How Losing 40 lb Changed How I Think About J-Fashion

If you know me personally, you know that I’ve been losing weight since November 9 of last year. Now since I’ve almost lost 40 lb since writing this, I’ve found that I’m able to fit into pieces that I could only dream of before. After not wearing the fashion since November, I saw my closet the other day and realized that I’ve learned some very important things as I lost weight. I consciously understood the importance of these, but I wasn’t able to internalize these lessons until I realized that I needed to almost completely start over with my J-Fashion collection.

Hopefully this list will help other people interested in J-Fashion internalize these lessons—because it’s about body positivity and being happy with yourself and the clothes you wear, no matter what your size. I just personally had to lose this weight to internalize these myself.

Jasmin Izaguirre

The Importance of Fit

Strangely, once I started to lose weight, I started wanting to own fewer items. I began to be much more picky about the clothes I bought. This was probably due to the frustration with wanting to wear the fashion and struggling to find pieces that fit, especially brand pieces. I would see measurements of pieces that might fit, and I would buy it simply because I was excited about the extended size and/or the brand. I would squeeze myself into it, and funnily enough this made me look even bigger, making me very unhappy with how I looked in the few pieces I had. And unhappy with myself in the fashion in general.

But now that I can freely fit into men’s sizes, I feel like I’m free to be a lot more picky. Combined with flat-out having more of a variety of pieces to choose from, I am just done compromising fit for fashion. I’ll gladly go for an offbrand piece that fits and that I can work into the fashion than a brand piece that risks being too small, or needing modifications that may or may not be up to my standard of craftsmanship.

Lovely Lor

The Importance of Being Picky

I’m currently finding that I have no desire to wear most pieces that I bought before my weight loss, simply because I feel like I can now be honest with myself that I don’t like them very much. And frankly, I would rather not wear the fashion at all than wear pieces I don’t like.

Thinning out your closet to only items you love is very important. You should be able to want to wear every single piece in your closet in one way or another. If you don’t want to do this, it’s time for that piece to go.

When I clear out my closet, I’ll post a wardrobe update post showing the pieces that I love and can use.

Consuelo Suarez

There’s Nothing Wrong With Offbrand

Let me say it again: there’s nothing wrong with offbrand! As long as you can fit it into the pieces, you love them, and they’ll work within the fashion guidelines that you want to follow, it’s fine.

This also brings me to another point that I may evolve into a full post in the future.

Sally Asbury

Fashion is Fun, and it’s Something You Do For Yourself

Maybe this is a bit controversial, but I’m going to go on a limb here and say that fashion is supposed to be something that you do for yourself, not others. It’s an outer reflection of your inner self. Don’t let anyone’s salty opinion dampen that. If you want to wear a simple coord in a world that’s focused on only OTT? You go right ahead and do that. Want to wear a coord featuring only handmade or offbrand items? Sure—it’s your body, your art, and your canvas. Do what you want.

The United States in particular applies many rules to J-Fashion that I’ve noticed simply don’t exist in other countries. Fashion has rules that are meant to be bent. How else are you going to be creative? I can talk all day about this, but for now I’ll just settle for saying this: too many rules stifle creativity. If people new to the fashion are too scared of being made fun of for their creativity and breaking these rules to have fun, what’s the point of the fashion anyway? I know quite a few people on both ends of the spectrum, and quite frankly it’s sad. I’ve never seen such self-destruction from a community before. Let people enjoy things.

Fashion is supposed to encourage you to be yourself, not prevent or make you scared of it.

Lauren Addington, Collin and Stevie Quinlan

lightningsavage

Kal from Lightningsavage Photography specializes in creative portrait photography for J-Fashion enthusiasts and more. He has served as the J-Fashion event photographer for Oni-Con 2016–2020, as well as fashion shows, meetups, and personal shoots. He is also a co-owner of Kuroshiro Kawaii. You can follow him on Instagram at @lightningsavage_photography and @kaldec_

He is currently into visual kei and EGA fashions.