Thursday, May 31, 2012

Summertime Self-Acceptance

Amanda and I took these photos last minute on our way to dinner with friends.  I felt really cute in this dress and we thought our outfits looked pretty and shiny together. When I looked through the pictures while waiting at a stoplight, my mood plummeted.  Is that really me? The person in the photo didn't match the person in my head. 


I wasn't going to post this. I wanted to reshoot and pose and rehearse and adjust myself & my body perfectly until I was happy with it. But right now  I feel like I need to post it. This is me and this is what I look like sometimes. 



vintage dress from etsy, dirk bikkemberg shoes



vintage dress from etsy, leotard from urban outfitters, joomi lim necklace, opening ceremony boots

Of course fashion can be aspirational and dreamy and other-worldy and ideal, but for us there needs to be honesty about what goes into producing those images. We're definitely going to put aspirational things on this blog, but also the realness. Even though I live in a dream world half the time, I am also a real person with a real body that wears clothes and does things. I need to be free to move, and in the summer my moving body is more on display. More visible to the creeps cat-calling  me on the street and the imaginary scrutinizing gaze that haunts me. My cellulite is visible, my body is not cocooned, wrapped, or contained in my winter layers any longer. 


I still kind of hate summer because it's like, so, so boring fashion-wise for me. I resent spending money on bland functional garments that serve no purpose but to keep me from dying of heat-stroke. I can't explain how bored I get just like throwing on dresses everyday. I'm a goth! How on earth am I supposed to operate in this kind of sweltering sunshine? I crave furs and feathers and lurex and leather and plastic and mohair. 


So I guess the point of this post is just to say that this summer is going to be about acceptance. Acceptance of my physical self, but also acceptance of this season which I feel like won't let me dress how I want to. The relief and growing-self love I feel writing this now, and posting this picture astounds me. It's a never-ending uphill climb trying to love yourself but it's something worth working on. Go put something on that a lame magazine or asshole once told you not to wear and go enjoy the sunshine on your gorgeous bod. 


-Mattie

3 comments:

  1. every girl in the world needs to read this post.

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  2. i know it isn't the point of this post at all, but you look great! you remind me of thora birch. and i agree, i have a friend who is obsessed saying there are things only "tall & skinny" girls can wear and i'm always trying to change her mind because that's ridic. the more i read this blog, the more i love it. x

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  3. Thank you gurl that's very sweet. Thora is a babe.

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