For all intents and purposes 2017 is over. In less than 24 hours, the clock will strike midnight and a new year full of fresh possibilities, new opportunities, great shoes, and fire clothes will be upon us. As the calendar resets to January 1st, we’ll be given one last chance to look back on the year that’s passed as well as being blessed with an opportunity to set goals and resolutions for the year ahead.
We’ll be the first to admit it: New Year’s resolutions can can cause some interesting conundrums. It’s easy to fall into a trap, thinking that you have to set grand, illustrious life goals for yourself before the clock strikes midnight on December 31st. Thankfully, that’s not true. If something in life is truly important and meaningful to you, you can resolve to do it at any time.
New Year’s resolutions aren’t without their advantages though. From a sartorial standpoint New Year’s is a great time to lay out your plans for the next twelve months. You know there will be trends, brands, and pieces that will define the year when it’s all said and done. You know that you want to evolve and refine your style through the year, and look back on your progression at the end of the year to see what worked and what didn’t. We’re right there with you.
So today, the last day of 2017, we’re sharing our New Year’s resolutions with you, our KicksOneTwo family. If you can stick to these resolutions, we can guarantee that 2018 will be a year of great sartorial evolution. Let’s resolve to evolve.
“I Will Cop To Rock”
Eying up a piece you want? Pull the trigger. Cop it and work it into your wardrobe. Let it become one of your go-to items. Beat it to death. Clothes always have more character after they’ve been worn, and if you rock a certain piece enough times, people around you will start to associate that piece with you and your style. A loved article of clothing can become an extension of yourself. In today’s hype-driven world, too many people buy a piece, wear it once for an over-stylized Instagram photo to portray a false image, and then flip it. You don’t want to contribute to that kind of mindless consumerism. Not only is it bad for the culture (as it mangles personal style into pure materialism and is flat-out lame to boot), it’s bad for your wardrobe. How can you have your own signature look if you don’t have any signature pieces that can be easily associated with you? Copping with the intent to rock is the most straightforwards way to establish your style and make sure your wardrobe is truly a reflection of you as a person.
“I Will Step Outside Of My Comfort Zone”
When it comes to style, it’s a good thing to know your pocket … but you can’t get too cozy. If you know what pieces work for you, you can build a wardrobe around them (this ties back into “cop to rock”, as you can’t really do one of these things without the other). However, no matter how comfortable you are with your look and how well you pull it off, you need to step out of your pocket every so often. No matter if it’s a different sneaker silhouette than you usually wear, a color of shirt that’s outside of your regular palette, or a pair of pants from a brand that you haven’t tried out before, expanding your horizons is one of the best things that you can do for your style. You don’t have to go hog-wild but if you don’t try to step out of your comfort zone at all, you won’t be able to find anything that works for you period. Remember, there may have been a time when you weren’t comfortable wearing some pieces you now rock on a daily basis!
“I Will Share What I Know”
Find out about a cool brand? Read a great op-ed? See a piece that you really liked? Tell your friends and loved ones about it! Hoarding your knowledge instead of sharing it is one of the lamest, most selfish things that you can do. Streetwear has an unfortunate habit of acting as a “boy’s club” where the people who are “in the know” don’t share their knowledge so they can look down their noses at someone that they deem uninformed. We don’t support that. Our culture is one with a rich history, and it’s a history that deserves to be shared. If you have an opportunity to teach someone, you always should. You didn’t immediately know everything about your favorite brands when you found them, did you? Pay it forwards by sharing your knowledge, and it’ll come back to you tenfold in streetwear karma (it’s a real thing!).
“I Will Throw The Homies Oops”
News flash: it’s not all about you, no matter how dope you might think you are. Streetwear and sneakers are a community, and we’d bet that you’ve met some of your best friends through the community. So help those friends out whenever possible. Have a homie that wants a piece you don’t rock as frequently anymore? Sell it to them for the low. Limited sneaker dropping online that the whole squad’s gunning for? Try to help a friend get it instead of copping it for yourself. This doesn’t just extend to those in your circle either. If you’re in a position to help someone who could use a hand, do it! That’s how you make genuine connections, and streetwear/sneakers is nothing if not a world fueled by connections and friendships.
“I Will Stay Informed”
We’ll admit it: our fifth resolution is a little self-serving. We want you to read KicksOneTwo as one of your primary methods of staying informed (your support is what motivates us every day after all), but all jokes and self-promotion aside, staying informed on what’s going on in street culture is very important. Read blogs. Check YouTube. Troll social media for news and updates on what’s going on in the culture. Staying up to date on news, trends, and drops in our world enables you to form your own unique opinion on the culture and the products releasing, and being informed ties in with another resolution: sharing what you know. The more you know, the more you can share, and the more you know and share, the more you’re contributing to the culture’s well-being. You don’t have to be Gary Warnett (and you probably couldn’t even if you wanted to … R.I.P.), but staying informed and up to date on what’s going on beyond just the biggest and most-hyped news stories of the year will ensure that you have a unique perspective on our fascinating world.
What do you plan to do to make sure that you have the best 2018 possible, both sartorially and in life as a whole? How are your 2017 resolutions looking at the end of the year? Hit us up and let us know on Twitter or sound off in the comments below!
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