Your Style is Your Power

when they try to silence you, what you wear becomes your megaphone

Remember Barbie Summer two years ago? This year has honestly felt like the Ken’s have taken over America and turned it into a mojo dojo casa house. And yet we have to continue living our lives as if everything is normal.

The dissonance is breaking my brain.

My Substack and Instagram feeds are filled with fall outfit ideas and Taylor Swift think pieces while parents are being grabbed by ICE at elementary schools in Chicago.

They also detained a WGN staffer, an American citizen, right off the street in Lincoln Square. A follower DM’d me this past weekend after I shared some footage of the sickening ICE raids. A silver lining is that the community is showing up for each other during this horrific time.

Are we living in the upside down?!

Sorry… I know that intro was grim. But you know what, I’m not going to pretend that none of this happening right now. If you want to keep dissociating or turn a blind eye because it doesn’t affect you directly, go ahead and delete this email. You do you.

I’ve been thinking a lot about clothes as resistance. Because we’ve all seen this film before.

In 1943, while American factories churned out uniforms and the government rationed fabric for the war effort, Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles wore Zoot suits. You’ve seen those suits — shoulders stretched wide, pants pooling like puddles at the ankle. This was the era of forced deportations and segregated schools, when being brown and visible was already dangerous. White servicemen would soon riot through the streets, stripping and beating anyone in a Zoot suit. But they kept wearing them anyway — suits that used obscene amounts of fabric, that made them impossible to ignore.

Learn more about the Zoot Suit riots here

During the infamous Marcos regime in the Philippines, my grandmother put on red lipstick every morning. That red lip was a choice. A symbol of agency while navigating everyday life under dictatorship.

This is what I think about now when I get dressed. Not fashion as an escape while our neighbors disappear. But fashion as refusal. As a daily practice of not letting them break us.

Because here’s the thing: authoritarians want you small, scared, invisible. They want you in uniform — literally or figuratively. They want you too exhausted to express yourself, too defeated to take up space, too frightened to be seen.

So what if we refused?

What if we got dressed every morning like joy was an act of rebellion? What if we wore our fanciest jacket to the grocery store, our boldest earrings to the school board meeting, our brightest sneakers to walk the dog?

I’m not saying a good outfit will stop fascism. But maintaining your sense of self when they want you to disappear? That’s not nothing.

How I’m challenging myself:

Get dressed all the way. Even when working from home. Even when just going to the pharmacy. Not for social media, not for anyone else, but as a daily ritual of showing up for myself. They’re counting on us being too tired, too scared, too overwhelmed to show up as ourselves. We can’t give them that.

As for you, dear reader:

Find your power pieces. That blazer that makes you feel like you could deliver a TED talk or debate a congressman. Those pants that make you walk differently. The boots that make you feel unbreakable. Keep them in heavy rotation.

Visibility is resistance. Wear the bright coat. Rock a bold lip. The print that makes people look twice. Take up space with your presence. Be unmissable in rooms where your existence is political (which, let’s be honest, is most rooms today).

Build your uniform for the hard days. Some mornings you won’t have the energy to think about clothes, but you still need to feel like yourself. Have a go-to that makes you feel human — maybe it’s your softest sweater with your toughest boots, or the jeans that fit exactly right with your most ridiculous jacket. Think of it as armor disguised as an outfit.

And please, do me a favor, have one absolutely joyful, impractical piece. A fringed cape or a sequined skirt. Ponyhair shoes. That printed metallic coat that makes no sense. Something that makes you smile when everything else feels heavy. Wear it to the farmer’s market. Wear it to pick up the mail. Wear it because joy in dark times isn’t frivolous — it’s fuel.

For Daily Visibility (be unmissable at Target)

• The coat that stops traffic

• Earrings that enter the room first

• The bag that says something

• Shoes that refuse to whisper

For Armor Days (when you need to feel unbreakable)

• The leather jacket that means business

• Boots that ground you

• The dress that does the work for you

• Sunglasses for necessary boundaries

For Joy as Resistance (remember, delight is defiance)

• The completely impractical sequin piece

• Socks that make you smile

• The vintage find that sparks joy

• Lipstick in the brightest possible red

For the Actual Protest (practical but chic as hell)

• The hands-free bag situation

• Shoes you can run in (but wouldn’t be caught dead looking frumpy in)

• Layers that work

• Pockets that matter

Getting dressed with intention won’t save democracy. But numbness or checking out won’t either. Going gray and small and quiet definitely won’t.

The work is real — phone calls to your local leaders, showing up for your neighbors, protecting each other. But we need to sustain ourselves for that work. And sometimes that means putting on your favorite outfit and remembering that you’re still here, still yourself, still capable of experiencing beauty and expressing joy. That’s not a distraction from resistance. It’s preparation for it.

They want us exhausted, defeated, invisible. So we rest when we can, we fight when we must, and we get dressed like we’re not going anywhere.

Your friend who’s done pretending everything’s fine,

Angela

P.S. Send me your joyful outfits. Send me what you’re wearing to stay visible. Send me proof that we’re still here, still ourselves, still refusing to disappear.

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