need to put yourself in mud to earn the right of being cool and shiny. So is cool still cool? Or maybe cool is just a motivation. Motivating us to be a better person.
But coming back from everything we talked above, the inner pursuit is not always strong enough to motivate us. The fire can’t always be blazing. And that's why we embrace the superficial stuff, like James Bond movies, the Godfather series, or fashionable clothes. They are like lighthouses, guiding us. But most importantly, giving us hope. Showing us what we can become. And that, in a time of despair, low self-esteem and insecurity can get us back up and keep us going. And that’s why I think we dress. We do it to be cool.
We all aspire to become something greater than ourselves!