Not for the Algorithm
What J.Crew and my grandmother's photographs understood without trying.
I have a collection of my grandparents’ old photographs, ones that document their lives, ones of my mother and her brothers, and then there are a few that I swear could be a J.Crew ad.
It made me ask, “What is it about these old photographs and J.Crew ads that we’re so drawn to?” The answer, I believe, is this. It’s not performative. It’s the moments of just being there that we’ve lost. And the way our clothes just lived with us. Nothing had to try because it was natural and lived.
We’re living in an era where every photo and outfit looks posed. It’s meant for an algorithm and not our picture frames. It’s all about us, not about holding on to a memory. As I look at my Instagram profile, I can’t say there’s a photo on there I would want to hang in my house, nor is there really one that captures a memory. There are some on there I took specifically to use for my work and to showcase my designs, but there are many where I’ve decided it was better to show what I was doing instead of just enjoying the moment.
It’s our attempt to capture what both J.Crew and our grandparents’ photographs understand without even trying. But that’s the thing, the moment you try to capture it is the moment you lose the magic. What makes these moments special isn’t the new outfit or the location but the moment itself. Where no one is paying attention except the person behind the camera. The one who sees the beauty in the moment and wants to hold onto it. It’s about capturing what’s really happening—not what’s intentionally posed to look like it was “in the moment.”
As I scanned these photographs, my designer brain was working overtime because what really captured my attention was the clothing. There’s a common theme among them that I started to notice. The clothing in these old photographs truly looks as if it belongs to its wearer. It’s not a crisp polyester dress just pulled from its packaging, but clothing that drapes and molds to its owner’s shape. It’s linen that tells a story and cotton that becomes the fabric of their lives. They’re held on to because they allow you to go about your life in comfort and withstand the wear and tear of everyday life. It’s what linen and cotton offered that polyester could never. It allows us to live.
This is how clothes were meant to be worn—lived in, functional, and yet still beautiful. In these photographs, that’s what I see: clothing that has life. They’re not lived in, in a you need to iron that immediately kind of way, but in an I love this piece and will take care of it to make it last sort of way.
I have a memory of my grandmother teaching me how to care for clothes. Her biggest lesson was on ironing. She taught me to always press my clothing before heading out. It was never about buying “wrinkle-resistant” clothing to make your life easier, but taking care of the natural beauty you already have. I’m sharing this memory as a sweet moment, but as I write this out, I’m actually laughing because she is so picky! There was a time I went to help her iron, and she micromanaged me the entire time until she eventually took over. She told me, “Take your time and do it right — you want your outfit to look like you’ve lived, not like you don’t care.”
The intentional way we wear, care for, and love garments is mostly gone. It’s a value that was lost with the popularity of synthetics. These fabrics taught us to treat clothing as disposable—wear it a few times, drop it at the first sign of boredom or wear and tear.
Natural fabrics are like a J.Crew ad or my grandparents’ old photographs—they aren’t performative, they just live. They don’t do too much or try too hard. It’s when we added synthetic fabrics and chemical finishes to make garments sweat or wrinkle-free that we lost clothing’s ability to live. The chemicals break down our fibers, and the synthetic ones are cheap and easily disposed of. They no longer have the capability to hold memories because their lifecycle ends before they have the chance to collect them.
There’s a lesson to be learned from these ads and old photographs. On living for the moment and not trying too hard to impress. Choosing something because it fits your life, not an algorithm. And it’s one I hold onto. I’ve always been specifically drawn to linen. When I touch it, I’m instantly transported to an afternoon with no cell service and only the lake and my people around me. It’s what it feels like to just be in the moment. My summer collection is a love letter to summers of the past. Designed for the afternoons that no one is watching. See what I made!
xx, Brittany Anne