Jane's individuality makes her memorable. You never think of her as that girl who looks like , you think of her as herself. On the other hand, Jane's individuality does not prevent her from following fashion trends. She adapts herself to what is new. When hair is short, so is hers, but cut to become er, not cut to look like a recent fashion ad. Still, Jane, in trying not to look like others, does not carry the attempt too far. She strives to strike a happy medium. She keeps in fashion, but she also keeps on looking like herself. She has developed vhat is known as her own sense of style, for style is merely e sum total of what you wear and the way you wear it. Jane knows that a stylish person is one who takes the best rom each new fashion and fits it to herself. She does not swal-ow a new fashion whole, but adapts it to her own figure and ersonality.
Now there are girls, unlike Jane, who are always trying to ook like somebody else. One year it is this movie star, the ext year another. They concentrate so hard on being a carbon opy that their own features get smudged in the process, liey never give themselves a chance to develop their own tyle because they are so busy copying somebody else's.
One of the first things you learn in modeling is that you ave got to be yourself. If you try to be somebody else (say nother model—a very successful one) then you will find that he photographers and fashion editors are going to choose to hotograph the girl you look like, who is, after all, the original, ou learn in the beginning that if you want success you can-ot be a carbon copy. You have to be your own originaclass="underline" you ave to develop your own style. After all it is pretty wonderful to think that there is nobody this entire world who looks exactly like you (unless you are n identical twin). You are unique. You may take a bit after our mother, you may have your father's eyes, but essentially you are you. And being you, you are all yours to make or break. You should be proud of that fact, so proud that it makes you want to get up and do the very best you can for yourself.
You will do the best you can if you get up the gumption to develop your own style, preserve your own personality and make like an individual. Now, of course, you cannot assert yourself all over the place. There are circumstances and customs that limit you. You are subject to the habits and ideas of the world you live in. Your parents, your school, your friends, your total environment combined with the exact point of time in which you live, all affect you.
These influences tend to integrate you into your community. By the way you look, talk and think you are identified as a modern American teen-ager, just as by the way she looked and behaved a Gibson Girl was identified as a young woman of the early 1900's. At the opening of a play, the author always designates the time and the place. He does this because without that knowledge his characters would be acting in a void, their actions would have no point of reference. Your point of reference is America today.
Within this framework you move, and when the framework changes you change along with it. Just tlrink how many changes have taken place in America since 1900 and how many will take place before 2000. Every year, every month, things change, big things and little. The trick is in knowing how to adapt to changes and still maintain your own standards and your own individuality.
Most people, of course, adapt easily. No one wants to be a fuddy-duddy and be out of fashion. The trouble comes from the fact that some people adapt too easily. They are too readily shifted by every prevailing whim. These are the people who have not established their own personality—their own individuality. They are busy, busy copying everybody else. They are suffering from what I call a crowd complex.
You know what a crowd is: it's the bunch you go around with, your own special group of friends. The top crowd, and there is one in every school, usually sets the pace and the others follow in line. And inside that large circle of follow-the-leader, there are smaller circles, for it usually happens that the members of each group tend to do just what the most important person in their crowd does.
Take, for example, this situation: The Rah-Rahs (the big crowd) decide that it is smart to wear bright green sweaters. Pretty soon everybody is wearing bright green sweaters. There is nothing wrong in that, except the fact that on some people bright green is mighty unbecoming. Where the situation becomes dangerous is when the top crowd decides that it is smart to drink or to drive cars at seventy miles an hour on a dark winding road. Then those people who follow that lead are being foolish, for they are endangering their life and happiness. They are sheep being led to the slaughter.
Now, chances are that you have come across situations like these more than once in your life. In fact, chances are that at one time or another you actually did something you knew to be wrong, but you excused yourself by saying, "Gee, Mom, the crowd does it." Well, let the crowd do it, but don't do it yourself. Develop your own standards and your own judgments. Learn to say "No" gracefully. Don't be afraid of declaring your own independence. Don't feel that you have to compromise your personal standards in order to be accepted as one of the bunch. If you know that the crowd intends to go out for a wild drive and you know that what they are planning is wrong, tell them that you can't come—that you have a headache, that your mother needs you in the house, that you have a baby-sitting appointment that you can't break. Get an excuse and then stick to it; don't weaken.
Admittedly, it is difficult to decide when to act differently from your crowd, but it is a decision that you must make if you want to become a person in your own right. You can no more become a well-rounded personality if you become a slave to crowd customs than you can be attractive in your own right if you pattern yourself after a movie star. If you are going to amount to a row of beans in this world, you have to start by setting up your own standards and sticking to them. And it need not be added, I hope, that such standards should be based on decency and good taste.
There are some crowd customs which it is fun for everyone to follow—things like everybody wearing one blue and one white sock, wearing club jackets and hats, or shaking hands in a special way. These are all sacred secrets and rites that set you off from other crowds and make yours different. Such things do nobody any harm and are fun. So do not misunderstand me. I know that a crowd is fun. I think that going with a group who knows you and whom you know in return makes life lots easier. You date the same boys, you plan your parties together, you sit in the same row in school (if you can), and you visit each other overnight and weekends. You learn a lot by discussing your problems together. I'm all for it.
What I am not for is letting a crowd get the better of you. I do not believe that a crowd should be the sole basis of your opinions, the sole judge of what you should wear and the sole jury about what you should do. Belong to your crowd, but be above it. Remember that you will never gain anyone's respect by being a rubber stamp. The girls you copy will resent it (even though they are flattered), and the boys will think that you are pretty dumb if you can't do something original on your own.
Do not underestimate a boy's intelligence. They may seem pretty stupid about some things—they may get their feet tangled on the dance floor or stumble on their tongues when talking to your parents, but they are smart enough to know that a girl who just follows the crowd hasn't got very much on the ball. They would rather date a girl who sets the pace than a girl who just jogs along.
Be careful, though, how you set the pace. Don't get steamed up without knowing where you are going. Search your route cautiously, testing each way before you choose it. Try to be to yourself what a good suit is to your wardrobe: a constant classic that can be dressed up or down according to the occasion.