^{Listen along quietly to the track I Stand Alone, Robert Glasper Experiment as you read.}
What holds merit the more natural a state it lies within? Ingredients for cuisine? Rare minerals for refinery? Data suggests, contrary to personal beliefs, consumers might value fashion found out in the wild.

Thoreau implies he finds in peace in a museum. Life loses its inner glow, stupefied into a setting for the arts. Sundays I reflect, with a lens on improvement, at least, mindfulness. The clutter thins, but I hold I seem to gravitate towards more. A wish list of more difficult-to-attain items grows, yet the freedom to obtain them wanes, so I relish in their imagery at the moment.

Pleasantly, while I walk around without a plan for all this apparel to pick up, the mentorship of a new addition to my network gave guidance towards a plan of action for my freelance ambitions. In fact, synchronicity hums on the street tonight as “newsletter”, “email list”, “consumer profiles”, and other jargon floats about.

I racked my brain for the birth of those profiles, the potential individuals I might target with my service and wares. Cautious Carl could use some counsel… like I could use an e-shop to sell all this stuff.

Gen Z and millennials purchased more apparel as a result of social media brands’ posts and influencers’ content in the U.S. as of March 2021. An impressive 40% cited apparel, followed by beauty care and make-up and tech.

Those items aren’t in my line of work, but I could certainly discuss the meager self-care I do commit to routine. I have no devices I manufacture, but food and drink are topics I can devour with my entire being.

Real Needs, Not Clones

I received pushback because I approached the activity to real solutions without observing real needs first. Not strong enough, he would echo. I felt frustration bubble up, cola in a bottle rocket, but I carried on. An exploration into needs highlights something quite interesting. Many of today’s businesses solve the intrinsic needs of people, or the base of Maslow’s hierarchy.

For freelance work, however, I could not afford to poach a pre-existing business. Writing reviews feels cornered by Yelp and TripAdvisor- but I see a niche I can approach.

My real concern isn’t competition- web3 already differentiates my service. In fact, I only compete with the status quo. The problem I foresee, especially as I observe other precedents, is the matter of copies.

Content: The Clone Wars

As observational learners, humans learn by watching. This logic holds for the developmental ages from birth to childhood, but past that period, overt copying doesn’t score many points amongst creators. However, in business, emulation finds its way into many arsenals as you cannot patent everything. The chief editor of Cosmopolitan opines that the magazine’s success, however, falls victim to the ‘biting’ of styles.

“People aren’t buying like they used to,” Brown admitted to Newsday, “partly because Cosmo has been cloned.”

-Helen Gurley Brown, on Cosomopolitan magazine, 1997

Helen might feel Raekwon in this interlude track, but didn’t understand a simple but hard truth. You can’t copy style. Consistent commitment to a certain quality outshines copy machines as they do not respond quickly enough to premeditated decisions to do it differently.

Brown did, however, understand another fait accompli, or understood conclusion. To feel the beat of the people she wrote for and towards, riding the subway paid dividends. She related; she understood her consumers more.

If this reflection captures any picture at all, let it portray style and inimitability, the quality of uniqueness. Understand that audience want to highlight their own distinct qualities, that creative apparel might aid them in that effort. Only by tilling the earth of its topical layer of sameness could one plant new seeds, deeper to give way to true novelty.

#dailyobservations #selfreflectionsundays

Post Summary

• I might know myself, but I cannot know others without... data.
• Apparel apparently sells well on social media. Other products, I can't produce, but I can capture them.
• Can't copy style. Originality over everything.

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Thank God we've still got musicians and thinkers whose obsession with excellence and whose hunger for greatness remind us that we should all be unsatisfied with mimicking the popular, rather than mining the fertile veins of creativity that God placed deep inside each of us...
Michael Eric Dyson