Keep Your Mind Open to New Ideas

Give me Garbo. Give me Audrey Hepburn. Let me gaze adoringly on all the classic fashion icons of the past. I even have a Pinterest page devoted to classic cuts and lines that are unfailingly accepted across the board by all fashion critics.

I am a rigorous devotee to the rules of classic fashion, the rights and wrongs of dress for certain occasions, the length of skirt, the showing of skin, and the etiquette of dressing appropriately for one’s age.

What can I say? I’m traditional.

This is why I find myself so irked when others flout the laws of fashion in favor of, shall we call it… art? Self-expression without regard for body type or… trying not to be mean here… taste or sense?

Truly, fashion takes confidence. To pull of any look, you need a certain self-assurance. My self-assurance comes from knowing someone else had this look, and it was widely approved of, and therefore I will be okay wearing it.

Oh my gosh. Am I not actually fashionable? If fashion pushes boundaries, then those lawless renegades I criticize for turning themselves into works of art are actually doing it well.

If I maintain this critical spirit for fashion, do I hold on to it in other areas where people are not doing what is traditional or widely accepted? Is it indicative of my tolerance level for others?

I’m going to go with yes. Yes, I have difficulty accepting the personal choices of others when I can’t understand them. From paper-bag waist pants to my son’s long love affair with skinny jeans, I just refuse to get behind some things.

This year’s haute-couture, what-is-it, I-would-never looks will one day be translated into desirable fashion that may eventually be considered classic looks. Likewise, my traditional outlook on some things is being challenged, and I will need all my confidence in myself and God’s grace to discern what I need to listen to; to find truth in the ideas that others are expressing out of their own experiences.

The cutting edge of fashion is always pointing to what is emerging from our culture, and there are people with stories behind those expressions. Art, after all, is the beginning of revolution.

Revolutionary ideas always buck tradition, and this isn’t always bad. Some of them stick and we wonder how we ever thought along traditional lines in the light of revelation.

Fashion challenges me to open myself to new possibilities. If you can wear new fashion with boldness, then you may just have the confidence to accept other new ideas, as well.

Some ideas that buck tradition seem threatening. The cultures and history of those people may be foreign enough that you assume it is wrong. What we need to remember is that the author of life on this planet is already there, in that place we don’t understand, and Christ’s prayer in John 17 that we live in unity means He can assure us there is common ground, if only we seek to find it.

Fashion just might be the most fun way to find common ground; just give me a minute to open my mind. I’m set in my ways, but I have the confidence I can get there.

1.     How open are you to new looks and new ideas?

2.     Is it hard for you to understand people who look and dress differently than you?

3.     What is your comfort level in regards to different cultural influences?

 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20-21 NIV)

Heather Bise

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