COMPLETELY off topic, but may I make a little happy exclamation here?
Recently visited the Lower 48 (Contiguous US) & got to go to a real mall & real stores. While there a garment caught my eye, even though it was one of those things 'that bigger girls just shouldn't wear' (repeat that in your best nosy/bitchy biddy voice):
A brightly colored, horizontally striped pencil skirt.
Well, while swept up in the vacation high, I tried it on, liked it & bought it. I'm generally a black pant, black cardi & maybe a color nice tee underneath type woman.
Fast forward to today, two-ish weeks later, I decided to wear said coat of many colors-stripey skirt. Wore it & rocked it if I do say so myself! Besides the compliments from others, I felt good in it myself.
This is a HUGE step out of the box for me. Seems dumb, but I was proud of myself & felt pretty good. I think I'm going to be stretching out a little more on occasion. I looked good! Okay, all done. Just wanted to get that out there! Try something new sartorially!!
Can I hear a halleloo? Because this just made the eels in my heart shimmy with electric glee.
If you wear black because you love it; wear it.
If you wear black because:
a) you've always worn black
b) you don't know what else to wear
c) it's "slimming"
Do yourself a favor and branch out. It's entirely likely you'll find yourself in the same boat as our friend from Seward's Folly.
Real Talk: A black dress plus appropriately devastating accessories served as my unofficial uniform for almost ten years.
In fact, when the death of print media found me with a whole lot of extra time on my hands and a severance package that allowed me to rent a villa in Mexico for a month, I challenged myself to wear nothing but white natural fibers, just to ease myself out of the habit.
Granted, maintaining a wardrobe consisting exclusively of white linen and cotton batiste was made a heck of a lot easier by the excellent Mila and her not-as-good-at-windows-but-still-quite-wonderful twin soft butch lesbian daughters who would creep in on little cat feet twice a week to grab my laundry and then deliver it back to my closet, sans lipstick/carne asada/mango juice stains like the angels from God they so clearly were.
Still, the exercised proved highly worthwhile and hugely liberating and now most days I can be seen swanning (kindly take the broad view of "swanning", I'm still trying to work out this limp) around Casita Klapklap in a color or print I would never have considered even a few years ago. Who cares if pale coral isn't the absolute perfect color for your skin tone? Who cares if you leave the house in something that, God forbid, doesn't take advantage of every available trick to make you look the slimmest you can possibly be?
Wear the striped pencil skirt in all the colors of the rainbow and then crow about its success from here to eternity (speaking of, it was while wearing that white bathing suit shown at the bottom of my closet that an easily-chafed Rhiannon discovered making out in the surf was NOT as pleasant as Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster made it appear) just don't forget to tell us where you bought it.
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