I am obsessed with Steven Tyler and other musings about evolving style and taste

Personal evolution goes deeper than the surface, but let's linger with the aesthetics for a moment, shall we?

It’s my 45th birthday 🎃 so here is a fun post. Subscribe or upgrade your sub, plz. TY!

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Y’all I have been saving photos of Steven Tyler to my phone.

Just look at these pics:

I mean… COME ON. Where did he come from? Has he always been this stylish and attractive? Maybe I didn’t remember? No, I don’t think so. Has he changed or have I? I think maybe it’s me.

I think somebody is helping this man. And I want to know who.¹

I get fixated on styles, and right now, it’s this whole vibe:

• Blazers with button down shirts underneath

• Deep cleavage a-la Jenna Lyons

• Tons of mis-matched necklaces that feel vintage (right now I’m into Marla Aaron thanks to Noz Nozawa!)

• Reading glasses hanging from aforementioned necklaces (v. relatable)

• Hair ornaments, like braids and feathers, or colorful streaks

• A consciously gray or dyed money piece²

• Leopard and floral patterns (gasp!)

• Big silver rings

• Black streaked nails

• Living his best life. Case in point:

iamstevent

A post shared by @iamstevent

I’ve always had a desire to be comfortable with my style, but never was, until my 40s.

As a kid, I was pretty quirky, and my style changed on a whim. One day I’d be wearing my Nana’s weird shoes to school and the next I had fuchsia hair and giant raver pants or was a moody goth or was trying to replicate some outfit I spotted in the latest dELiA*s catalog. We all have these teenage phases.

But then, something happened to me—I entered the work world with little to no confidence. I spent most of my 20s and 30s adding armor of conformity, possibly because I was afraid of not being accepted, or maybe I didn’t want to lose out on opportunities. Society got its hands on me, and I began living a mimetic existence.

My style and taste substantially change about every 10 years. You can see this slow evolution if you look back at the posts on Design Milk. While trends change on the reg (also reflected in the content that we created), the overall editorial direction shifted organically with my own personal style. In my 20s, I was into black and white minimalism. In my 30s, it was anything tech-forward. It was a struggle to try and keep everything in my life consistent. Toward the end of that decade, I couldn’t hold the door much longer and the weird started to creep in. And let me tell ya—I’m glad it’s here!

Over the past five years or so, my taste has become a hodgepodge that combines everything I’ve liked in the past with a whole slew of new stuff from maximalism (a current trend) to vintage to natural materials to op-art geometrics. And, apparently, an aging Steven Tyler. On top of that, I’ve returned to some the core aesthetics I liked as a teenager: gold hoops, lots of rings, baggy clothes, layers, long skirts, color(!). I finally had the guts to dye my hair red.

I’ve also started to enjoy things I never would have liked in my 20s. Much of what I’m into now has been directly influenced by my own artwork. This era of my life is the most personal—the most real—I’ve ever been with my own style. It feels fantastic to settle into it; it took so long.

Part of the reason it took a while to get to this point was because I spent so much time being my idea of what Jaime should be³ and not being Jaime. When we identify with or as something, it is so hard to break that habit, even if it feels like armor, or a disguise. We’re comfortable in it. It’s what we have always known. What we don’t know is that there is so much freedom in shedding that skin. I had no idea how much joy was being suffocated by my efforts to fit in.

I think a lot about aging now. I never expected it to be so freeing. I look at other folks over 40 and I wonder if they’re going through the same thing—self-deconstruction and reconstruction. Is this part of life? Do most people encounter this deconstruction of ego and self⁴? Are they slipping into their most comfortable outfit, looking in the mirror, seeing themselves in their truest form, and feeling amazing? I hope so.

I’ll leave you with this:

1. Tyler-Styler: if you are reading this, keep up the good work!

2. I have a natural gray streak in the front that I consciously dye but I know eventually, in time, I’ll let it shine in all its gray glory. I did not know until recently that this is called a “money piece.”

3. The “shoulds” and “musts” in our lives can all fuck off now, thanks.

4. I’m gonna go deeper into this soon.