What If Trying Hard Isn't Embarrassing?

I genuinely think one of the biggest trends of the last decade has been pretending not to care.

Not just in fashion, but in almost every part of culture.

The ideal outfit isn't simply one that looks good anymore. It has to look effortless. It has to look like you threw it on without thinking. Like the jacket just happened to be there. Like the trousers just happened to fit perfectly. Like you somehow wandered out of the house looking exactly how you wanted to look without spending any time trying to achieve it.

The performance is almost as important as the outfit itself.

You can't just look good. You have to look like looking good wasn't your intention.

And the strange thing is that most of us know it's not true.

Nobody accidentally develops great style. Nobody accidentally develops great taste. Those things come from paying attention. From curiosity. From trial and error. From spending years figuring out what you like and what feels true to you.

Yet admitting that feels oddly embarrassing now.

I catch myself doing it all the time. If somebody compliments an outfit, my instinct is often to downplay it. To make it seem less intentional than it actually was. To create some distance between myself and the fact that I cared enough to think about it. Why? Because somewhere along the way, caring became uncool.

We've built an entire culture around appearing detached from the things that matter to us. The worst thing you can be seen doing is trying too hard. The worst thing you can be accused of is wanting something too much.

In Britain especially, we've practically turned this into a national personality trait. Every generation seems to invent new language for the same idea. Cringe. Try-hard. Doing too much. Beg. The word "beg" is particularly interesting because it can mean almost anything now. Sometimes it feels like a punishment for enthusiasm itself. You can be called beggish for dressing up. For promoting your work. For expressing excitement. For putting yourself out there. For caring publicly about something.

There's an underlying message attached to all of it: relax. Don't make it obvious that this matters to you.Some of the most interesting people I've ever met care deeply about things.

They care about music. They care about clothes. They care about films. They care about football. They care about cooking. They care about photography. They care about making things. They care about becoming better at the things they love. That's what makes them interesting in the first place.

Nobody sits through a conversation with someone and thinks, "Wow, they're so fascinating because they were completely indifferent to everything." Passion is attractive. Enthusiasm is attractive. Conviction is attractive. Yet culturally, we've become obsessed with pretending otherwise.

Fashion is probably where I notice it most because clothing is one of the few passions people physically carry around with them. What you wear is visible. It tells people something before you've spoken. And increasingly, it feels like people aren't dressing to express themselves. They're dressing to communicate that they didn't think about it.That's very different.

I think it's cool when somebody spends an hour putting together an outfit because they genuinely care about how they present themselves. I think it's cool when somebody experiments, gets it wrong, changes their mind and tries again. I think it's cool when somebody puts effort into something despite not having the perfect wardrobe, the perfect budget or the perfect references.There is something authentic about effort.Not manufactured effort. Not performative effort. Genuine investment.

The kind that comes from wanting to put your best foot forward because the world means something to you.

Because that's what getting dressed has always been about. At its best, fashion isn't really about clothing. It's about participation. It's a person saying, "This is who I am today." That's an optimistic act. It requires a certain amount of vulnerability. You're putting a version of yourself out into the world and hoping it connects with people.I don't understand why we've decided that vulnerability should be embarrassing.

The things that make us memorable are usually the things we care about most. The interests we can't stop talking about. The projects we keep returning to. The passions we carry around with us for years.Yet we're constantly encouraged to soften them. To downplay them. To act as though they matter less than they do.

I'm getting tired of that performance; if the last decade was defined by nonchalance, maybe the next should be about enthusiasm, where openly caring isn’t seen as a weakness but as something genuinely compelling. I’d rather be remembered as someone who cared deeply than someone who spent their life pretending not to care at all.

Written by Vanessa Twerefou