Subtlety is a Sickness
To Fade is to Forfeit: Why the World Worships the Seen
“Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous. At all cost.”
Law 6: “Court Attention at All Costs”, The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
A series exploring the psychology of personal style
To be mortal is such a cage.
We have such limited time on this earth, and yet most people are desperately trying to make as little an impact as possible. Too soft, too polite, too addicted to approval to ever cast (or have) a true opinion, or to use wardrobe an extension of self. So many people, absolutely mute.
Marchesa Luisa Castai (1881-1957), was the inverse. She was an Italian heiress, muse, and mythmaker who made it her life’s mission to become unforgettable. She used her vast fortune to construct a persona so otherworldly, so visually arresting, that it eclipsed her identity entirely. Her eyes were rimmed in kohl blacker than mourning, her gowns dripped with feathers and fur. She roamed the city with cheetahs leashed at her side, hosted séances in her gothic homes and decorated her hair with taxidermy birds, perched ever-so-strangely. People stared. People whispered. People watched even when they wanted to look away.
She was painted by Boldini, photographed by Man Ray, and dressed by Poiret. Decades after her death, Marchesa Luisa Casati’s spectral glamour still rippled through the fashion world—Karl Lagerfeld famously cited her as a muse, channeling her opulent eccentricity into modern haute couture. She was a muse so intoxicating she transcended into another realm of space and time.
She declared, “I want to be a living work of art.” And that she was.
Casati didn’t chase attention—she weaponized it.
Understand: power can operate in the shadows, but the purpose of the shadow is to conceal, to obscure. Like Oz, the Wizard pulled every lever, but lived behind a curtain—unseen, uncredited, untouchable.
Power and influence are very tricky beasts: if all you want is control, darkness will do.
But if you want glory, your face remembered, your presence felt, the feeling that influence brings, you must try harder. You must step into the light. You have to be seen.
To court attention at all costs is not to beg for the gaze. It is to command it.
In order to do this, you must be what everyone else is not.
The Mechanics of Being Unforgettable
✦ 1. Visual Whiplash: The Art of Contrast
This isn’t necessarily about being loud. It’s about not being definable. Contrast confuses, and confusion forces attention.
Casati’s presence was built on the tension between delicacy and danger. Her skin was powdered to ghostly white; her gowns clung to her like smoke. She created a kind of psychic whiplash—daring the eye to reconcile softness with savagery.
In your world:
Don’t match—fracture. A sharply tailored jacket over sheer lace. Perfect hair with chipped nails, oversized trousers with a shockingly tight corset. Anything to create the tension of duality. This is not about shock value: if you cannot carry yourself with confidence, you will look like a child begging for attention. When done correctly, you will feel empowered, righteous, even sexy.
✦ 2. Use Signatures Like Spells
Abandon trends, forsake the chase! Create something that is specific to you from something you have always adored.
Casati knew that repetition breeds myth. Her face, always ringed in heavy kohl, became a signature shadow. Her fingers slithered with rings made of snakes and spiders. By anchoring herself in repeating visual symbols, she became instantly recognizable. Not fashionable. Iconic.
In your world:
Choose something, anything. Maybe it’s your favorite shape, color, pattern or silhouette. Show it off, be proud of who you are and what you love. Use it over and over— one day, others will see it on someone else, and it will remind them of you. Give up the never-ending game of ‘what if’ and make your reflection someone you recognize.
✦ 3. Don’t Fit the Frame—Distort It
Stop begging people to accept you by wearing the same thing as everyone else. This is the crux. You must get over your ego; you must be brave enough to try something new.
Casati’s animals were not accessories. They were extensions of who she was, her personality, her aura. She walked cheetahs on gold chains through public squares not as a stunt, but as a method to showcase her inner world.
In your world:
You may not walk with beasts—but you can cultivate an aura that suggests anything you want. It doesn’t need to be extravagant; maybe its a signature perfume, or jewelry that makes people look twice. Perhaps it’s a signature eye look, or the way you tie your laces or your ties. This doesn't need to be chaotic, only symbolic. Take what you like, no matter how subtle, and amplify it until it no longer fits in the box.
✦ 4. Discomfort is the Price of Power
If what you want is to be unforgettable, you have to give up the desire to be liked by everyone. That’s the cowards way out. In reality, it doesn't matter if you are praised, feared, insulted or revered, as all of those are markings of the unforgettable.
Casati was not concerned with elegance. She was concerned with effect. Her clothing was often physically unbearable—corsets that constricted breath, headdresses that made sitting impossible, fabrics that shimmered like fever dreams. But her discomfort became part of the performance. The suffering was the spell.
In your world:
Don’t confuse fashion with power. Fashion is not style. Fashion is the mannequin on perfect display, style are the details you add, what you pair it with, the way you morph it. Relish in the knowledge that people won’t know if you’re beautiful or mad. That’s where the power lives, because that’s what people will remember. You.
One of my favorite mantas is beauty is pain.
Wear the 6-inch heels, slick back your hair. Pin the earrings that are overweight and bulbous, straighten your back and square your shoulders. Put the work in and walk like you mean it. Attention is not noise—it is gravity. It pulls, distorts, magnetizes.
Marchesa Luisa Casati may have died in poverty, but she did not die in obscurity. She accomplished something that all of the money in the world couldn’t buy: the right to be remembered.
Let them wonder where you came from. Let them speak your name with reverence or ridicule, be brave enough not to give a damn.
In the realm of power, to be seen is to survive, but to be unforgettable is to rule.
Become the spectacle.
With great personal aesthetic,
Alexandra Diana, The A List
How to Use Subtle Statements to Amass Great Power
First in a series inspired by The 48 Laws of Power
