Reunions are complicated things.  On the one hand, you fear that you’ll need to impress people with how much better your life is than it was in High School.  (No brainer – it TOTALLY IS)  And you might feel the need to be able to say, “I’ve made something of myself!”  You also think to yourself, “Why would I want to go?  These people are just going to be as stuck up as they were in High School.”  But listen, it’s up to you a) to decide that you want to go and b) to decide that it’s going to be fun.  If you waltz in with an air of “you’re all assholes” superiority, you’re going to miss out on what makes these parties fun.

So, going into this, remember:  These people are just people, just like you, who’ve done wonderful things, who are loved by people, who have probably made mistakes and made up for them.  The first thing you need to put on when preparing for your reunion is a smile.  The second thing you’re going to do is put on your war face – You’re going to need to be a little brave, because I’m going to suggest you go and talk to everyone you can remember, and even some of the people you don’t remember!  The third thing I’m going to suggest is to maybe eat before hand, and don’t automatically bum-rush the bar (if there’s a bar).  Nobody wants to see you carried out to a taxi halfway through the party.  Be smart about your alcohol consumption.

Oh, and nobody wants to relive that humiliating junior prom – you remember, the one where you had a blemish the size of Vesuvius on your chin, after stressing about a gal-pal going with your ex-flame.  Take a breather, maybe book a facial a few weeks ahead of time.  It’s time to plan what to wear.

Add a lot of drama by mixing high contrast colors.  Toss in a pop of raspberry or coral to keep it fresh.  This look is great for both day-time and evening events, and you’ll totally turn heads…

Or Ultra-Boheme -

Now that you’ve got your “what to wear”, take a minute to survey the room and put on a smile.

What did you wear to your reunion?  Got any tips for reunion-bound babes?

Whether we realize it or not, we are all influenced by something, whether it be celebrities, trends or designs of the past. This week’s links a la mode celebrates influencers and the voices we create from our inspiration. As fashion bloggers, we have each other to look for when we are feeling uninspired and this community is something we should never take for granted!

Links à la Mode: July 28st

• 1972projects: WASTED
• a tout le monde: Simple & to the Point!
• Beyond Fabric: The Lost Art of Keeping it Simple
• Bespoke Baroque: The Challenge to Wear Less Black (and Grey and Beige)
• Bonnie Vie: Body Con(scious)
• Britt + Whit: Wall Art
• Chanel and Something Else: The Naked Back
• Dress With Courage: How do you define blogging success?
• Fashables: Forever 21 Dresses
• FASHSTASH: Redefining the Gender Boundaries in Fashion
• I Got Style and I’m Fab: A Reflection on Small-Town Fashion
• IFB: What Makes a Blogger Influential?
• Interrobangs Anonymous: Revolution Through Sweaty Apathy
• Kings Rule Together: A Kings Response: GQ 40 Worst-Dress Cities in America
• Lifestyles of the Thrifty and Shameless: Everybody, Everywear (again)
• Panache Offblast: Bring Out Your Inner Geek-Chic!
• Pretty Innovative: Geeked Out Over eCommerce
• Style Island: I’ll be on your side forever more..that’s what trends are for
• Styling You: 10 Ways to Dress for French Champagne on an Aussie Beer Budget
• The Loudmouth Lifestyle: Competing, Comparing Confessing

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My body is changing.  In the last year, I’ve gained an inch or two around – everywhere.  I know this because sometimes I can be a little self conscious, but if you no longer fit into any of your jeans, wouldn’t you be a little annoyed?  Besides being heavier than I’ve ever been, I’m also more out-of-shape than ever.  So in a recent conversation I mentioned a meeting with a trainer, and a friend asked me, “Like … at a gym?  Why do YOU need a trainer?  That’s silly!”  I thought about it – I want to fit into the clothes I own.  I’d also like to be able to run up a flight of stairs without gasping like a fish out of water!  From the outside this might seem like a thin-obsession, but it’s more about knowing what makes me feel good.

I asked body-positive blogger, Jessica from Tangled Up In Lace, about this phenomenon:

The whole flipping point of Body Acceptance is that NO MATTER what you decide your body’s path is, its perfect for you.   Its a matter of thinking critically about WHY you want to do what you want to do with your body.  I’m so behind self care and deciding what healthy means to you

No one ever has the right to put value on how someone handles their own body.

And Ashe from Dramatis Personae pointed out:

There hasn’t been a point in my life where my body wasn’t solely my own concern.  My parents were always worried about me being too fat as a child, when I really wasn’t more than chubby.  Instead of teaching me to eat right, they just tried to ban foods from my diet.  It wasn’t ever about health, it was about appearance.

In the past 2 months, I’ve had one close friend and one acquaintance call me fat.  And the fact is, it made me more angry than anything.  Who the hell are they to make comments on my body?  As far as I’m concerned, my weight is the concern of me, my doctor, and my partner– in that order.

The media doesn’t help– since I was a kid, magazines had covers boasting the weight loss of stars, while tabloid magazines trashed the weight gains and struggles of others.  They’ve taken women’s bodies and made them public property, free for all to make comments on, without regard to the fact that there are people inside those bodies.

Women should do, simply, what makes them feel good without being detrimental to their health.  If eating a cupcake on a bad day makes you feel better, do it!  If going on a 5 mile run makes you feel great after a fight with you best friend, do it.  Every goal I have for my own body and weight is, for the first time in my life, strictly for me.  It’s about feeling a certain way, going back to a place where I was happy, and was living a life in moderation.

My friend Carrie is undertaking a fitness/body challenge – she’s recently competed in figure competitions.  She does it because “It makes me feel strong, confident, sexy, invincible… I’ve realized that I loved the process leading up to it much more than the competition itself.  The way I feel when I take care of myself by eating right and working out is enough motivation for me now. There’s nothing better than feeling great!”

Although she does it for the best reasons, she’s still subject to body-shaming.  She adds:

It’s much easier to cut a person down or discourage them because of your own issues than be unconditionally supportive. I see this in all aspects of my life, but never moreso than going through this fitness/body transformation journey… and I STILL get it even after all this time. The comments change but story is the same, the people belittling my effort, & my goals seem threatened by it. They are happier if I’m not doing than if I am.

Honestly, the more I think about it, that whole “you’re fine just the way you are” thing really gets to me. Because if [someone] mentions a desire to change… why not improve? There shouldn’t be anything wrong with that (outside of like you said, extreme situations where there’s something else going on).  I really think it goes back to making the rest of us uncomfortable… it’s been much easier for the masses to say, “love yourself the way you are” than for ALL of us to have to take an honest look at ourselves and either accept what we know we don’t like, or … work fucking hard to make changes.  Change isn’t easy, especially when it comes to matters of eating/exercise and the discipline that involves.

I felt a little shame as I headed to my gym appointment, because obviously I love me, right?  Why should I get the side-eye, because I want to be healthier and stronger?  There’s this derisiveness towards my hitting the gym as if these people think I’m deluding myself about why I go.  I feel like we (Everybody. Women.  Ourselves.  Each other.) are so programmed to snark on women’s bodies, regardless of the situation – whether they’re curvaceous or thin or fit or waiflike or brown or purple or like cheese or whatever.  We’re totally missing the point of just caring for ourselves.

As this post titled,  The Body Count from “At War With Our Bodies” adds,

Body image should never be a battle. Although it is true that the ideal weight, as defined by the mass media, has been shrinking in recent years I am more disheartened by this attitude of “winning” and “losing” than I am by the media’s glorification of a nearly unattainable body. People are losing sight of the real problem maker, the media, and aiming their frustrations at each-other by splitting off into teams of sorts ; us against them, skinny against fat, muscular against frail… it just doesn’t make sense.

While I am 100% behind the Fat Acceptance Movement and all of the more generalized Body Acceptance Movements, I cannot get behind their unintentional exclusion of certain body types. For instance, the phrase used by many FA Activists, real women have curves**, really bothers me. Real women have curves? How about; real women have vaginas? Or even better; all women are real women, whether they were born female or became female by choice. By excluding women of a certain body type from being “real” women these groups are participating in the same exclusion they protest… that hardly seems like winning to me.

[These two sentiments] are both equally damaging as they deny people their right to feel comfortable with their body, regardless of what shape it is. One sentiment may be more mainstream than the other, however, this doesn’t make either statement right or justifiable.

I appreciate what the self-love movement does and is trying to do to liberate people from certain ideals.  I also appreciate when a girl mows down a salad instead of picking pasta because she’s looking after herself (who am I to judge?  Maybe she needs the fiber, right?).  In my opinion, she should be able to also eat pasta if it pleases her, but jumping off on a rant about how she “needs a cheeseburger” assumes things about her that may not be true.  Self acceptance comes from within – not from the peanut gallery.  Self-love can mean challenging your self to become a better you.  Just because you’re undertaking that challenge doesn’t mean you love you any less.

I think we could stand to stop treating women’s bodies like public property to comment on. I know that sometimes it’s hard to take a message off the ‘net and apply it in real life, and that it might be awkward to point out to your group of in-person friends when they’re body-snarking.  But maybe you can turn it around.

When someone says something negative about a girl’s body, point out a positive.  Or when you hear yourself saying you want to lose a few, acknowledge the reasons why and remember all the other reasons that your body is great.  And then work out if you want to - if your goal is safe, and reasonable, there’s absolutely no reason why you should be ashamed of wanting to “make better”. Your choice is just that – yours.

And if you’re one of those people who constantly say “you’re fine the way you are” to your friends who express wanting to better their bodies, know your reasons for doing so.  Stop to think about your reasons before you speak, because that sentiment could be inadvertently shaming.  Instead of saying, “you’re fine the way you are”, try pointing out something positive, your favorite part of that person who wants to make better.  Encourage them to do what they feel is right for their bodies, because ultimately that choice is theirs.

So what do you think?  Angry?  In agreement?  Ever been subject to body shaming on either side?

During a recent conversation with friends, a gal I know mentioned going on vacation and wanting to shed a few pounds for the beach.  She was asking about our workout routines (for those of us who are so inclined).  There were a few different camps – those who said that diet could change it, those who said that exercise could change it, those who (like me) said “get a trainer because they are magical creatures who tailor your workouts…” And then there was the camp that shamed us all, saying “That’s silly. You don’t need to go to the gym.  You’re fine the way you are”.

It felt a little like saying *if you have to go to the gym you obviously don’t love you and that’s wrong* – like wanting to better your body is not a legitimate goal. I started to feel like that’s just as damaging as the whole “thin is in” campaign we see in fashion mags, etc.   It’s very damned if you do, damned if you don’t – when did we start subconsciously shaming  girls for wanting to care for their bodies?  For striving towards becoming a better person (in whatever regard that may be)?  Or for just loving and accepting themselves as they are now?

As Kate from Eat The Damn Cake says in this post:  “Really, there’s probably a compromise here. If someone is trying to lose weight, I’m not standing next to them at the gym with a bag of Doritos, going, “You’re wasting your time! Want some pizza? I could really go for a pizza…” I think losing weight is a completely legitimate goal in plenty of cases. I don’t think it has to be a symptom of superficiality or self-hatred. It can be really, really healthy.”

When I shared my thoughts with Kate, she added:

“I think sometimes on my blog I lean too far in the direction of the women you were describing, who act derisive about weight loss. I don’t feel like that, but I feel pressure to act like that publicly. Reading [your note] helped me put that tendency in perspective and understand better how unfair and, like you said, shaming it can be, to emphasize either approach without giving people room to make their own decisions. Life is too complicated for extremism in either direction.”

It feels like the “real women”, body-love mantras we hear so much about are walking a fine line; we should start loving us regardless of what our body looks or seems like, but we should be ashamed of wanting to change ourselves (and, we know that certain body love movements can be very exclusionary).

While it’s great that the motto of many bod-acceptance movements is “love thyself”, I feel it’s can be healthy to both accept yourself and be a little conscious of your body, knowing its limits, knowing what it can do and what’s good for it.  And if you’re comfortable with you, rock on!  Work it!

But if you want to shed a couple pounds before your tropical vacation, that’s a legitimate goal.  You can eat what you want, and/or be religious about exercise if that’s your thing.  Being conscious of you, of how you look, of how you want to look doesn’t mean that you hate your body, or that you’re necessarily trying to conform to a thin ideal.  Don’t get me wrong – there’s a lot of “thin idolatry” out there, and current beauty standards do shame girls for not having the perfect body (whether it’s Christina Hendricks or Twiggy.  And, of course, this is not touching on cases where there’s something else going on etc.).  But we all realize that the perfect body doesn’t exist, but in a few very lucky cases.  The majority of us are gloriously imperfect.  And you have the power to demonstrate enormous self love by caring about your body – whether it’s feeding it cookies or taking it for a walk.

More tomorrow…

It’s those meaty, well thought out posts that I feel most proud of, not a post about cute shoes, or an outfit post.  The writing that really matters to me are those posts I’ve worked on, and thought about, and deliberated.  Sometimes it’s hard to continue writing that type of post of when there’s very little feedback, and I know that’s also the case for many other bloggers.  I’m guilty of shooting off a quick Twitter response, or commenting as I share a post in Google Reader.  I sometimes feel bad about doing that instead of going to the actual site for a well thought out discussion.

I also feel like it’s better to have zero comments than to have spam comments, or follow requests – comments that don’t have much to do with what I’ve written (more on that from Ashe Mischief).  If your comment is thoughtful, it takes me about 30 seconds to pop over to your site and see what you have to say.  I know the ball bounces both ways.  Ultimately, it’s up to me to make conversation happen in my own webspace.

The trick is to not be discouraged, but to realize that those essay pieces are complete as they are – comments or no.  They were complete when I hit post, and I’m truly graced with being part of a great community when I get twitter replies or actual comments.  It’s not really about the comments, but about speaking my mind.  As Jamillah of made-to-travel said to me yesterday, “There is a quote … that says, ‘Speak, even if you think no one will listen’, so I do.”

However, as a blogger, it is important to strike the balance between oration and conversation; between yourself and your audience.  Write for you – of course – but realize that what people most respond to isn’t self promotion.  Your readers want to respond to something that engages them.  They like to read posts that are real, and include situations they’ve experienced.  That means that blog success often comes from connecting with your readers.

This doesn’t just apply to your blog.  Do you have a Facebook page for your blog?  I know I do, and sometimes I’ve struggled at knowing exactly what to do with it.  Even more discouraging: I recently found out that a very small percentage of Facebook page updates are actually visible to fans, because of an algorithm called EdgeRank.  EdgeRank gives every post a quality score – measuring the number of comments, likes, and shares per post against the number of fans a page has.  To be more visible and build up your EdgeRank, a page has to make posts interaction friendly – with polls, tags, questions, relevant links, and a whole lot of community.  It’s kind of a Catch-22, but you can do it by asking questions, engaging other bloggers, making vlogs, and just generally becoming an active part of the community.

That Facebook algorithm is relevant, because that’s kind of the way blogging works.  If you build up your interactions with your readers and bloggers you admire, you’ll be more visible.  I believe we’re all here as part of a community.  And as I mentioned on this great post from Jamillah on Beautifully Invisible:

Sometimes fashion blogging may seem like a tight knit circle of people who all blog/tweet/talk together. But it’s not – all you have to do is add value. Thoughts, links, laughs – those are all value. That’s the easiest way to break the ice, and break into that circle. Once you make that conversation and connection, it’s a very inviting and easygoing community.

In a grand gesture of “I DO WHAT I WANT”, last night Scarlet bleached out sections of my hair framing my face and I took the plunge.  See, my hair is this mix of blue demi-permanent dye mixed with a purple-silver-black demi-permanent dye.  You can tell it’s this indigo color in bright sunlight, or – if I’ve got my hair pulled back, you might discover the tiny baby hairs around my face are blue.  When the color fades I mix a little Special Effects blue with my conditioner and my indigo color springs back to life.  That is, unless Scarlet has bleached out portions of my hair, which then turns this manic cobalt color.

I’ve always had hair color that isn’t my own (since I was … 14?) and I think it’s fun to play with color that way.  But it was always a red, auburn, sometimes the color of cherry cola… and then a few years back I lightened up and we put some orange into it.  My job at the time scoffed, but decided it wasn’t my whole head.  It was also a color close enough to real hair color, so that they left me alone.

And then we played with highlights…

And then I decided it should be pink – or at least partly so, in order to keep “the man” off my back about having an “interesting and unnatural” haircolor.  The hilarious thing about that was being called out at work – a passing comment in which our HR person told me, “Well it’s not like it’s blue or purple or green.  It’s close enough to real hair color so we won’t have to write you up.”

It never dawned on me until then that I could maybe be “less” if my hair was a strange color.  I mean, it’s not like the dye alters your brain.  The society we live in is more accepting of tattoos, piercings and things out of the ordinary, so why should I be written up for having HAIR that’s an interesting color.  Of all the things that could be “wrong” about me, as a person, you pick that?  Something as harmless as hair follicles.

Last night as we pulled the blue color through the bleached hairs, I thought back to that feeling.  I’m interviewing for some freelance/contract stuff right now and I wondered for a moment if having fun highlights in my hair might ruin my chances for work.  Because let’s face it – we still live in a world where “the man” can reprimand us for self expression.  So I may NOT get the job – regardless of whether or not I work harder than the next girl who doesn’t use bright colors in her hair.

I had a brief second of “O wow. What have I done?” and then I realized that I don’t want to work in a place that doesn’t accept me head to toe.  I will put my best work forward for that company that says “we don’t base your performance reviews on hair color”.  I realize that comes from a position of privilege – some people may not have the option of saying “I don’t want to work anywhere that doesn’t like my (unnatural) hair color, tattoos… etc”.  But I also think there has to be a way to approach these companies we work for and say, “Listen, I want to express myself this way – You know it doesn’t affect how I work for you”, without fear of reprimand.

And there’s a whole ideology behind that statement – “I whip my hair” is the power of individuality (that, or I’m reading too deeply into pop culture).  It’s the power of you over those who think they can keep you down.  Fear of individuality?  That’s no way to live.

What do you think?  Is your company cool with that? How do you handle self expression at work?

I don’t think fashion is necessarily a money game, even though it seems hard to be fashion forward without buying seasonally.  As Ashe Mischief’s “Finance and the Fashion Blogger” series shows us, a girl on any budget can be inspired by and have some serious fashion impact.  And it’s not some frivolous game for vapid girls who have nothing else going for them.  As Mary Quant said, “[Fashion] is part of being alive today.”

So what’s a girl to do when she’s on a limited budget?  How do you become inspired by fashion – how do you write for the fashionable masses – when you don’t have the funds?  If you feel you’ve lost your fashion mojo because you just can’t keep up with the stylish Joneses, think again.

Look to your favorite fashion mag.  You know women only wear about 30% of what’s in their closet, which means that hidden among the hangers, there’s probably a whole Elle Style outfit waiting to happen.  Who cares if it isn’t designer, or if it’s not spot-on?  Inspiration doesn’t have to be perfect.  Personally, I love sitting in the sun, tearing out looks I love from thick magazines.  When I’m done, I have a collection of looks and tears that I liked, just waiting to inspire me.  And if it’s not the whole look I love, I go through with a silver sharpie and circle the pieces I love.  I write thoughts and phrases on the pages as they come to mind – so that when I’m feeling uninspired, the images + words recreates inspiration in my noggin.

Look at old photos of yourself.  Maybe there was an outfit you just loved 2 years ago – figure out how to make that current.  Chances are you still have one of those pieces in your closet, so get a little bit creative and put those pieces to work for you.  But don’t just pull out your midriff sweaters, Docs and tartan minis to wear to work à la Empire Records.  Get creative and pair that little sweater with a high-waisted, ladylike skirt and appropriate shoes; you’re recreating the feel of that bygone outfit.

Look to your friends – chances are, they’re more stylish than you think!  This works for 3 key reasons.

1. They’re instant inspiration in what they’re wearing.  Don’t go all “single white female” and copy their every move.  Instead, look at how they’ve paired things, maybe ask where she got that sweater that you love.  Watch what they do with proportions.  My favorite friend look is Mitzi’s “Long batik dress + Boots + Structured jacket”.  I don’t personally own these very same items, but I have flowing skirts that I can pair with structured tops and jangly jewelry to get that same structured-boho look.

2.  They can often help your style woes.  You don’t know what to wear with this?  Ask that pretty Laura, who will tell you a ladylike way to dress it up.  Don’t know how to pull off studs?  Ask Scarlet – because she’s the queen of rock ‘n’ roll chic!  Shorts plus cowboy boots?  Pull a Kirsten and pair them with black tights, a rock tee and a granny sweater for a fun, hip look.

3.  They will trade wardrobe orphans with you.  Pair of shoes that doesn’t quite work?  They’ll take it!  Need a belt to go with that dress?  They’ve got it!  Wardrobe swaps are the way to go when you’re on a budget and if your friends are into the idea, trading out pieces can be the perfect inspiration for your look.  Even if you don’t end up swapping anything out, you may learn a few new ways to put those pieces together.  Instant inspiration.

Other obvious inspirations: Celebrities, store windows, your favorite TV characters, reading up on fashion history (Mary Quant for example!), history books, movies, runways, people watching… the list is long…

Fashion doesn’t have to be about the cash it takes to stay current.  There’s a world of inspiration waiting, and you’re more fashionable than you think – just fatigued from standing in front of your own closet with “nothing to wear”.  And if you’re truly  not feeling it, don’t force it – chances are, it will come to you when you’re ready!  (CHEESY: If you build it, they will come)

How do you get inspired by fashion, on a budget?

–

There was an article in Newsweek asking what the media standard of super-thin models is doing to our society.  With the close of NYFW that February, Newsweek reported that an epidemic of slimness was on the rise again! They mentioned the symposium at Bryant Park on weight guidelines in the fashion industry – noting harrowing stories of models who were only allowed to eat “lethally small amounts of lettuce and Diet Coke“.  The article reports that, although the industry claims to be monitoring girls for unhealthy habits, designers are hesitant to impose minimum weight guidelines for catwalk models – Diane Von Furstenburg, most notably, saying weighing runway models would happen “over my dead body.”

(Img courtesy of NY Magazine)

The article pointed out the discrepancy between fashion models and the average woman.  On average, an American woman stands 5?4? at 155lbs, where the average model now boasts a height of 5?10? and weighs 23% less than that.  No wonder women today cling to fad diets and unhealthy eating habits that could eventually lead to more weight gain in the end.

(Img courtesy of LongStation.com and Amber Mac)

The models themselves can’t even keep up with their own images – the article notes that even after hours of hair and makeup styling, their photos go through hours of rigorous photo-manipulation to look perfect on the cover of popular fashion mags.  No wonder women feel a little outdone by runway and magazine models – their images are unreal.  They’ve had their freckles erased, every stray hair photoshopped into perfection, their legs and necks lengthened, their faces slimmed and realigned for symmetry, their nose shaped, their breasts lifted – and all of it is done through the click of some editor’s mouse.

(Img courtesy of Jezebel.com and David Airey)

In the end, these images we’re bombarded with on a daily basis may contribute to how we perceive ourselves.  In Dove’s “Real Truth About Beauty” study, Dr. Nancy Etcoff of Harvard University says:

“Only the minority of women see themselves as above average in appearance, and only 2% claim to be beautiful… Indeed, the study shows that women are less satisfied with their beauty than with almost every other dimension of life except their financial success.“

And Dr. Susie Orbach from the London School of Economics states,

“The overwhelming majority of women … [do not] wish to be excluded because they fail to find their beauty reflected in the images which bombard them, on average, in 2000 advertisements per week.… Beauty itself must be revitalized to reflect women in their beauty as they really are rather than as portrayed in the current fictions that dominate our visual culture.“

Indeed, the study did show that women feel that the ideal standard of physical attractiveness is almost impossible to obtain, and that weight and proportions are inextricably linked to that standard of beauty.

The best part of the Dove study was that women do consider beauty a combination of factors (including physical attractiveness).  Women do know that beauty is about who you are, not just how you look according to some fictitious standard set by the advertising industry – but with the continuing bombardment by mainstream media, we sometimes find it hard to believe.

Perhaps we are judging ourselves a little too harshly against some false standard set by people who want to sell us product.  The truth is, beauty IS on the inside as well as the outside.  If you feel good about yourself, and feel confident in your lifestyle and choices, that inner radiance will shine through.

It’s time we recognize the unrealistic standards our media and fashion industries set, and begin to love our selves, despite what anyone else thinks is beautiful.  Appreciate people (including yourself), not solely for their physical attractiveness, but for that beauty they possess that isn’t based on weight or proportion.

Sources:
Newsweek.  Why Skinny Models Could Be Making Us Fat.  Feb 28, 2007.
Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty.  The Truth About Real Beauty: A Global Report. September 2004.

Fluevog Farrahs

How do I reconcile this newly frugal mindset with the way I purchased (and blogged about it) before – which was: want + persistent want = buy if they seem like a good deal.  How can a girl be ultra frugal and still truly be a fashion blogger?  Isn’t fashion blogging inherently about what you spend or can spend on this or that frock?

Fashion is fleeting and I feel like – to some extent – you have to have the budget to keep up with it if you expect to be successful.  Otherwise you end up just posting magazine spreads and lusting over items that cost more than you make in a month.   Or you’re fast fashion blogging, and that puts you in the range of girls for whom fashion is new every 2 months (new and expensive).

…Or you are holding out, saving, finding things at lower prices, taking advantage of coupons and pop up sales, and putting those shoes on *gasp* … LAYAWAY. You’re buying secondhand.  You’re waiting, and saving and waiting, and saving and waiting…  You know how to thrift, you’re finding steals on Ebay.  You get the drift.

How do budget bloggers do it?  I imagine they’re patient, they accessorize like mad. They know when to pass up a deal,and when to snap up a better deal.  They love cut, drape, and fit, and while they’re still on the lookout for names, the names don’t mean so much if the item is well made and wardrobe ready.  They don’t toss plastic down when they could pay up front and they’re always conscious of what they have available to spend.  They’re open to, and always trying new combinations of the same old stuff they’ve got hanging in their closet.

This is what I’m working towards.  Oh, and maybe making some of my own stuff!

How do you stay in a budget as a fashion blogger?  Are you a frugal fashion forward maven?  Share!

Psychedelic - Img via GalaDarling

I was flipping through titles at the book store the other day and something caught my eye.  In Entre Nous, the author Deborah Ollivier insists that French women have more “je ne sais quoi” than American women.

American women ask themselves, “How do I remake me/my wardrobe/my life…”

French women who possess that “je ne sais quoi“, ask themselves, “How do I make me/my wardrobe/my life more me?”

See what I did there?

Apparently, Parisian women are so much more intriguing and mysteriously seductive because they know who they are, without a doubt.  They work on building that character instead of pretending to be a different character.  They use that to their advantage, creating a world based around themselves; as a metaphor, “cultivating their inner garden”.   Let this strike a chord with you for a second.

Apparently, Parisian women continually work to refine themselves, not to change themselves, or to become something different like the rest of us spend so much time doing.  Ladies, don’t deny that sometimes we sit around, all starry-eyed, wishing we could be the next Mary-Kate, when instead we should be cultivating ourselves and refining our style to reflect exactly what it is that draws us to that image.

Know thyself.  Discover thyself.

These words ring out from every self-help and style book on the planet.  Yet we spend all our time and efforts trying to be different.  We try to be  unique, cool, interesting.  It’s cool to be special.  Individualism is the norm.  Maybe it’s not about trying to be a certain ideal of cool, but instead embracing that inner individual, that wonderful weird that we try to bury to be this and/or that.

Like the garden metaphor, the authors of Style Statement suggest we spend too much time “out there” (p45) – not working on what feels right, what feels like us, and what feels authentic.  We try too hard to be special, unique and ultimately cool.  We stray away from our “inner homes” wanting so badly to be more stylish, prettier, wanting to have more friends and be more of an influencer.  We invent these crutches to escape our inner home, confused by the mixed messages about who we are and who we should be.  When we’re confused about who we are, we latch onto ideals of beauty, weight, purchasing power that have nothing to do with, and little to no bearing on who we truly are, inside.

Style Statement’s authors simply say, “Style is an expression of personal truth – never without meaning” (p76).

I confess, I did pick up both books, because realizing I haven’t put that “je ne sais quoi” into words is like realizing I haven’t been serious about cultivating my inner-self.  I want to know how to make my life more “me”.  I don’t think I’ll learn it from a book per sé, but I feel like I’ll have an interesting perspective to start building my life, my way.

Today I’m spending a little bit of time meditating on that personal truth.  What is that overall theme that defines me, guides my life, draws me towards deco-inspired prints, futuristic shoes and crazy fur hats?  It’s not something that I’ve really thought of – even though I’ve spent time coming up with a style direction for the new year.  I’ve never stopped to think about the unifying “me-ness” of every thing I do, so I know exactly what part of me to cultivate.

Have any of you tried their method?  What did you think?