“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page”, or so the old adage goes. Indeed, there are a milion different experiences waiting for you out there– things that help shape the person you are meant to be, waiting for you way beyond the familiar.
To travel is to enrich your soul and color your character. If you’ve ever felt the joy of exploring a new city, you’d understand how fascinating it an be to see new places, try new things, meet people of different backgrounds, and taste exotic cuisines. Travel changes you in different ways, including your sense of style. Nothing is more altering than your little trips out of town.
Travel influences your style.
Traveling exposes you to new landscapes, cultures, and experiences—things that help shape ideas. Whether conscious or not, you pick up inspiration from things around you that influence your thoughts and manifest in different ways, including how you dress. Just like how a visit to the planetarium inspires you to wear celestial jewelry. Your style, after all, is an amalgam of ideas, a collection of all the things that you believe reflect who you are.
When you find yourself in a foreign location, you also get a sense of freedom that allows you to make bolder choices and try new things. Maybe having street food never crossed your mind until you visited the famous night market in Taipei, or you couldn’t imagine you would ever be caught wearing a beret until you walked into a Parisian tourist trap and thought, “Why not?” These little moments contribute to your character development and, in some ways, your style. These things may affect how you choose your clothing and accessories as you move forward, and before you know it, your fashion has become your story.
The emergence of fashion-focused travel
However, sometimes the connection between travel and fashion is more straightforward. If you are more invested in fashion as an industry, then you are no stranger to fashion tourism—a trend that represents a fascinating intersection of culture, commerce, and personal expression.
Fashion tourism encompasses everything from attending fashion weeks in Paris and Milan to exploring the ateliers of renowned designers, and even visiting museums dedicated to the history of clothing. This industry offers a unique lens for understanding different cultures, as clothing serves as a powerful visual language that reflects societal values, artistic expression, and historical context.
Perhaps no longer content with visiting historical landmarks or natural wonders, some travelers are increasingly seeking experiences that immerse them in fields they find truly interesting, like fashion. People deliberately go on trips to shop for clothing, get ahead of the trend, or study the industry. Cities known for their fashion heritage are among the usual destinations, but cities with vibrant lifestyle scenes and unusual takes on design, like Tokyo, Seoul, and Berlin, are opening new doors to aesthetics.
Style shapes travel experiences.
While traveling can have a direct or indirect influence on your style, the connection between the two is not a one-way street. Fashion can be a crucial aspect in shaping your travel experiences. More than just something you put on, your clothing choices can influence how you interact with different cultures, how you feel in new environments, and even how you are perceived by the people you meet.
A simple choice of what to wear can affect how your trip will go. Your fashion choices mirror your respect for the customs and traditions of your chosen destination. For example, in a more conservative country, dressing modestly avoids offending locals and prevents you from facing uncomfortable encounters. Knowing how to dress for your chosen locale can lead to smoother interactions, and even foster a sense of belongingness. It might even lead to a creative exercise on how to let your style shine through in dressing for situations you’re not used to, witnessing a Balinese religious ritual for instance.
Beyond cultural sensitivity, fashion impacts your personal experience of a place. From choosing weather-appropriate outfits to accessorizing, what you choose to pack in your suitcase affects your enjoyment of a locale. Imagine wearing Lycra on a temple run under the scorching heat of the Cambodian sun—probably not the coolest way to run.
A carefully curated travel wardrobe enhances your cultural immersion, making you look good and feel good long after the memory of social posts are gone.
Turning a page
We all have our own style, but they’re not set in stone. Your style, just like your character, evolves through time. Sometimes, the catalyst for that evolution is the experiences you have while you travel. And, funny enough, those experiences can be influenced by the very clothing you choose to wear. We don’t think about it too often, but the relationship between travel and fashion is intricate.
As you turn a page in the proverbial book that is the world, you might find joy and inspiration that nurtures your being. It may not always be profound, and it doesn’t have to be, but you are guaranteed to take away something from it.
And when you see your journey reflected in your style, weaving a tapestry of the places you’ve been and the people you’ve met, you might realize that in all the points where travel and style intersect, in the middle of it all, is you.
