Can fashion, language and the physical location of where we live change us, even a bit?

Throughout my life, I have lived in various countries, which has made me realise how much I change wherever I go and how easy it is to be influenced. Therefore, I’m writing this article to discover whether it’s only me or more people who experience this. 

During my teens, I lived in three different countries: Spain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom. Looking through my pictures and remembering my experiences living there, I realized how much the places I lived and the people around me influenced me.

As I grew up in Spain, I felt like I never truly belonged there, as I had a different style from other people my age, this is because I was listening to music in English, watching content in English, and barely knew any Spanish influencers that were trendy at the time. From time to time, I will get influenced by my friends, but I didn’t know what the top 10 Spanish songs are, or even which Spanish movies. I was living in my bubble, which sometimes had some interference with the outside world, whether I liked it or not. 

At the age of 14, I moved to Saudi Arabia. There I was surrounded by people of different cultures, but we all came together by speaking English and having American culture. If you entered my school you would believe it was situated somewhere in the United States, but looking deeper, it was just a bunch of Colombian, Venezuelan, and South African teenagers cosplaying as Americans. Wearing pyjamas, and Birkenstocks to school; following the latest American trends at the time. That was when I realized that maybe it doesn’t matter where you live, but what you see on social media, or the little bubble that you always spent time in, in this school. Yes, when we were home we would have our style according to our nationality, but as soon as we stepped out of our house, we were all American, but with the international school kid accent, faking it with our “American” clothes.

At the peak of my teenage years, I moved to a boarding school in the UK. There, I pretty much wore a mix of Spanish and American styles—a bit messy, I know. But I was able to navigate different styles and “aesthetics.” During my first two years, I wore band shirts and baggy jeans when I wasn’t wearing my uniform, which made me different, but as the years went by, I slowly blended into the English people. I wear flare leggings and Ralph Lauren jumpers from Depop, use UGGs during the wintertime, and fry my hair with the hair straightener almost every day. But then my personality and style changed the second I went to Spain. During my last two years there, I tried to embrace as much as possible the fact that I was Spanish by letting my natural curly hair be set free once a week (max), listening to Spanish music out loud, and speaking on the phone loudly. By that time, I had found the balance between the English and Spanish sides of me. Even though I wasn’t English, I was able to relate to my friend’s struggles, what they liked, and what they knew, but then I never really got them truly. And I realised how truly moldable I was. I had the Spanish in me biologically but then dressed like an English girl one day, and the next day, I’ll be the total opposite, I guess, kind of like a spy. There, I found out that I wasn’t the only one like that, my international friends were the same, they all had their nationalities essence, but then ended up looking aesthetically English. 

For me, yes, we are very moldable, especially during our teenage years, as we are trying to find ourselves, what we like, and what type of a person we want to be in the future. But if you moved around a lot or are a current international student, I believe that you probably went or are going through the same thing as I did, as living somewhere for a long time, at least something will stick to you from that place, even if you don’t notice, eventually you will.