Medine has the fashion world wrapped around her finger for many reasons, but the most important is that she is wildly experimental and uninhibited when she dresses. She is the woman who challenged herself to wear a button-down shirt three different ways and never once put it on properly. She did, however, brilliantly repurpose it as a skirt.

She is the same woman who taught me just last week that I can wear a sweater tied around my neck as if it were a scarf, if I wish to do so.

I very much wish to do so. Because I’m finding that the more fashion risks I take, the more creative momentum I garner. I certainly wouldn’t be alone if I threw a sweater over a dress and made it look like a skirt. Blair Eadie, the Merchandising Consultant for Tory Burch, features this very trick almost weekly on her personal fashion blog. And why stop there when I could wear my skirt as a shirt?

Initially, my love of clothes was predicated on a misperception: that fashioning an outfit is like curating a museum. I thought that I could leave the “creativity” to fine artists and synthesize their work with ease after they’d done the dirty work. Now, I realize that I was completely wrong. In reality, the best dressers, like the best museum curators, are innovative, out-of-the-box thinkers who don’t take themselves—or any industry dictum—too seriously.

You don’t need to spend millions on a designer bag, injure yourself in a pair of high heels, or wear something that makes you feel self-conscious just for the sake of being on trend. All you need is a little humility and sense of humor.

Imagine how much happier, and more fashionable, the world could be if we all took this to heart.

Lily K. Calcagnini, ’18, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Dunster House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.