I Find It Harder and Harder Every Day to Live Up to My Blue China

     Lately I have been obsessed with Oscar Wilde (as my next bill from Amazon will show).  His writings, theories, life, wit, and more than anything else, his views on aesthetics, influenced by Pater and Ruskin, fascinate me.  The idea of seeing and creating beauty in our surroundings and using our imagination to improve the seemingly un-improvable is a concept that has appealed to me since childhood.
      The Aesthetic movement revolted against industry and embraced art in all forms, be it literature, fashion, paintings, textiles, or design.  The Aesthetes were slightly more interested in unnatural and fabricated beauty than their Romantic predecessors, but many of the characteristics stay the same.  Emotional rather than analytical reactions, freedom, awareness, imagination, and the observation and creation of beauty remain the cornerstones of the movement.
 
                                                        All felt that art enhanced life.

       When I think of this in regard to fashion blogging I realize that many of us still recognize the importance of aesthetics on our daily life.  The way we dress ourselves is a way of bringing beauty, interest, expression, and emotion to our daily lives.  The photos that we take; often mindful of composition, finding and appreciating the beauty in the scenes where we take photos, editing photos to bring beauty where it did not originally exist, but rather where we imagined it to be.  The thoughts and experiences we share (many including art, design, literature, film, music, nature etc.), the care we take with writing and formatting; all of this could be considered part of a continuing aesthetic movement.
The movement is clearly not limited to fashion bloggers alone, there are many artists and disciplines  that share the same sensibilities, but what I like about this subculture is that it combines many of these disciplines in one forum.
                                                     We feel that art enhances life.

The squint: AKA the reason why I've been wearing sunglasses in the majority of my photos. 

Outfit Details: Yet Another Striped Shirt (It took almost all my energy not to buy another one yesterday, it was difficult- they're EVERYWHERE right now): Target. Skirt: J. Crew. Tights: Rite Aid. Shoes: Gift.