Musings: Knocking the Country Club Off Its Feet

I’ve just arrived in Orlando, Florida for the holidays and my utmost priority has been rummaging through my grandmother’s jewelry for whatever nifty silver necklaces she has accumulated over the years. This past August, I moved from the only place I had ever lived, Raleigh, North Carolina, to begin studying at Columbia University in New York. Before having the privilege of experiencing such a culture reversal, looking through my grandmother’s jewelry would have never crossed my mind. However, since moving, my style and outlook on fashion have seen a major redesign. Lately, I read the New York Times article, “It’s All a Blur to Them,” about cross-gender shopping and its prevalence in today’s youth. This article got me to thinking…

It’s amazing how the change in my surrounding environment has opened my style to so many different possibilities. Although Raleigh could be considered one of the South’s more progressive cities, khakis and polos are still the general norm for males from my side of the railroad tracks. But, since moving, I have loved and embraced a more liberal, experimental take on style.

What I’ve noticed…

New Yorkers and trendsetters are constantly trying to discover the thing that no one else wears and then conquer it through their look. It looks to me like the absence of limits is the prevailing trend. And so, as I become a New Yorker, I embrace it. Limitations, begone. Would I have dreamed of wearing a necklace in the South? Probably not; it may have ended in me getting beaten up. But check out the transformation in my mindset and approach to self-expression now that I’ve landed in a new city. It doesn’t cease to amaze me. This good ‘ole boy from Raleigh (given, this Southern boy is homosexual) has found himself embracing the look within three months of living in the city.

My prediction? It’s only a matter of time before the limits on style become totally unhinged.

- Deaton

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