Finding the inspiration

I must have been fourteen or fifteen when my mom came into my room holding a ripped out magazine page. "This will be you someday" she said taping the picture to my full-length mirror. It was an image of a woman standing at a window wearing a knee-length blue coat, a pair of matching pumps, carrying a lovely handbag. A few months later to imitate the style in the picture, I made a pink and white knee length coat and purchased matching heels. I don't exactly know if that is what started it, but I have loved fashion magazines ever since. I started tearing pictures out of magazines (mainly InStyle, J Crew, Anthropologie and Vogue) and putting them in a 3-ring binder. It contained primarily clothing images, but sometimes hair-dos or makeup. And it was used most frequently to help me out of a week long fashion rut. A nice 30-minute perusal would often lead to new ideas for outfits. Fashion pictures also hung on my mirror and around my desk through high school and college, reminding me of clothing that inspired me.

Once in a while, these photos came in handy for things other than wardrobe dilemmas. I was asked to costume design an epic modern meets Victorian Era version of Romeo and Juliet in college (by the way, I never did design it... problems with funding and all that...). These were a few of the pictures that I pulled for some characters. They represented the color, style and clothing structure for each character.

The Nurse

Lady Capulet

Juliet

This is the way that I use photos: Inspiration, ideas, creativity, new ways to use old clothing, ect. This is the most useful part of looking through a magazine for me. I like looking at the pages where outfits have been arranged without a model just for the visual effect of them. It better represents the outfit on any shape or age of person rather than on a tall, thin model. I also like looking for interesting combinations of colors and patterns. This increases my desire to try unusual combinations in my own closet.
Perhaps you don't like to spend an hour perusing a magazine for the most interesting pictures. Maybe pinterest or a fashion folder on your computer desktop is more your style for collecting inspiring images. Whatever it might be, don't give up on your closet. It probably contains some fabulous outfits that are just waiting to be discovered.