NOTES from Nanna - When Things Take on a Soul
Something I spend a great deal of time on at the moment is analysing, building, and reflecting on my style and my wardrobe. If you have followed me for a while, you will know that the wardrobe, and the way we use it, is something I think about a lot. Because I believe it is one of the strongest visual tools we have.
Our wardrobe is not just clothes. Not just fabric on hangers or things in a cupboard. It is a language. A language we use every single day, even on the days when we do not think about it. It says something about how we feel. About what we want to hide or highlight. About who we are, and perhaps also who we are becoming.
Something I have learned, especially over the past five or six months, is that when I create something myself, or when I refine something, it becomes deeply attached to me. Visually, yes, but also very personally. It is no longer just a thing. It becomes something I have been in contact with. Something my hands have understood in a different way than my eyes ever could.
Not long ago, I bought a bag I had been dreaming about for many years. A vintage bag from the late 1990s or early 2000s. It is actually quite funny to think that something can now be considered vintage from a period I have lived through myself. I do not know whether that is because I have grown older, or whether the definition of vintage has shifted slightly from what I once understood it to be. But, in short, I bought the bag.
It is a red Gucci bag from the period when Tom Ford was the designer. To me, that is the “real” Gucci era. It was the time when I was very new and young in the fashion industry, and when I was completely fascinated by Gucci. There was something almost mythical about it. Something alluring. It was the first time I experienced a label, a brand, and an aesthetic that truly spoke to me.
Gucci has had many faces since then, and none of them are more right or wrong than the others. But for me, that is the period that has left the deepest mark.
One of the things I love about the bag is that it has no visible logos. When it comes to my style, logos must never take up too much space. I want my wardrobe to prove its value not through a logo, but through something I can sense and feel. I think a bag, or whatever it may be, should be beautiful in itself. The design should be able to stand on its own. It should never be the logo alone that carries the object.
I have not always felt that way. But it is very much how the adult version of me chooses when I buy something. The design must always be able to carry itself.
But back to the little story of the bag.
I got it for a really good price, but that also meant that the lining inside was completely ruined. So I decided to replace it myself. I have made a small series about it on Instagram, among other things, but you can also find the full transformation on YouTube.
And this is where the bag changed for me.
Because the fact that I have personalised it and made it my own means that it now has a very special place in my heart. In a way, I feel that I have formed a relationship with it. A relationship rooted both in the fact that it is a bag I have wanted for many years, and in the fact that I genuinely feel I have refined it.Some people might say that I have gone in and ruined an original bag. But to me, it has become a small piece of craftsmanship. A place where the design still speaks to me, but where my own personal preference has been allowed to shine through even more clearly.
It is, after all, “just” the lining of the bag. In principle, I am the only one who really sees it. But I know that every time I take my computer out of the bag, or reach for my purse to pay for a bun at the bakery, the corner of my mouth will lift just a little. And that is exactly where the magic happens — in the love affair that arises through the act of creating. Because we do become attached to things. Even when they are “just” things.
Perhaps because things are no longer just things once they have been given a story. When something has passed through our hands, our choices, our time, and our care, it becomes charged with meaning. It becomes a kind of physical memory. An object that does not only exist in the world, but also exists within us.
There is something deeply human in that. We assign value to things not only based on what they cost, or which name is written on them, but based on what they remind us of, and which part of ourselves we recognise in them.
An object can become more deeply rooted in us when we have spent time with it. When we have repaired it, chosen it consciously, or made it personal. It becomes a small proof of a relationship between us and the world.
And perhaps that is why handmade, inherited, repaired, or refined things often feel stronger than something entirely new. They carry traces. Not necessarily visible traces for others, but traces we ourselves can feel.
I think this is what I have become more interested in. Not just owning something beautiful, but having a relationship with the things I surround myself with.
Something I spend quite a lot of time on at the moment is finding these special pieces that truly speak to me. Not things I lack. Not things I feel ought to be in my wardrobe because a specific trend says so. But things that genuinely make me happy. Things where I can feel a little movement inside me before I even manage to explain why.
We can probably all agree quite quickly that our wardrobes are already full of the things we actually need. But is a wardrobe simply a cupboard filled with things we need?
I do not think so.
I believe a wardrobe is a visual expression of who we are. Depending on our mood and what we feel in the moment, we get dressed. Some days we reach for comfort. Other days for strength. Some days we almost want to disappear a little, and other days we want to step more clearly into world.
I think one of the most important things when creating an outfit or a wardrobe is that we stay true to the things that truly get under our skin. The things that ignite something in us when we see them.
Not because we need them. Not because we have to. But because they speak to our aesthetic preferences. You cannot always say exactly what it is that makes you fall completely in love with something. It may be a colour, a shape, a surface, a reference, a mood. Other times it is something that can hardly be explained. Something that simply lands in the right place.
Of course, we can also be influenced. Something can take up so much space in our feed, or in the public image, that we are almost manipulated into believing we love it. We see it again and again, and suddenly it starts to feel like our own taste. But I truly believe that if we listen all the way down into our stomach, to the place where the feeling has nothing to do with trends, status, or expectations, then we have a clear personal aesthetic preference.
It may be that we are not always conscious of it. But I believe the body knows. The stomach knows. The eye knows before the mind begins to analyse. And perhaps that is where it becomes truly interesting. When we dare to go after the things we really love. When we dare to use the things we have a relationship with. When we do not dress only to show who we want to be on the outside, but also to reveal something of who we actually are on the inside.
Because if we only chose the things that truly speak to us, and if we dared to wear them, I believe we would all develop a style and a visual expression that said far more about us.
Not necessarily more perfect, or more fashionable. But more alive. More personal. More us.
With love,
Nanna
