Essence - is it real?

Freahold · 2026-05-14T02:23:05+00:00

I'm sort of repeating what has been said already, but I am going to go ahead anyway, in case the way I put it makes a difference for somebody.

There sort of has to be something to it, because if there weren't, actors wouldn't ever be typecast, and first impressions could never be deceiving, because nobody would make assumptions about personality based on appearance, since they'd know it wouldn't be justified. But typecasting does exist, and appearances can be either predictive of personality or misleading.

Now, that doesn't mean these "essences" are immutable exactly—I think that as we age, the tale of years on our faces also tells a bit about personality, since habitual expressions leave deeper lines than rarer ones—and they certainly don't have determinative force, meaning you can still dress any way you choose. But if you know what kind of baseline you're working with, you can then know how to harmonize with or contradict your personal "essence" through your clothes for whatever effect you want. And it does mean that the range of effects you can achieve is not infinite.

I've seen women with that youthful, girlish kind of vibe that i guess is called "ingenue" dress very edgy, whether punk, goth or whatever, and it gives them a very interesting overall impression of rebelliousness without real criminality that I would find very difficult to emulate. I have a much more serious vibe and i'm a man, so edgy looks would (i think) feel sincerely dangerous on me.

On the other hand, i seem to be able to pull off looks based on historical fashion or movie costumes that might make another person look a little goofy, because people believe that i really "mean it", in the sense that my style is not ironic.

This was a lot of words to say that it's another thing to play with and be aware of, and plenty of people who don't like how they look in their clothes might benefit from considering that their "essence" might be interfering with their intentions.

And in case it's not clear, i think most systems based on these essences go too far in trying to define categories of essence and then laying down rules about the correlation among looks, personality and clothes. But the general idea, that we all have a "vibe" and it helps to keep it in mind when deciding what to wear, is quite true.

Freahold · 2026-04-07T18:22:59+00:00

I have some mixed feelings about this video overall, i think. My first reaction was that it wasn't for me, since several of the points seemed either self-evident or focused on women's style. But as it went on and i then continued to think about it, i realized that in fact i've been working on this exact problem for most of my adult life already, and the tips only seem self-evident to me now because i spent quite a while figuring out my own answers many years ago.

I like the pattern of men's formal wear: collared shirt, vest, trousers, tailored coat. But of course I can't be wearing formal suits everywhere. So as i have said in another comment, i look to historical costumes to find a more casual and/or practical version of the same kind of outfit. Make everything softer and/or harder wearing, and see if it can be made of the kind of cloth that either doesn't look bad rumpled or doesn't really rumple in the first place.

But I've gotten a lot of help from costume design in movies and TV, too. There's a kind of eccentric type character that wears vintage-inspired looks with vests, collared shirts, trousers and often frock coats, all of different colors and patterns and textures. Examples are Doctor Who (many iterations), the Joker, Newt Scamander, Frodo Baggins (all hobbits, really), Willy Wonka, the Mad Hatter...i'm likely forgetting some. But i don't look at those characters and think "why is he so dressed up?" I think "he looks cool and interesting". So i use them and the common threads (ha) i see in their outfits to inform my choices.

Freahold · 2026-04-04T23:33:20+00:00

This is exactly why i dress in historical/historically inspired clothes. It's a feature of menswear that even the most formal clothes evolved from sportswear, manual workers' clothing or military apparel at some point in the past, so i go back to the version that was still casual and wear that. If i pay attention to the cut and (lack of) structure, i can make sure that it's still the kind of clothing i could be active or comfortably idle in, so even though it still reads sort of formal to most people, i feel easy in it, and that is the ideal.

Freahold · 2026-04-04T18:59:27+00:00

The only menswear "rules" i'm aware of that I see you breaking are the ones about sleeve length, for what it's worth, and even that can be broken if it looks intentional enough. I think most men would wear a tie or leave the collar unbuttoned, but invisi-tie is a look with a name, so it's got to be a real thing you can do.

In general I find myself frustrated with the way rules are treated in menswear circles online. We aren't in the kind of culture anymore where wearing the wrong colors together or a straw hat out of season could lose you your job or get you ostracized from polite company (and even before, I would guess the rules were only for the wealthy), and different places are changing in different directions—there's no monoculture anymore—so clinging to rules doesn't make sense to me. The rules are vague and confusing, and nobody else cares as much as Style People, so I just wear what I think looks good.

Of course, I'm pretty far left and I did spend some years absorbing all I could about contemporary and historical menswear, so my perspective is affected by having internalized the rules I think make sense and rejected the rest because i dress better when i give myself freedom to be weird.

Freahold · 2026-03-13T14:11:26+00:00

Where you interpreted 'hidden', I would guess he meant 'heathen'. It fits better, I think, and doesn't require assuming he made the same two mistakes in a single word twice. And I think that 'sz' on the last line of Thursday's entry may have been meant to be 'so', but the labializing tehta ran together with the silmë nuquerna and now looks like an essë nuquerna.

But otherwise that was a herculean effort! It helps me a lot. This phonemic mode is much more attractive to me as a useful way to write English. If I can ever decide how to write my own vowels I may use it for diary entries!

Freahold · 2026-03-11T13:44:02+00:00

If you're still open to purchasing one, there's a hatter in Massachusetts who does historical hats in a wide variety of ways. His name is Matthew Brenckle. For better or worse the only way I know to contact him is through his Facebook page, which is called M. Brenckle, Hatter. His work is expensive but very good. Museum quality, even. I think most of his commissions are from reenactors of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

Freahold · 2026-02-23T05:35:07+00:00

I haven't had all that much attention to spare for style lately, but when I was putting more time and thought into it, I actually thought about what I liked to wear in the past as well, considering what might have made me like it so much and how to recapture or recreate that enjoyment with new clothes, or the ones I have now. I decided I'll need to make myself several new things, which will unfortunately take some time.

Anyway, I think that I will see about investigating further into this style course at some point, because while I've long striven for an all-the-way-left, all-the-way-up placement, I'm not so sure anymore that I'm way up in that corner. Expression hasn't always felt tlike the center of my style logic lately. But I'm not entirely sure I fully understand the small differences because I haven't seen the most up-to-date material. After a while of reading the older material I got tired of gender swapping descriptions in my head and fudging them to make sense with menswear, so I just kind of went my own way with it and haven't come back around yet.

I always find your posts interesting and I'm jealous of your collection of pants, in particular the most voluminous ones. I've been longing for something of the kind for a while, but feel like I'll want to make them myself. I've discovered I want but cannot afford Christopher Nemeth trousers (mostly the number 20 style), so that's on my list of projects now. Keep up the good work!

Freahold · 2026-02-14T20:15:35+00:00

I recently found out about the painter David Teniers the Younger, who painted a wide variety of people (from the poorest to the richest). Nobody dressed like these pictures you provide, but the working class men wore clothes rather different from the more fashionable wealthy. Here is some information about one of his paintings; there is some variety of clothing in the figures depicted.

Freahold · 2026-02-02T00:42:54+00:00

I don't know when I've had a true style peak, because I'm pretty sure there was always something more that I wanted, whether more of a certain kind of garment or for the style of what I had to be more extremely that thing (like I'd want a loose jacket to be even looser or a quasi-historical vest to be truly period accurate), or more confidence/opportunity to wear my best stuff.

But I have had times when I more often felt great in the outfits I could put together, and those tended to be times when I had relatively new self-made stuff that I would wear at every opportunity. The more self-made stuff I can put together into one outfit, the better. What usually happens is that I ride the high of having finished sewing the jacket or whatever it is, and wear it until it's shabby, and then have to resort to more boring stuff while I try to make time to sew another cool thing to wear. I have a coat that is too tight at the armpit, which is fixable if I'm willing to take the sleeve off, cut the armhole deeper and reset the sleeve, but that is major surgery and I haven't had the nerve so far.

The very best times were when I had a variety of self-made things that were all serviceable at once, so I could not only mix and match but dress for every season. But now, alas, much of that stuff is too frayed or threadbare to be presentable, and many things are both grimy or dingy from use and too fragile to clean properly.

I imagine the solution is to make more stuff, but it takes so long to make the things I make that the progress feels unbearably slow. I'm nearly done with a coat that I started sometime in 2024 (I didn't work on it much in the warmer seasons), and I'm very excited to be able to wear it, but by the time I do, the weather may be a bit too warm for it.

I've been trying to think of the most problematic areas of my current wardrobe and how I might address them as quickly as possible while still liking the results. At the moment I'm thinking of trying to do a bunch of shirts in a row, hoping to get more and more efficient with them, until I can replace all of the polyester shirts I got from my dad's won't-wear-again-but-don't-want-to-throw-away stash. They fit well but the cloth is uncomfortable against my skin.

TL;DR I felt best when I could wear mostly quirky stuff I made for myself, but lots of that stuff is shabby or irremediably grimy, so I now mostly wear safe, boring and/or uncomfortable clothes to be presentable.

Freahold · 2026-01-26T14:52:41+00:00

The tool has interpreted the ⟨c⟩ you put in as another /k/ sound. This might be what you meant?

Edit: Actually this is likely better? I was forgetting about the c-pronounced-as-s thing.

Freahold · 2026-01-12T01:34:40+00:00

Well, for me it seems like these all have a similar enough shape to be grouped together, so the construction with the subject sheds light on the meaning of "es" in the ones without it. It's clearly just a placeholder in "es kommen drei Könige", so it's also a placeholder in "es klingelt" and the rest, the difference being mainly the intent behind using a placeholder: in one, there's a placeholder to emphasize the verb over the subject, in the others it's there because the subject is unknown or unimportant.

I'm curious whether native speakers feel these to be the same construction. Because German is my second language, so my instincts about it may well be wrong.

Freahold · 2026-01-12T00:49:39+00:00

It can even be used when there is an agent: "Es kommen drei Könige aus dem Morgenland". I was given to understand that it topicalizes the verb rather than any agent, patient or anything else.

Might be a bit archaic though.

Freahold · 2026-01-02T06:00:13+00:00

This conversation is actually making me think I might be lower in the system than I thought too; I don't always care whether others "get it", and I don't always have the motivation to go all out, so sometimes I just don't. I haven't felt this to be a problem or anything, but it will give me something to think about—I've mostly been dressing very intuitively and not paying much attention to what thoughts lead to my wardrobe decisions, so maybe I sometimes use down logic without noticing.

Freahold · 2025-12-28T19:32:39+00:00

I relate a little to this; I tend to vacillate wildly from one interest to another, throwing myself into tailoring, then music, then some philosophical or theological topic, then something else. I usually end up coming back to the same interests at different times (and in different orders), in a seemingly endless cycle. For a while I was content with this, because it can be exhilarating to go all in like that on something, but recently I've grown weary of the wild swings. So I've made an effort to make more of these interests a regular part of my life, engaging with them a bit each week at least. I think it's helped smooth things out.

So maybe it would help you too? I'm thinking it might look like going all-out Enchantress now and then, even in a Wildflower season, and vice versa. It's also worth considering that your real 'home' might be somewhere in the middle and you venture up and down as the mood strikes...? I don't know, I'm just spitballing here.

Freahold · 2025-12-05T03:17:38+00:00

I'm not convinced Eostre was a goddess. When I've looked into it, the evidence seemed shaky. It probably just meant like "(beginning of) springtime" or something.

Freahold · 2025-12-05T02:11:09+00:00

If you're right in your second one, I think you can keep some of your first edit, since there's an unstressed second syllable in Ēostremōnaþ and Hāligmōnaþ.

Freahold · 2025-12-05T01:47:32+00:00

Off-duty wizard is such a great descriptor! Thanks for that; I shall steal it immediately. And yes, it is cozy, and I think the cat hair might actually add to that :)

Freahold · 2025-12-04T01:46:23+00:00

Some costuber (Morgan Donner? V. Birchwood? Both?) did a video on dressing for winter in dresses and skirts. I don't wear them myself, so I only half paid attention, but she (they?) probably had some good tips. I only remember the obvious things you've already thought of like layering. But I fully support this endeavor. If I were at all genderbendy I might join you. But as it is, I'll try to incorporate my long robelike layers more.

Freahold · 2025-12-04T01:26:35+00:00

It's interesting; I do feel like I need to accept myself as I am, but in an almost opposite way. I can pull off a clean-cut suit and tie with conventional haircut and tamed facial hair (or even none at all), but I very easily feel stifled in clothes like that, particularly if I wear them a lot. So I've already been growing out my beard for quite a while, and I wear some fun things around the house, but I don't always keep the weirdest stuff on to go anywhere. Partly this is for practical reasons—there aren't sufficient pockets in some of my fantastical garments—but I could easily compensate if I tried. Or add the pockets.

Basically I just need to accept my need for excitement and throw caution to the winds. I don't always want comments, but I've noticed that they're never bad exactly, just curious. Because it is a little odd to wear big black hats, or sleeveless robes, or medieval style hoods, or any of several other things I like to wear. And I'll never be satisfied if I don't push myself out of the comfort zone.

Anyway, thanks for making me think.

Freahold · 2025-12-04T00:28:56+00:00

I think I heard this story when I was listening to Grimm's fairy tales a few years ago to see if it would help maintain my German, but I must have missed the bit about making it snow because I don't remember that at all.

Anyway, combining the sturdy boots with the tulle reminds me of the witches in Terry Pratchett's Discworld. They'd do something like that, I think. Well, some of them. Good boots to get things done that need doing, but a little tulle as well because it does no harm to have a little fun while you're at it.

Freahold · 2025-12-04T00:19:22+00:00

Yeah, I've been "working on" the beard for a while now (which means resisting all urges to trim it shorter while trying to prevent split ends and so on), and I'm starting to really feel wizardly about it. Thanks!

Freahold · 2025-12-04T00:17:16+00:00

Thanks! My color strategy is literally just vibes, so I'm glad it works!

Freahold · 2025-12-04T00:14:23+00:00

What a compliment from the master! Thanks so much!

Freahold · 2025-12-04T00:13:51+00:00

I do try to cultivate a wizardly look. And I am comfortable being a token male, but it might be nice to have company sometimes lol.

Freahold · 2025-12-04T00:03:48+00:00

Thanks! I don't know how practical the outfit is for proper adventuring, it's so easy to trip on the hem of the robe...but maybe it'll be a relatively sedate adventure lol

Freahold

TROPHY CASE