Style vs. Fashion

Given that this is primarily a blog about retro-inspired style, you might not be *too* surprised to learn that I'm not much for keeping up with fashion trends. I know what I like (full skirts, the color red, anything and everything space-related, sparkly brooches) and I'm totally a creature of habit. 

This outfit includes many of my sartorial faves: red, full skirts, a fun print, sparkles, and more red!

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!

Vamping It Up

Wiggle dresses and fitted skirts terrify me. No matter how many crunches I do (and lately, I've done my fair share), my love of eating always defeats the better angels of my nature. What do I mean by this? Simply this: I have a squishy middle, and in fitted clothing, I'm pretty self-conscious about it. I think nothing of wearing a dress with a skirt the size of a house, but oddly enough, when people can see what my stomach looks like, I lose my everloving mind.

But – and there is always a 'but' with this type of story – I may have solved my wiggle-dress problem! I'm totally tardy to the Deadly Dames Vamp dress party, but I've finally shown up and that's what matters.

Fact: it is against the law to smile in a leopard-print wiggle dress

Why I Stopped Wearing Babydoll Dresses

Happy day-after-St.-Patty's, everyone! I hope everyone had a safe night and enjoyed themselves. I'm feeling much better than I did as a college student/young grad students on the day after St. Patrick's Day. Maturity FTW!

In college, I went crazy for babydoll dresses. For the first time in my life, the entire fashion world was at my fingertips, by which I mean that I had a brand-new debit card and high-speed internet. I ordered babydolls from Urban Outfitters and Forever 21, and tromped all over campus in knee-high boots, tights, and my array of short jersey dresses. This was definitely a step up for me, fashion-wise: for the first few months of college, I went to class in running shoes and workout clothes, so as to not waste any time between class and the gym. My undergrad advisor actually came out of his office one day during my senior year, while I was working in the student lounge, specifically to tell me that when he first knew me, I dressed like a dork. So babydolls were a major improvement.

This black dress, for example, was a staple from around 2005 or so until I finally retired it in 2008.

Me and Socrates, down by the schoolyard...

A Month of Colors

When I was about sixteen or so, I fell in love with the color black. I think there were a few different reasons for this. I was in the pit band for my high school's annual musicals for all four years of high school, as well as Jazz Band president from sophomore year onward, and the uniform for all of these performances was head-to-toe black. Dressing like that on non-performance days reminded me of something I really enjoyed. I was also super into the Cure at that point, and sort of a metalhead/punk to boot. Oh, and I had a seriously major beef with authority.

Anyway, my love affair with the absence of color relaxed a tad in college, and I got a little more comfortable wearing color after I moved to LA. In college, I'd wear neon pink with my black pants, skirts, and tops, and as a grad student, I discovered that teal and subtle prints were actually my friends. As recently as five years ago, though, my closet still basically looked the same whether or not the lights were on. Black dresses were my go-to outfit, and even when I wore a more colorful skirt, I'd generally default to a black top. The colors I preferred were saturated jewel tones, in smallish doses. In fact, I distinctly remember going shopping in Vegas in March 2015 with one of my best friends, who kept making fun of how I continually gravitated to the monochromatic clothing. At that point, I guess I finally realized I was getting a little too predictable!

Oh, how the times have changed. These days, I want my clothes to be fun! I still love a head-to-toe black outfit from time to time (obviously!), but reading so many awesome blogs and getting into Instagram has reminded me how much fun it is to dress expressively. There's so much one can convey through clothes, and I'm much more excited about it than I have been for a long time. I'm a loud, excitable person, and I want to wear things that turn my enthusiasm up to 11! I also think that moving to a place where the sun doesn't shine 355 days out of the year has really helped to solidify this rediscovery of color.

So here's my outfit roundup for the month of February. Every day for the entire month, I had color in my outfit. Most days, it was quite a lot of color; one day, it was just my beloved BB-8 and seriously red lipstick, but the color was there nonetheless!