Is it ugly?
Creative fodder #1
Cringey. Unwell. Hot mess. No one seems to brag about being perfect. At least not online. (Except for the narcissists, you know who those are 😉)
This phenomenon of making diminishing claims has expanded beyond the lexiconic branch of the zeitgeist and into the sartorial.
Want to stand out?
Wear something “ugly”.
Or better: have your creations do it. Make it “off”. Celebrate the different. Flourish flaws. Face atelophobia.
Call it a pathway to “so bad it’s good.” (The siren song of the origin and success of Fifty Shades of Grey.)
Case in point, these incredible shoes:
Designer Victor Wong collaborated with UGG last year (part of UGG’s Rising Voices Project) to create this very extra take on their Oh Yeah slides. They even had decals to stick on the “nails” 🥹
In an article about the collab on Highsnobiety, this was mentioned: “His design draws inspiration from a Stephen Bayley quote reading, ‘The beautiful and the ugly are not opposites, but aspects of the same thing.’ ”
Bayley wrote the book Ugly: The Aesthetics of Everything, where he also poses “if there were no ugliness in the world, would there be any beauty?”
There are different kinds of ugliness. We don’t want to fuck with Ugly with a capital “U”, sitting at the dark end of the spectrum. The others are fair game.
Especially the small “u”, which is most uttered on the daily. A part of our routine so much that we almost don’t understand it. Like when a word becomes a sound and loses its meaning - an experience called semantic satiation.
Maybe what we’ve casually been referring to as ugly all this time, we really mean something else…
It begs the question: is lowercase ugly in need of a rebrand?
Let’s unlearn ugly:
A therapist I saw once suggested looking up the definition of words as a practice. Humans have a tendency to assign a meaning that we think is correct over the actual definition of a word. (Major life tip there!)
What actually is ugly?
Ugly • adj
unpleasant or repulsive, especially in appearance.
What about quirky?
Quirky • adj
characterized by peculiar or unexpected traits.
Think of the “ugly Christmas sweater”. Is it really ugly by definition or is it quirky?
Other factors that weigh how much of an observer’s perspective leans toward hyperbole (as ugly often is applied) revolve around outside variables such as taste, class, systems, etc. Reacting to the unexpected adjusts for such.
Considering that, in my book, quirky wins as the answer. It’s a fairer take. Quirky doesn’t demean. You’d take quirky to bed. Marry quirky without a prenup. It’s that reliable. Enter the era of the “quirky Christmas sweater”.
Deeper dive:
If that wasn’t enough, weird, after all, is a synonym of quirky.
One of my favorite newsletters is Vik’s Busy Corner by Viktoriia Vasileva, who wrote this amazing post “It’s a Good Time to Be Weird”. Not only do they talk about this ☝️ Loewe campaign staring Daniel Craig, but also wrote this gem:
Weird is the only safe heaven that lies between phony and real. It makes the mundane interesting, the manufactured forgivable, and the out-of-touch grounded. - Viktoriia Vasileva
Read the post - it’ll enrich and expand your thinking on what weird means today:
Let’s curate it:
When those with limited definitions of self-expression/individuality call someone ugly, quirky, or weird, what they don’t realize is they’re putting a spotlight on the trailblazers. These trailblazer’s sense of self and innovation is kryptonite to those who are afraid to be different.
To embrace your beautiful trailblazing sensibilities, look no further than your life (no matter how ordinary things may seem.)
Hot tip: Check out Nadia Lee Cohen’s Instagram stories. The artist/photographer/filmmaker has a knack for capturing quirkiness in mundane, everyday moments.
What do you find quirky and/or weird in your everyday?
List them and/or start noticing and being on the look out.
How can you combine these with something considered “beautiful”? And treat it in the same regard.
Gather images of these; or add to your list if you want to keep it text-based.
Choose an app to gather and display the results of your brainstorming. Some favorites: Pinterest, Figma, PicCollage, Notion.
Use this as inspiration for:
A future project.
Identifying your unique creative perspective.
Reference for branding.
Stories.
Personal style.
The possibilities are endless!
Have a noteworthy quirky/weird sighting to share?
Put it in the comments and I’ll feature some of the juiciest in a future post!
Any typos are proof of life (aka evidence that an actual human wrote this.)