Fashion and Happiness

So those of you that know me in real life I'm sure are surprised by the title of this post. I certainly am not a fashion plate. And since moving to Beantown, whenever I'm bumming around, my mom's always like "really? I'd've thought that living in a city you'd be more fashionable!"

Yeah, fashion and I aren't always best buds.

But I've realized a lot of things about myself in the past few years, and quite a few have to do with appearance. For one, I tend towards pack-rat-itis. It's a hereditary disease. K, you are the only one among us who cleans out their closet regularly. For two, I feel AMAZING whenever I do dress up. For three, I always feel like a bum whenever I'm wearing ill-fitting clothes, no matter how nice they may be. For four, heels dress up any outfit and encourage me to stand up straight and walk proudly.

Knowing all of this, I went through several purges of my wardrobe, the most recent being prior to moving. Why move what I'm only going to get rid of? So with that in mind, here are a few of my own fashion rules.

-- Pick a look and maintain it. And then be able to change the look if it winds up not working. For example, my summer uniform was a cute summer dress and strappy sandles. This requires me to have a selection of cute summer dresses to choose from and said sandles which will look good with pretty much anything. I also wore a few pairs of shorts and tees for working at the Farmer's Market and light weight skirts and tops to round out the wardrobe. But it is both hot and humid in my area during the summer (think 90% humidity and 92 degrees. It sucks.), so it requires lots of bare flesh. I chose light summer dresses that, being small chested, I don't need a bra for. I searched for about three summers to have my full wardrobe of summer dresses. I now have about 10. It meant that I was wearing only two items of clothing in the heat -- a dress and undies. It got to the point where Mister was highly jealous of my wardrobe and wanted a male equivalent (but didn't want dresses... :-P).

-- If you don't love it, toss it. I stuck to this pretty strictly. Anything that I did not LOVE the way I look and feel while wearing it, I got rid of. Cute skirt that needs that tiny bit of alteration that I haven't gotten around to for three years? Gone. Cute summer dress that really needs that little bit of work that I absolutely love? Well, lets do the work NOW and see if that makes a difference. (Answer: it did.) This made the most recent purge the time that I finally got rid of most of my theatre shirts and bumming-around-the-house tee shirts. I have tank tops for that if I really need to bum.

-- Only buy high quality and only keep high quality. I recently removed the majority of the acrylic sweaters from my wardrobe. I think I have one or two that I just love the fit SO MUCH that I'll exempt it. This also meant that I got to be a lot pickier in the thrift stores that I frequent. I didn't even pull off of the rack anything that had ANY acrylic threads in it. Cashmere sweater? C'mere you! Ugly color? Well... maybe. By not actually looking at the sweaters until after looking at their fibers, I didn't allow myself to fall in love with a shitty but beautiful sweater that ultimately would not keep me warm and just take up closet space.

-- Know how to layer properly. It's cold in the north east, and my campus is RIGHT ON THE OCEAN. It gets really windy and cold. And I swear to the gods they don't actually heat those classrooms. So! I wear high boots (leather of course), knitted tights, leg warmers, slips, wool skirts, tank tops, underarmor, blouses and sweaters with a cardigan. I layer like it's my job. But, I also try to make sure it never LOOKS like I'm a bundle of clothing. The trick is again, high quality items. The thickest acrylic sweater will not keep you half as warm as a cashmere sweater with or without an extra cardigan. (Yes, I am sadly aware of the thinness of most cashmere sweaters.) Wear an extra thick sweater with your coat that STAYS with your coat (I did this one winter to get the most mileage out of my leather jacket). Scarves, hats and gloves are your friends. I wear them constantly in the colder months. This also gives me layering options from classroom to classroom as they are often up to 10 degrees different. I also wore thin gloves under my fingerless armwarmers/mitts so that I could wear my armwarmers if needed but still use my hands.

-- Know what tricks keep you happy. For example, these days my nails are always painted and I only wear heels. Why? Bright happy colored nails (often red or gold) make me smile whenever I see them and heels make me feel really sexy and give me confidence. They also help my posture by reminding me that it's a thing. Why yes, I do strut when I walk (not ridiculously) but enough to send the signal that -I- know that I look good and feel good and I don't care who knows. Not everyone feels that way in heels. It just happens to be -my- instant boost. For some women it's lipstick. For some it's a hat or scarf. But once you pay attention to what aspects of your outfit really boost your mood, try to incorporate that daily. How I incorporated nails and heels is simple. I removed all flats from my closet and I keep nail polish by my computer. I go down to the bare nail once a week and start over, and touch up chips while checking emails. And red nails DO require maintenance!

You might notice that I have yet to mention anything about make up and accessories, usually the staples of any fashion post. I wear a bare face daily (if I'm lucky, I remember to wash it) and I never remove my jewelry. Occasionally I'll change up earrings or a necklace, but I pick a pretty solid every day look and leave it. I DO however wear belts. That is pretty much my sole exception for accessorizing. I might also occasionally wear a scarf on my head like a headband (I read lots of vintage blogs this summer). The reason why I don't dwell on accessories is I find that with my now-fabulous wardrobe, it invites me to make each outfit interesting just because I love my clothes that much. Or I'll build an outfit around a certain piece. For example, today I wore new shoes which are a brown tweed heel with a bow on a mary-jane strap. This dictated that I wear browns today. So I pulled out my beige heather cashmere tunic sweater and brown pinstripe light wool dress pants. With the green beads that I wear daily and my bright red nails, it's an outfit.

The other thing that I do not mention is where to shop. Personally, I shop at Goodwill and other thrift stores. Why pay more than $10-20 for a cashmere sweater? But not everyone is as lucky to have awesome thrift stores nearby. Also, not everyone is looking for cashmere sweaters. So I think it's up to each person to find what stores work for them. I personally do not recommend shopping online, as the fit of any article of clothing is too important to me. I also find that a lot of the "cute clothing" shops use really shoddy workmanship and poor materials. But they're great source material and inspiration!

And here lies the majority of my new fashion rules. I now only have cozy sweaters, good-fitting clothing and heels in my wardrobe. And every day I get a boost of confidence from my clothes. Knowing that I look good every day gives me a lot of security. Now I only have to worry about what people think of me by what I actually say and do -- for I know that I look good. And I can b.s. my way through the rest. :-D

Pictures!

R, you must have been pulling your hair out with my lack of pictures, the number of times you've yelled at me for it! (Oh I still forgot to photograph blanket shawl, but I will do that later.)



A while back now, I made a whole bunch of turmeric-colored pasta. So tasty! (Although the turmeric was kinda funny...) But it turned out that stereotypical 70s mustard yellow color, which I love! And yes, that is a trombone slide used as a drying rack.



That first night I served it with olive oil and cheese.



The second time (after I froze the pasta), I cooked the pasta with frozen peas, fried up some sausage and served it all with feta on top. Super tasty!



And me being crazy! I have a lot of cleaning to do today (note my lack of doing it right now :-P), I haven't showered yet, and mysteriously wound up watching a whole bunch of youtube videos from an Indonesian Muslim girl on wrapping hajibs in pretty styles. (That girl is beautiful omg) Since I'm too lazy to pin it in place, I just wrapped the ends of this turban underneath itself and it's been holding out for about 3 hours. I have to say, my head is warm! (Considering my hands, feet and nose are cold, I like this.) I've always been super jealous of those girls that wear headcoverings, mostly because I'm really lazy about my hair. Black girls, Muslim girls and Christians "dressing plain" often wear head coverings, and I've always felt super selfconscious whenever wearing just a bandana even. I don't see myself wearing this outside of the house, but it's fun to play with.

Also on the line of turbans, check out this amazing pic:



That is who I want to be when I grow up! Her name is Beatrix Ost and the pic is from Advanced Style.

Today is Fashion Day?

Apparently I'm on a fashion kick today. And the problem with browsing blogs is once you start, it's hard to stop. So let's catalogue some helpful info that I'm digging up!

Bra Care from the newly discovered and quite awesome Thin and Curvy blog. This poor girl is a perfect hourglass, and as anyone who's looked at clothing knows, nothing is designed for that. If it fits the waist, you can't get it over your hips, if it fits the bust it's huge in the waist. Etc. This blog reviews clothing designers, manufacturers and goes over general helpful outfitting skills.

A bra-sizing calculator because after my readings today, I fear that I'm in the Wrong Bra yet again. I have the whole "bra rides up the back" problem, and although my boobs aren't large enough for it to be as big of a problem (ha) for me as it is for the blogiste, properly fitting clothing is important.

BiuBiu is a Polish-based clothing manufacturer that sells clothing specifically designed for curvy gals. Apparently they do have a bias towards stretch fabrics, but they have great customer service (as learned from Thin and Curvy). As a side note, apparently Poland is the Land of Curvy People as a good bra manufacturer is located there as well, Ewa Michalak, or Effuniak.

7 Tips for How to Pack for Vacation from Trashy Diva's blog.

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To round up Fashion Day, I am feeling particularly trend-setting today. Blankets as a fashion accessory! No, not Snuggies, but honest-to-god blankets. :-P

With just knitted tights, jeans, boots, long underwear and a sweater on, I was quite chilly at the computer. I threw my new owl mitts on, and thought about what to do. I thought about another sweater, but they still aren't as warm as I'd like. I realized I wanted a cozy blanket. I took my 4-5' square polarfleece blanket, folded it into a triangle, draped it over my shoulders, crossed the ends, and belted it from the front (leaving the back draped, as without this it restricts movement). Fab! I am warm, cozy, and quite mobile.