Fashion

I won’t lie. I’m not into fashion. To be fair, it’s partly my own disinterest, but it’s hard to me to find the value in it. I also see it as a dangerous line between “ok beautification” and “vanity”. I’m not sure where that line is for me personally, so I just stick well to the other side most of the time.

But, like it or not, I’m confronted with fashion every day. High school kids, television shows, advertisements, even in my own Young Life office. Probably my most memorable “fashion moment” of the summer was on a Young Life trip to Georgia. It was “banquet night” so all the kids were dressed up, and everyone was taking pictures out in the front lawn. I have a pretty nice camera and I’m into photography and take lots of pictures, so it had become natural for kids to ask me to take their picture (knowing it will be on the slideshow later). So I’m happily snapping away when I heard a sophomore girl, say “Ooo, Dan! Take a picture of my skirt twirling!” and she just started to spin around, giggling. It was a precious moment, and I snapped a quick shot. She wasn’t concerned about who was looking, how her makeup was, or what matched and what didn’t. She just knew that having her skirt twirl out made her feel special, and was essentially by asking me to take her picture, asking me if I saw it too. As I showed her the image playback, I said (trying to be reserved as possible while talking to high school girls) “cool shot, huh?”, but what I really meant was “yes, I see it too”.