According to my mother, my bedroom when I was a baby was so pink that my aunt said, “Jesus… it looks like a unicorn threw up in here.” To my mom, I was like a doll, small and porcelain, ready to be dressed up in different blush tones. Since my first day on this Earth, I have been influenced by the way I dress. When I was ten, I liked sparkles. Justice was my preferred choice of clothing store, and I would use the money I earned from selling my old books around the neighborhood to buy a blouse from Justice just to rock the glittery heart logo on the edge of the shirt seam. Two years later, when I realized Abercrombie & Fitch was what everyone was wearing, I marched myself through the circumambient stench of cologne and was met with pants that would not button over my belly and crop tops that would accentuate my love handles. I never went back.

It took me many years after that failed attempt at Abercrombie & Fitch to realize that brands don’t matter to me. My favorite part about my style is the fact that I don’t fit in. I never reach for a pair of leggings or a rouged tee from Brandy Melville. I love that I get excited over an old pair of suede boots that were probably made when my grandparents were sporting the same pair. I love to raid my attic for old granny knit blankets from the 70s to pile onto my bed. It took me many years to realize that fashion was not meant for us to fit in, it was meant for us to express our uniqueness. For one person, the feeling of Lululemon leggings reminds them of their strength, as with each step the pants accentuate the chiseled tone in their quadriceps. For another person, an old prom dress from their mother’s closet helps display their effeminate side to the world, where under any other circumstance they may have trouble doing so.

No style is the right style. Fashion is just another form of art. Art is always said to be a form of expression for the artist, so what makes fashion different? For me, fashion is not only constantly changing, but it is also just a constant. As a 20-year-old woman in college, I spiral. A lot. This period in my life could not be more unstable. I am an adult who has no professional experience but is somehow supposed to be ready to dive into my professional career in just two years’ time. My style is one of the few things in my life I can control. It is my safety blanket. I can wear floral bell-bottom jeans with a lace top one day and a tight black dress with fish-net stockings the next. No matter what I am wearing, it is me. No one else can tell me how to convey my individuality.

As a girl who tried all her life to look like the thin, tall, bronzed women I saw in the media, I felt defeated when I had to come to terms with my thick arms and the stretch marks on my stomach. My style is an outlet that reaffirms my confidence every day and gets me to look into the mirror and see a cute, beautiful, and radiant person staring back at me. Although I do not wear the pink tutus my mom picked out for me or glittery blouses from Justice anymore, I still use fashion as an outlet to be unapologetically myself, and I could not be prouder of myself that I have found a way to do that.