Breaking All the Rules

It wasn’t until fellow style maven and blogger and newly found friend Sarah Tvrdik blogged about her obsession with the color orange and featured her new Zana Bayne leather harness on FashFlood that I discovered my new obsession. Why it took me so long to catch on, I don’t know; but the harness is everything I have been looking for in a new accessory. The piece melds together my love of straps, leather, and buckles into something truly magnificent and unique with a risque edge. It’s easy luxury and just abstract enough to make people do a double take.

While I’m a little tardy to the idea, I’m just on time as the harness has carved its place in Spring 2011 fashion. Making appearances on runways like Rag & Bone and demanding exposure in Russian Vogue, and more recently on Lady Gaga’s backup dancers on Saturday Night Live, the harness is rounding up fashion fans like myself all over the globe.

For me the appeal lies in its blatant disregard for conventional fashion and social rules. Prior to the harness' recent boom on the style scene, it was often reserved for extreme dominatrix looks (well...and animals); but now it’s pulling itself somewhere closer to mainstream. While you probably won’t walk into your doctor’s office and find someone sitting in the waiting room casually donning a harness under his or her blazer (although, it would be the perfect way to wear one!), there is something to be said about its journey from closed bedroom doors and closets of goth teenagers.

I think it is most appropriate this season, as many designer's Spring collections encouraged keeping a sense of personal style first and foremost when dressing. The harness is clearly a piece that packs a punch of personality and is something to really make your own by styling it in your individual way. The piece looks perfectly chic underneath a trench or over a classic white blouse (see photo below) and even layered underneath a vest. I love the idea of taking something so generic or classic and completely turning it upside down with something unexpected like a harness. When creating a personal style, it lies in the details. With a bold piece like a harness, an everyday ensemble becomes a statement look and something refreshing and new.

Abbey Lee Kershaw by Heidi Slimane, Vogue Russia April 2011

Runway Looks from Rag & Bone Spring 2011

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Photosource: Fashion Gone Rogue

Photosource: The Sartorialist

Photosource: UploadsMusic

Photosource: Fashion Gone Rogue

Photosource: New York Magazine