Am I the only one, who finds it infuriating when the covers of fashion magazines tell me about the items I simply MUST HAVE this summer/winter/fall/festival/Christmas/Easter/graduation/garden party…? ’10 Things Every Woman Must Own’. ‘Rachel Zoe’s Top 10 Fall Must-Haves’. ‘15 Must-Have Items for a Classic and Timeless Wardrobe’, ‘Celebrity Stylists’ Summer Must-Haves’. If we all simply HAD TO HAVE all these ‘must-haves’ we should all be swimming in a sea six feet deep of shoes, skirts, and handbags… And it should be what makes us feel good, not what the magazines and blogs tells us that dictates what we wear.

But what we wear does affect how we feel. Indeed, most of us know the feeling of seeing a cool, beautiful, or just plain awesome object, which we convince ourselves, will make US cool, beautiful, or awesome. That expensive leather jacket that will give is the swagger we need to approach that cool guy from the year above us. The white sneakers that will make us run just a little bit faster. The bold sunglasses, which gives us an extra boost of confidence.

Yet, not all of us are privileged enough to be able to acquire these things. But then again, some of us are ingenious enough to not let that stop us. Look at these sunglasses, for example. I imagine that a kid in Zaire in the early 70s saw some cool grown-up rocking a pair of awesome shades on the street, or perhaps in a glossy magazine, or on a hand painted billboard at the local barber shop, and thought: “I want those!”. And when they could not buy them themselves, they made them out of wood and shards of glass. And boy, do I see them, before my inner eye, strutting down the street, shoulders set and arms swinging (perhaps with a groovy disco soundtrack), confident like only a kid in a pair of new, awesome shades can be.

//Sophie Seebach