A Body Positivity Setback

About two weeks ago, I encountered the biggest stumbling block on my body-positivity journey, and unsurprisingly, it's pregnancy-related: stretch marks.

We Who Fight Monsters

In the past week and a half or so, I've seen a disturbing uptick in what I'd be tempted to call "body-shaming f***ery" if I wasn't publishing these words on the internet. There's good reason to believe all of this kerfuffle is just one miserable person on Instagram making one burner account after another and leaving idiotic, unkind comments on anyone who appears less miserable and more confident than she is. But still, since one pathetic schmuck can have outsize influence on the world, activity like this must not go unremarked.

On Haters, Again

Every so often, I see posts on Facebook or Instagram that make me sad. Apparently, some people cannot go out in the world wearing whatever strikes their fancy without being inundated by obnoxious, judgmental, and downright rude comments from coworkers, 'friends'/relatives, and perfect strangers. And it sort of baffles me that so many people apparently never learned that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. It's not exactly rocket science, is it?

A Modest Proposal for Body-Positive Sizing

It's amazing (in a horrifying way) how much that tiny number or letter on the tag of your clothing can affect your entire sense of self. In the past week or so, I've seen some folks really struggling with body image, and it seems like whenever the matter of body acceptance comes up, the issue of clothing size isn't far behind.

All Bodies ARE Good Bodies

Earlier this week, I went to a talk at work on millenials' attitudes about gender. (Sidebar: it was really nice to take in some sociology on my lunch hour!) One part of the talk really stuck with me, particularly since we're in the middle of #WiggleWeek and I've got body acceptance on the brain, so I'm going to air out my thoughts in today's post. Strap yourselves in, people: I'm letting my inner political theorist out to play (at least a little bit)!

Wiggle Week II

If you're anything like me, you were born sick and tired of looking at gorgeous clothes and thinking 'that's so pretty, but I could never wear that.' My style-obsessed heart aches for all the gorgeous people out there who've internalized society's garbage beauty standards. I've been there and it's not fun. Last November, I decided to devote a week to breaking through these negative thoughts, and thus Wiggle Week was born!

World's silliest graphic.

Jenny January 2017

One year ago, I never would've dreamed that 1) I'd own so many gathered novelty-print skirts, and 2) Jenny January 2017 would be quite such a life-affirming week. ICYMI: #JennyJanuary is a week where all the gathered-skirt enthusiasts on social media bust out their favorite Jenny skirts/dresses from Pinup Girl Clothing and coordinate massive twinning days. Jenny January 2016 was a low-key affair for me: I was only able to participate in one day, and I didn't yet know very many people in the pinup community.

Oh, what a difference one year makes! While the two fabulous ladies I twinned in 2016 are still some of my favorite folks on the internet, I've met so many lovely friends over the past year, and I wanted to twin with as many of them as humanly possible. What's a thoroughly modern pinup to do? Well... in my case, the answer was 'make a spreadsheet, post daily in all my pinup groups, and rally as many folks as I could to the #twinup cause!'

So how did it go? Well, check it out...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I'm getting ready to do one of my favorite things in the world: cook a giant, elaborate holiday meal. There's something extra satisfying about holiday cooking: no matter what, the fact that somebody in the distant past arbitrarily decided to celebrate a certain day gets me in the party mood every single time.

6 Reasons to Love the Wiggle Dress

Wiggle Week is off to a great start: I've worn some of my favorite non-cupcakey dresses and have many more to go! It's been so wonderful to see so many gorgeous ladies rocking their wiggles and sharing words of wisdom on Instagram and Facebook. I've said before that immersing myself in a body-positive community has helped me on my own body-acceptance journey, and seeing everyone in their wiggles really drives home the message that all bodies are perfect just the way they are.

#WiggleWeek: Deadly Dames Courtesan Wiggle

While I'll always love a circle skirt with a massive petticoat or two, I'm really starting to get into the wiggle dress. It's taken me a while, since I've spent most of my life feeling self-conscious about my belly, but lately I've really been feeling the fitted look! They have a totally different vibe than my usual giant-skirt-and-novelty-print combo, but it's one I finally feel ready to embrace. Life is just too short to worry about whether strangers can clearly see that you have a stomach: hello, everybody has a stomach. Otherwise, we'd all die of starvation!

On Living One's Life as a Work of Art

One consequence of adopting a more retro/vintage-inspired manner of dress is a serious uptick in the amount of attention your clothing attracts. Thus far, I've been lucky enough to avoid any unkind, unpleasant remarks from total strangers, but even positive attention can be a bit overwhelming if you're shy or just not interested in dealing with comments from the general public. While I don't much mind occasionally being stared at, for some, this attention is enough to put them off dressing as they'd like, which makes me terribly sad.

A Body-Positive Manifesto

Lately, I've been pretty much eating and wearing whatever I feel like, and let me tell you, it's pretty glorious. It's also somewhat unprecedented in my life. For almost as long as I can remember, I've spent a lot of my time thinking about what I'm eating and mentally counting calories, or worrying about how to 'make up' for things I ate.

In the past year or so, though, I feel like those thoughts have finally begun to wither away, replaced by thoughts of 'is this good for my body? Am I eating nutritious things? Will this behavior/food help me live well?' And when I decide to eat things purely because they're delicious, I don't feel the terrible remorse that used to ruin the act of indulgence.

I like to eat things like this!

Tiki Tuesday #3: Orange Tiki Renee

The Renee dress from Pinup Girl Clothing is one of those garments that I never thought I'd have the confidence to wear. After being self-conscious about my midriff for what felt like forever, I couldn't quite wrap my mind around a dress with a cutout right over the belly.

One day, though, something happened to change my mind: a Renee in one of my all-time favorite  Pinup Girl prints appeared in the Coming Soon section of the website. Well, by now, you can probably guess how the story ends (spoiler alert: with me in a Renee), and I'm happy to report that things worked out perfectly!

Body Positivity Week

Being surrounded by supportive, positive women is one of the best things about jumping into the blogging world. It's helped me to expand my comfort zone, style-wise, and venture into the Wide World of Crop-tops, and more importantly, it's helped me to feel more at home in my own skin to see women constantly building each other up and sending out messages of self-love and acceptance. Most of my media consumption has shifted from 'traditional' outlets (television, style and beauty magazines, and more 'mainstream' style blogs and clothing stores), and it's amazing how much better I've felt since I withdrew from a world that bombards women with constant messages of not-enough-ness: not thin enough, not pretty enough, not tall enough, not white enough, not male-gaze-friendly enough.

Those anti-woman messages are, frankly, utter bullshit. (My apologies if this profanity offends you. In this case, I think it's the right word for the job.) So, since I missed the boat on Body Positivity Week back in May, I'm declaring this my own personal Body Positivity Week. Please join me!

Kellys for All!

It's only a slight exaggeration to say that the Kelly dress from Bernie Dexter broke the retro-style internet. (Ok, it's a large exaggeration. Bear with me!) When the Kelly in the Kitchen dress first popped up for preorder on Bernie's site, it inspired quite a lot of excitement, for several obvious reasons:

1) It's a shirtwaist dress with no buttons!
2) The print is absolute genius, and just look at the colors!
3) A culinary-themed dress with a full, gathered skirt and classic 1950s silhouette is almost too perfect.

When these dresses started to make their way to their new homes, the reaction on social media and blogs was instant, near-unanimous love. I've written before about what makes the Kelly my favorite Bernie Dexter cut of all time, and if you look in my closet, you'll see four of them. For now.

It seems that Bernie knows how perfect her creation is, since she's released the Kelly in numerous other colors and patterns. And after seeing so many people rocking the living daylights out of their Kellys, I've come to a surprising conclusion: this dress looks good on everyone! To prove this point, I asked Sara Lily, the epic mind behind In a Nutshell…, to help me put together a post showcasing the OG Kelly In the Kitchen dress on ladies of all heights and sizes. Without further ado, here are just a few lovely ladies (and me!) totally slaying in their Kellys!

On Body Acceptance

What's that I see? A crop top?!? Doth mine eyes deceive me?

Nah, you're not seeing things: I'm stepping wayyyy outside my comfort zone today, and it feels pretty awesome. I came across this turquoise crop top and immediately, a war broke out in my mind between the "it would match my Mary Blair umbrella skirt perfectly" faction and the "we don't show our midriff ever" camp. Obviously, the matchy-matchy contingent carried the day, so here I stand, proudly flaunting my midriff and flouting that stupid '24 Things You Shouldn't Wear After 30' post. (Not going to link to it, because she doesn't deserve it. For a much better take on what you can/can't wear after 30, see this brilliant post.)