Fashion Unfiltered

To know what unfiltered means, first understand filtered. A filter is a device to remove unwanted material, and filtering is a process of assessing items or thoughts in order to reject those that are unwanted. Unfiltered means not having been filtered. Fashion unfiltered is what remains when the filters come off — in dress, and in speech about dress.

Unfiltered Dressing

The styles we choose to wear can be subdued — soft and restrained — or overpowering with colour and extravagance. Fashion unfiltered is not filtering out certain elements of style: we often filter out aspects of what we would like to wear for fear of what other people may think of our outfits. The unfiltered advice is direct — do not filter out clothing that you enjoy; wear what you want to wear; take off the filters that restrain.

Or maybe those filters are actually good for us. Filters may be helpful and keep us in check: a workplace, an occasion and a budget are filters of a useful kind, and the mature version of unfiltered style is knowing which filters are fear and which are judgement. Fashion unfiltered, at its best, is about finding your own sense of style and not worrying about what others think — designers willing to create the way they want included.

Unfiltered Speech

In regard to thoughts, the human mind filters out some of the nonsense before we put our thoughts into words, and the words a person chooses can inspire, hurt or heal. The words used to describe fashion have similar power: a fashion brand can be touched in a positive way by supportive words from a fashion influencer, and before issuing a product review we should ask whether our minds should be filtered or unfiltered.

The standing example: if your best friend is planning to wear an absolutely ugly sweater today, believing it to be gorgeous, do you share your opinion? Speak the truth and it is fashion unfiltered — but honesty that knowingly hurts feelings, when a tactful version would protect a friend from walking out a mess, shows that the filter question has no single answer. The publication that shares the name, Fashion Unfiltered, describes itself as a premier online destination for fashion news, commentary and criticism, in-depth style coverage and cultural reportage — unfiltered as editorial independence.

The Filter Audit

The practical exercise behind this page's idea is an audit of one outfit and one opinion. For the outfit: lay out what you would wear if nobody whose judgement you fear would see it, then note honestly what the imagined audience removes — a colour, a silhouette, a piece with a memory attached. Each removed item is a filter located; whether it is fear or judgement is then a decision you make, rather than a habit you obey. For the opinion: take the last strong fashion judgement you kept to yourself — about a friend's purchase, a brand's campaign, a colleague's interview suit — and ask what the unfiltered version would have accomplished that the filtered one did not, and at what price to whom. The audit rarely concludes that all filters should go; it concludes that they should be chosen. That conclusion is the difference between unfiltered as a slogan and unfiltered as a style: the first removes every restraint at once and calls the result honesty, while the second keeps the restraints that protect other people and discards the ones that only protect an image. Designers, influencers and friends are all easier to trust in the second condition.