A curious statement came from the mouth of my boyf that made me ponder for a while. 

*Carrie Bradshaw style voiceover* 

As Big S said to me ‘I know that because you’ll always dress weirder or crazier than me, when we go out, it gives me license to be a bit more daring with my outfits!’, I couldn’t help but wonder....’Are style daredevils really just the style safety airbags?’

*End annoying Ms. Bradshaw voiceover*  Also end of annoying presumption that I’m a *groan* style daredevil.

[1] This little relevation from my boyfriend perplexed/confused me a little.  Some people will probably never believe me when I say this and yes, even I find it a little disconcerting, is that I don't really relate to other people when considering my outfits.  I don't mean that I don't take inspiration from people in my style (though even my inspirations can often be quite arbitrary and not people specific....).  What I mean is that I've never been one to think 'I am friends with you.  I hang out with you.  You dress like this.  Therefore I'll dress a certain way.'  By the last part of that statement, I'll clarify again and say that I don't mean you're under the influence of your friends to copy the way they dress (I'll give you all enough credit to assume that NONE of you do that right?).  What I mean is if you do have a friend that does dress out of the box, do you in turn feel that the boundaries have been widened, and it gives you license to be a little freer in the way you dress?

[2]I'm genuinely asking this from a 'Style Bubble' perspective (hopefully by now, people will know that the title of this blog doesn't come from nowhere but actually, the term is applicable in reality...).  It could be my lonesome childhood days, the fact that I went to a school where cliques didn't really exist and all my friends were quite different in the way they dressed (no style tribage at all really....) which definitely continued into uni.  Whatever the reason, I just haven't really given the ones that I surround myself with any thought with regards to putting together an outfit.  At themed parties, there Susie goes, doing her own thing, this isn't a case of wanting to stand out but more of a result of shopping in solitude, having a very strong idea of how I wanted to look at said party and quite frankly, not really consulting other people and doing the natural girl gang thing of 'What are you wearing?'.

Some comments that have arisen on the blog compliment me for inspiring people to be more daring in the way they dress.  I can't really attest to how true this is but it does make me wonder, do we need living examples to set us guidelines?  To put it simply 'Oh seeing as there's some odd girl in London who layers like a crazy bag lady, I guess I can afford to wear that fuschia pink dress that I've been pondering about for a while but held back on because it was a bit wacky.'  Hence the subject of the post; safety airbag, that you get given confidence in your style choices because someone else is doing it or doing it to a further extreme.   

This actually isn't all in relation to me being that safety airbag.  I think we have established there is no such thing as true style originality in the purest sense and in these days, nothing is going to really shock or cause a stir in terms of outfits (well from my outlook anyway...) but everyone has different values to gauge against and have been exposed to different things style-wise so I speak quite sweepingly and broadly on this subject of safety airbags.  I can only conclude that the natural human condition of wanting to stay within a pack has something to do with it and that pushing ourselves style-wise is difficult without any living examples to compare to.  I guess all I told my boyfriend was 'Hey I don't mind being your style airbag.... as long as we can trawl about 20 charity shops and find those ker-razy things to dress me up in....!'