truth in fashion

Yesterday, Modcloth co-founder Susan Koger shared an open letter to the fashion industry, asking for more truth in fashion advertising and pledging to help promote those truths herself. Modcloth asked if I would be interested in writing my own open letter to the fashion powers-that-be, and you better believe I was interested! So here it is --



Dear Fashion,

For most of my post-adolescent life I've struggled with feeling unattractive. Through blogging I've grown more confident in my appearance (in my very first outfit post I had blocked out my face because I thought I was so ugly) but I find I'm still susceptible to advertising witchcraft. I can get dressed in the morning and put on an outfit that makes me feel like a million dollars, and then walk into the mall and instantly feel like a chubby, hideous little freak compared to the beauties in the posters surrounding me.

I'm all for every and any advance that can be made in advertising. No photoshop? Fantastic. Every body shape? Wonderful. But here's what I really want to see -- regular people. I want to see advertisements with girls who don't fall into society's accepted definition of beauty. Some girls with bigger noses, like me! I want to see girls with scars, disfigurements, average features, disabilities, crooked teeth, freckles, pimples, and low cheekbones. Size 0, size 28. Pear shape, square shape. It's all well and good to say that you didn't photoshop your model, but when she still looks like most models do post-editing, it doesn't really help much. I want every girl to look at advertisements and see herself. See that her flaws can be beautiful, and she doesn't have to fit into one standard beauty mode to be considered pretty. Every girl is gorgeous, but hardly any of us believe it about ourselves. Seeing our own unique beauty reflected in the advertisements around us would do wonders for our collective self esteem.

I'd also like to see cellulite. I know, nobody actually wants to see it. But guess what? 90% of us have it. And yet I don't think I've ever seen it in an ad, catalog or online shop. Even though it's been statistically proven that almost all girls have it, I still find myself feeling insecure and gross when bathing suit season comes around. Because all of the images I've seen in my life have tricked my brain into thinking that I'm alone in my dimpled shame.

In the end, that's what fashion has done to a lot of girls -- it's made us feel alone. And it's a crying shame, because fashion is SO fun. When we were little, so many of us loved playing dress up. When we looked in the mirror, we didn't see our imperfections, we saw princesses and fairies staring back at us. The only thing that changed between then and now is exposure to advertisements that made us believe our bodies were bad and our faces were ugly or plain.

Let's finally have some truth in advertising, so we can all look in the mirror and see regal reflections once more.

un, deux, trois

remixed item: black spaghetti strap dress from forever 21

outfit 1: tights - h&m // shoes - target // bag - uo // cardigan - f21 // belt - old navy

outfit 2: lace dress - vintage // shoes - blowfish // belt - old navy

outfit 3: crochet crop top - h&m // shoes - target // necklace - handmade

If you've been here since last July, you might recognize that first photo, and understand why there is a red oval over my face. It was my very first outfit post, one year ago this week. I decided to start doing outfit posts as a way to build my self confidence, but this was obviously a very huge hurdle if I couldn't even find the courage to include my face in the picture!

Thankfully, these posts have helped in that department. I'm a lot more secure in dressing the way I please, and that girl with the red oval for a head would be super glad to know that I'm not ashamed to show my face anymore. I have my off days when I think I look like crap, and almost every day of the week I wish I had a big red oval floating over my giant behind when I go out in public, but for the most part I'm very happy with who I am, and how I look. And it's pretty much all thanks to these posts.

If anyone out there reading this has been on the fence about starting to outfit blog, I say go for it! It's made me so much more happy with my appearance, and in a town where jeans and t-shirts are the standard uniform, I no longer feel embarrassed to step out in my fancy dresses. It's done wonders for my self-confidence, and not feeling insecure about how you look on the outside really makes you feel amazing on the inside!

posh frock friday

dress - asos

shoes - vintage

cardigan - forever 21

belt - forever 21

crinoline - amazon

So, I dyed my hair pink! I liked the idea of a pink wig in theory, but I really love wearing my hair up, and you just can't do that with a wig. So I took the plunge and just decided to dye it pink! I needed to bleach my hair to touch up the red anyway, and figured what the heck? :)

The only problem was that the old red dye didn't get lightened enough on the bottom, so the pink didn't really show up there. I need to re-dye that this weekend! I actually took a BUNCH of outfit photos last Sunday so that if the pink came out hideous I would have a stockpile of pictures to post while I tried to un-do the mess, haha! Luckily I love how it came out (even with the red bottom, it just looks like intentional ombre or something, which is still cool) so that wasn't even necessary! :D

I used manic panic cotton candy pink, diluted about 50% with conditioner (a tip I got from this AMAAAAAZING hair dye post on The Dainty Squid) to get the lighter pastel color. If I can get the bottom of my hair to come out right, I think I might keep this color for a while! It really matches my blog, too! haha! ;-D

Do you want to comment, but have no idea what to say? Trust me, I've been there! So to make things a little easier, here is a question you can answer if you can't think of anything else to say! :)

Have you ever dyed your hair before? If yes, what color(s)? Which was your favorite? I've done blonde, dark brown, light brown, red and dark purple.. and now pink :)

bad hair day

dress - modcloth

belt - forever 21

shoes - karmaloop

I've had bangs for so long now that whenever I wear them back, I don't think I look like me! I get the urge to wear a baseball cap or anything to cover up my forehead... I feel like my face should be about half as tall as it really is lol ;-D I really think hair can make or break an outfit. I wasn't happy with my hair, so the outfit reflects that (at least to me it does.) I felt kind of dumpy and sloppy, which, by the way, is hard to do in a dress this cute!

Do you want to comment, but have no idea what to say? Trust me, I've been there! So to make things a little easier, here is a question you can answer if you can't think of anything else to say! :)

Should I keep doing a question of the day?

let me start over

Last night I realized I had nothing at all planned to post today, but since I haven't missed one single day all year long I really didn't want to break my record. So I posted this long rambling thing about all of my internet links -- my other blogs, my etsy accounts, tumblrs, etc -- and scheduled it to post around 7am while I was still sleeping. When I woke up I realized how stupid it was and immediately deleted it. I mean seriously, it was like I was advertising myself or something? I don't even know what I was thinking. So I wanted to apologize if you caught it while it was still up.

Last time this happened to me (an "omg what am I going to post?!?!" panic attack) I went a much classier route, and posted pictures of cute cats! Much better. So continuing with that theme of posting pretty things when I'm drawing a blogging blank, here's a gorgeous photo of Monica Vitti. If you're not familiar with her, she's an Italian actress from the 60's, and I highly recommend her films. She's pretty much every ounce of awesome on this planet rolled into one person.

I think I actually need some kind of regular series to do on Saturdays so I don't keep blanking out when it's time to post! Unfortunately I'm drawing a blank there, too! Any ideas are greatly appreciated. :) Maybe a film review? I miss doing them but I don't know if anyone would want to read them.

Do you want to comment, but have no idea what to say? Trust me, I've been there! So to make things a little easier, here is a question you can answer if you can't think of anything else to say! :)

Which is the funnier word - giggle or llama?

sunday funnies

(via milk overdose)

I think this is one of the coolest things ever, and so brilliantly executed!

The Sunday Funnies feature is one of my favorites, but it's my least popular post each week. I think it might be a Sunday thing because I had a feature on my movie blog each Sunday (song of the week) that had an equally pitiful reception. So, a question-- if you blog, do you have this problem too? The posts you like the most are the least read.. the ones you really want feedback on are the ones that get 0 comments. If you have an unsuccessful series, do you keep chugging or do you stop? Ultimately, we blog because we love to. So if we like posting pictures of groundhogs in glasses every Friday, even though nobody else does, we should keep posting those bespectacled animals to our hearts' content, right?

somewhere there's a someone for everyone

dress - modcloth

sweater - f21

hair bow - f21

sunglasses - fred flare

shoes - my grandmom

So, today is Valentine's Day. I thought it would be a good day to confess a deep, dark embarrassing secret that I've kept hidden from all but a handful of online friends. I am perpetually single. I'm 24 years old and I've never been on a single date in my entire life. It's not that I'm super picky or anything. It just never happened.

In high school none of the guys I was interested in asked me out, so I went through high school dateless. Then right out of high school I started taking online college classes, so there was no real interaction with other humans. Choosing a career as an artist led me to work from home, so no interaction there either. Honestly I don't really even want to meet anyone while I live in my hometown because I'm afraid that I'll get tied down here, and I don't want to live here for another month let alone an entire lifetime. I'm finally moving in the fall, hopefully taking on-campus classes and getting a real live job. I feel like my life is finally going to begin, but at the same time I feel incredibly naive. I'm in my mid-twenties and I am a complete romantic novice. I'm terrified that I'll meet someone wonderful, and they'll be turned off by my inexperience. I don't even know if that's something you spill on a first date... How do you tell someone in their 20's or 30's that your first date with them is actually your first date EVER! It has such a negative connotation, like people will either think my parents kept me incredibly sheltered (which they didn't) or that I have some kind of mental problem (which I don't). It's hard to explain that it's just a series of strange circumstances, a deep-seated fear of being stuck in New Jersey (okay, my hatred for my home state might be a little less than normal) and a poor teenage dating batting average that got me here.

I'll be the first to admit, though, that deep down I do believe I'll find someone someday who is understanding and patient, and who thinks my inexperience is endearing, not off-putting. It might take a while to find them, but I think they're out there. I'm not really a romantic but I do believe that somewhere there's a someone for everyone, and somewhere there's a someone for me :)

can't you hear my heartbeat

dress - modcloth

shirt - old navy

belt - f21

tights - asos

shoes - payless

When I first started doing the outfit posts last year, one of the reasons was to boost my confidence. I thought that getting dressed up, having to photograph myself & edit the photos would put me more at ease with my appearance. It wasn't until last night that I realized it worked.

Yesterday I got my first "you look fat" comment. Last year, it would have made me cry, probably delete all of the outfit photos from my blog and stop doing them FOREVER. Someone in New York last April asked me if I was pregnant when I had on an ill-fitting coat, and I swear I could have burst out crying right in the middle of Brookstone. I put the coat up on ebay as soon as we got home, and wallowed in self pity.

But now, since I've been doing the posts, I really do have more self confidence. When I got that comment last night, my train of thought was more along the lines of "how could anyone actually say that?!" than "omg I'm a cow!" I was much more astonished than I was upset. Because of these posts, I really do have a much better self-image, and a judgmental comment one night is not enough to make me start crash-dieting in the morning.

So, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have an enormous lunch and enjoy every bite of it. I like my waistline just the way it is. :)

ps. When I was putting on these tights, I stuck my thumb right through the back & put a giant hole in them :'-( So, this is their first and last appearance here. SAD!!

curves ahead (unfortunately)

I was hesitant to upload the photos of myself earlier today wearing that blue polka dotted dress, because I just felt like I looked (there's no nice way to put this) so trampy in it. Having curves can be a great thing.. sometimes. But honestly, as far as attire goes, sexy lingerie is just about the only thing I can think of where curves help you out. In most other categories, it's an epic fail.

Take for example, the trapeze dress. If you're not curvy, you look like Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby, pre-devil child. If you're curvy, you look like you're 9 months into carrying Satan's spawn.

How about cute girly dresses -- particularly ones with cute little collars, frilly sleeves or gingham. On someone who isn't blessed with hips the size of Mt. Everest, this style comes off as sweet and adorable. On me, I look like I'm sending submission photos for plus-sized playmate of the month.

What about pencil skirts? On the non-curvy girl, this is a very suitable choice of clothing for the office. You'd look sophisticated and professional. On Miss 40-28-40, you look more like Joan from Mad Men, and I think you know what I mean. We can't pull off the pencil skirt without looking like we not-so-secretly want to bed our boss.

And then there's the spaghetti-strap, my offense that sparked this post. It's a delightful, dainty detail that looks summery & peachy keen on a girl who isn't curvy. But add a set of DD's and it looks like those little dainty straps are doing everything they can to keep you from bursting out of your dress.

All in all, this makes getting dressed each day kind of hard, at least for me. If I don't look like a late night call girl, then I look like I'm with-child. I want to join in the fight against sloppiness, pj's at the grocery store and track suits at the bank ... but when your figure doesn't seem to look presentable or respectable in normal clothing, sweatpants start to look very appealing.

----------------------------------------------------

UPDATE -- I just want to clarify a few things -- I'm very happy with my body, and my self-image -- this isn't about me wanting to be skinny or thinking I'm fat. This is merely about wanting to be able to wear certain fashions that wouldn't look flattering on my shape. I *know* that there are clothes that flatter curvy bodies, I'm just saying that sometimes I'm watching Rosemary's Baby and I'd do anything to be able to wear her wardrobe without looking like I have a basketball for a stomach. It's almost like how I can crave meat even though I'm a vegetarian. I know that I can't eat it, but I desire to sometimes. I still eat my fake chicken and tofu, but look on enviously at the turkey platter on the table. Sometimes you just want what you can't have, and for me that is trapeze dresses and cute girly outfits.

Being curvy is a great thing -- and if you are curvy, you should be proud! I did not mean to say otherwise. Everyone should be happy with their bodies! My only point was that certain fashions just aren't made for hourglass girls, and when I love said fashions, that makes me sad.

creative self confidence in the internet age

Artists are notoriously either super-confident and egotistical (hi, there Dali!) or painfully insecure in their work and talent.

For those of us in the latter category, the internet can be remarkably encouraging or dreadfully soul-crushing. First you have the fact that there are definitely going to be at least 1,000 artists who are 1,000 times more talented and creative than you are (see the above illustration by the 1,000-times-more-talented-than-I artist Gemma Correll) who get 1,000 comments and favorites on every new drawing they post. They'll have fan bases and powerful bloggers who drool over their latest work. You won't be jealous, but you'll ogle at their greatness and wish that you had one inkling of the talent and raw creative magnetism that they hold.

Putting that aside, though, there's also the fact that almost every single website on which you can post the fruits of your creative labor will have some sort of feedback system. Below your post, viewers will have the option to favorite, comment, retweet, reblog, like, digg, stumble, unlike and heart. There's a world of feedback just waiting to be tapped into each time you decide to share your creations with the world. Knowing of those possibilities makes the dead silence ache even more. Of all the websites, Flickr, to me, is the worst because it tallies up the views for you whether you want them there or not (believe me, I've tried to get rid of them.) One, twenty, forty, two hundred. Two hundred people have viewed, and not one has offered an inkling of support. To the perpetually insecure person with the active imagination you can literally see these phantom viewers in your mind's eye, turning their noses up at you and shaking their heads in disbelief that someone as untalented, as horribly unsuited to the creative professions as YOU would dare to post their artwork in public. They click on, presumably hoping to find a picture of a fluffy cat in a funny situation that will help rid their memory of your appalling creation.

Twitter and facebook aren't quite as bad because you can imagine that every single person who follows you is out to dinner at the exact moment that you post your tweet or status update. They aren't snubbing you or ignoring your desperate pleas for someone, anyone!, to click and view your product of hours and hours of painstaking work. They're simply not there to see it. And by the time they do return, hundreds of other people have tweeted or updated and pushed your cries out of the way. But nevertheless, the silence hurts. You could have had all the confidence in the world before hitting that publish button, but once the damage is done you find yourself over-analyzing your work and questioning whether or not it was ever good to begin with.

If Van Gogh were around today, he'd suffer from the same ignorance as he did in his time, only now he would be ignored by the typing masses instead of the art critics. Or maybe both. Painting at least once a day, he'd upload painting after painting -- probably joining the daily painters group on flickr in an attempt to get noticed -- but the comments would not come. In a fit of desperation, he'd tape himself cutting off his ear, and post the video on youtube, with a link to his etsy shop, just in case. But his reckless attempt to get attention would still go unnoticed. He'd watch in horror as the view count went up on his video, but still nobody commented!

Wallowing in despair and self pity, he'd check himself into a mental institution and spend the rest of his days creating wild, vibrant paintings of the facebook like button.

to feel light

I had a dream last night that I was skinny again. I felt lighter, I moved easily and gracefully. I was conscious that I was dreaming and reveled in my lightness. I rummaged my closet for shorter skirts that I could wear without feeling self conscious. Moving, sitting and standing were weightless.

I miss being skinny. I miss it, not because of how I looked but because of how I felt. I miss feeling light and totally carefree. Not caring if fabric clung or bunched, or if skirts rode up past my knees. Paying no notice to my appearance because it didn't feel so constantly present.

Now, I'm always conscious of my body. Conscious of my weight. Of the louder sound that my feet make on the ground as I walk; of the tight feeling when my jeans cut into my stomach when I sit. I feel heavy, weighed down, more tired and less bouncy.

*

I've been walking now for a month, every single night I walk almost a mile. I eat healthy. I exercise. Yet I still see no difference. When I remember what if felt like when I was thin, I wonder if I'll ever feel like that again. I really miss the old me, and no matter how hard I try I don't think I'll ever be her again.

the light... it burns!

dress - H&M
sweater - f21
belt - f21

It doesn't happen often, but I thought I looked amazing today when I looked in the mirror.. my hair looked nice, makeup came out great and I was happy with the clothes. Then I took my picture :-\ Anyone else have this problem? You look SO good in the mirror, but then once you take a picture it's like what the HECK happened?! I'm convinced that my face must look best mirrored, since the only self-portraits I like are taken with photo booth, which flips your image, and my reflection in the mirror always looks so much better than I do on camera. Am I just crazy or does anyone else feel the same way??

*

I actually went to bed last night at 11pm (though, sadly, I fell asleep before Dirk Bogarde even showed his lovely face in So Long at the Fair... I was THAT tired) and woke up, astoundingly, at 6:30am!! But this whole daylight thing is going to take some getting used to. My eyes are burning, and I don't know if it's from the glaring light beaming in through my windows or the fact that I'm still majorly sleep deprived.