Last Word
Picture this: It’s 2011 and “Party Rock Anthem” by LMFAO is blasting through my speakers. I am getting ready for another monthly “Free Dress Friday” at my Catholic middle school. I put on my favorite outfit for my favorite day – my white and pink sparkly heart top, skinny jeans, sparkly pink Toms and a pink bow headband that covers more than half of my head. I am 13 years old, and it is only the beginning of my obsession with using color to create my identity.
Looking back now, I see how ridiculous I looked strutting down my small school’s hallways in monochromatic glitter outfits. But at the time, I couldn’t have been more encouraged by those around me. Every “You’re so unique!” and “I love how you match your eyeliner to your shoes!” pushed me further to defy the boundaries of my school’s dress code with my passion for color and self-expression. Although most school days I was forced to wear a forest green polo and pleated skirt, I made sure I stood out among the dark green masses with a pop of pink in my clothing. I genuinely believed I was giving my 35 “unfashionable” classmates a lesson in style by coming to class every day in a new, wild look. Whether it was purple, blue or my classic pink, color became the means of expressing myself during a pivotal time of self-discovery in my life.
My love affair with color continued into my first year of high school, when I became enamored with the color blue. Facing a new school and the chance to create another identity, I decided I wanted to have blue eyes. When I visited the eye doctor a week before the start of school, I convinced my mom to buy me blue contact lenses. I was sure that pairing bright, (clearly fake) blue eyes with my brown hair would attract attention in a sea of 100 first-year students. Although I received the comments and questions I hoped for – ranging from “Your eyes are so bright!” to “Those aren’t real, are they?” – my contacts and I parted ways soon after we met. I stuck it out for as long as I could, but the burn in my eyes and consistent tiredness forced me to give them up and return to my natural brown hue.
After a few months of contemplation over how to next use color to shape my identity, I decided to give blue another go. I had recently stumbled upon a picture of Jade Thirlwall, from the girl band Little Mix, with blue hair and I decided that I had to try it myself. I spent weeks crafting Pinterest boards with different shades of blue hair, and I eventually found and purchased the exact dye that Jade used from England. My mom agreed to let me fulfill my blue-haired dreams only if I promised not to use bleach and let a professional dye my hair instead of doing it myself. The next week, after spending an anxious two hours at the hair salon, I was met with an anticlimactic surprise. Without bleach, the blue dye turned my light brown hair black. My 15-year-old dreams of looking as cool as a Little Mix member were crushed. But in the midst of attempting to hold back tears, my hairdresser suggested a color that would change my life. She asked if I wanted to try depositing red dye over my blue-black mess, as red pigment tends to show more vibrantly on unbleached hair. Two hours later and I was looking in the mirror at a version of myself that I have held onto ever since.
With red hair as my armor when I transferred to a different school my second year, I was ready to stand out and make the perfect first impression. Red became my new and improved identity, and I was willing to embrace every aspect of it. Whether it was compliments or questions on whether my hair color was natural (sadly no, I was not born with burgundy hair), I ate it all up. I was ecstatic for my identity to once again be paired with color. However, when the buzz died down and my friends became indifferent to my red hair, I yearned for one last color shock. I was ready to test my sense of identity with a new wardrobe color scheme. I traded my floral print tops for black leather jackets and I decided the perfect partner to my cherry red hair was an edgy, all-black wardrobe– black combat boots with black dresses and black winged eyeliner on the daily.
Thankfully, my dark wardrobe only lasted about a year and a half, and that marked the end of my single color obsession. Now as a third-year college student, I have managed to integrate almost every color into my wardrobe. Although I try not to favor a single hue anymore, my love for black clothing is here to stay. Admittedly, it took me a while to become comfortable with mixing bright colors into my normal line-up of neutrals, but I’ve found that pink can be a fun addition to any outfit – in moderation. I still have red hair, and still love every nickname and affirmation of identity that comes with it, though I may no longer strut to class in full monochromatic looks. But, even still, sometimes my 13-year-old fashion sense kicks in, and I’ll match my red suede boots and sparkly red eyeshadow to my hair, because some things never change.