Inspiration from Old Photographs

"You can find inspiration in everything. If you can't, then you're not looking properly."                                         -Paul Smith

I've always loved putting together an outfit, and taking ideas from what I see around me. Like anyone, I often get inspo from TV, film, celebs, and people on social media; but my biggest inspiration, and where my love for fashion stemmed from, was through looking at old photographs - particularly of my mum, gran, and sometimes myself.

It is well known that trends come back around and I see a lot of my mum in the outfits that i wear, she's constantly telling me that the clothes I wear are exactly the type of thing she'd wear when she was my age. There's always been a select few pictures that have stuck in my head, and I've always told my mum I wished she had kept all of her clothes for me to wear - especially due to the fact that my gran was really talented and would make or alter clothes for my mum a lot of the time to create unique pieces. 

At the minute I absolutely love blazers/suits, mom jeans, midi skirts, scrunchies, and that's exactly the type of thing my mum wore when she was my age. What I love the most is that I can look back at pictures of her in her twenties, hanging out with her friends and on holiday, and see how similar we look. I remember being about fifteen/sixteen and seeing this one picture of my mum on holiday and I was desperate for her outfit (co-ord, yellow and white striped shorts, and a yellow top), but I'd actually kind of forgotten all about it after a while and it wasn't until recently that I remembered. I had just been on holiday and wore a similar co-ord, with black and yellow striped shorts, and when I got home my mum told me that when she had seen pictures of me it reminded her of herself. After looking at that picture for so many years I guess I subconsciously picked something similar for myself.

There are other times when I purposely take inspiration. There's a picture of my mum at the beach with her permed hair up in a scrunchie, mom jeans on, and gorgeous woven-look shoes. I actually managed to get myself very similar looking shoes to her, mine are orange as opposed to brown, and of course I love a mom jean look like she did. 

I also take inspo from my gran, a picture of her when she was younger in a red coat made me desperate to get one, which I did and I wore on a winter holiday to Italy, paired with midi skirts - also inspo from my gran's very classy, well put together style. 

Obviously taking inspo from these old pictures I like to take pieces or outfits from them and work them in a modern way, which I also do with my childhood outfits. It might sound vain taking inspo from myself, but I wore some great outfits when I was younger, from dungarees, to velvet dresses, and tartan coats.  I look at a lot of clothes I wore when I was wee and think about modern/adult pieces I could get that emulate them. 

If you're struggling for outfit ideas or looking for a new style to wear I recommend getting out the old photographs because you might actually be surprised at what you find!!

Rach x x x