Inspiration Sunday

              On this dreary and rainy Sunday I was just lolling around in my dorm room, pretending to do homework and lazily snacking on oyster crackers, just wishing it was Tuesday night where I could go home and prepare for the long weekend ahead of me that’s bound to be filled with food, family, and friends. My roommate was flipping idly through the channels when she stopped on Pirates of the Caribbean, At Word’s End. I was thrilled to see it, because Pirates of the Caribbean was a favorite film of mine for many years after it came out. I loved everything about it, the attitudes it embodied and embraced- freedom and fearlessness and a particular kind of recklessness. After watching, it, I felt just so inspired and, let’s be honest, a little wishing I was a pirate (granted, I was 11). While I’ve outgrown the desire to be a pirate, I still am inspired by the attitude, and furthermore, the looks of the pirates in the film. I decided to write a sort of series of things that inspire my personal style, which is, according to my friend, that of a “grungy, edgy hippie pirate whose grandmother was a fairy.” While I don’t really understand her examination of my personal style, I did get a good laugh out of it, and it made me sort of look at how I dress in a different sort of way. I began thinking of all the things that have inspired my style- influences on it, if you will- and the recent description of my style coupled with the viewing of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie made me realize how it might have had influence on my personal style now.
                The character of Captain Jack Sparrow represented to me the perfect guy. Now I realize that there is just a little too much crazy there for someone in the real life, but something about the tattoos, rings, and copious amounts of eyeliner that I found to be sexy. And I guess that’s carried through to my adulthood as well- give me a guy whose more rough-and-tumble, a little more rocker (albeit without the eyeliner) over a preppy boy or a bro any day. I still have a passion for eyeliner, as anyone who knows me could tell you, but now, I prefer it on me. And that got me to thinking that just maybe my style was more influenced then I even realized. I hate plastic, bright jewelry, and instead choose metal, chains, organic feeling things. I have more rings than I could ever possibly wear, and I am just dying to get a tattoo or so. While I can’t attribute my desires or likes for these things entirely or even partially to this film, I’m inclined to think it did have some sort of influence, especially in taking into regard how much I watched the film and how I so admired the freedom the characters in the movie had. Even the clothing! Washed-out colors and breezy layers…the fact that the costume director put so much thought and effort into every characters outfit, every layer, every piece, is inspiriting in itself. And I just love it, the free-flowing hair, the loose layers upon loose layers, and the muted colors. Anyone who knows me has probably never seen me in a color that’s brighter then a cobalt, aureoline, or coral, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in Kelly green. I like the colors that seem as though they’ve been sitting in the sun for years, or that the dye has been almost completely washed out. And of course, a lot of black. But I digress-I am in love with the aesthetic of the pirates in the movies, and the effort it takes to build such a detailed yet nonchalant wardrobe.

             If you are in need of some inspiration, I suggest watching the Pirates of the Caribbean film. Look at the costumes, the makeup, the cinematography of the film, and let yourself just soak up the inspiration. I know I did as a child, and it hasn’t been squeezed out yet.