People always tell me, "I love how you dress every day, I could never pull that off." Or, "I wish I could dress like that, but it just doesn't work for me."
I'm sorry, does this look work for me? Yeah, I pay it a monthly salary of--No. No, that's ridiculous. It sounds awful, but this look does slave labor for me--I make it work for me, because I know that if I tell it, "Shut up, listen, and sing your lungs out to the sky," it will do just that, and it's not like I have some super magical powers. It's just my body, and they're just my clothes, and I just make them do what I want them to do. And it's not like I have some crazy fabulous body and that's why these work for me and you "could never pull that off." That's even more ridiculous. I love my body, so I'm going to tell you straight up that I'm 5'6"ish, weighed in around 147 last time I checked, and measure at 38-28-41.5 (I honestly just got out my measuring tape, just for you, because I love you that much), so don't go making excuses like "I don't have a good figure," "I'm too thin," "I'm too fat," "I'm too short," "I'm too tall," "I'm too round," "I'm too square," "I'm too red," "I'm too blue," blah blah blah, because you are 147% beautiful.
Look, I'm a girl who has been through a lot of fashion trauma. I had David Wolfe tell me personally that my hemline was too high for the coming season. So? The fun doesn't come without mistakes, and it's not like everybody likes what I wear. I certainly don't necessarily like what everyone else wears, and often I will tell you something you're wearing is cute (and mean it), though I would never wear it myself. You don't find your balance on a bicycle without scraping your knee, and you don't find the fashion you love without realizing at least once that your underwear is showing, or some such thing.
I've gone entire days in some outfits, making a different verdict at every reflective surface I passed whether two pieces worked together or not. I wore my hair up under a pillbox hat once only to decide when I got home that I'd looked like a chemo patient all day--nothing against chemo patients, I wish you all the best of luck and happiness, I have in fact spent some time in a lab building antibodies to cure cancer, it's really nothing personal, also there are many people and hats that can rock the bald look, but that hat on me that day was a bad decision, end of story.
I have had too many bleeding and flaking lipstick situations to count, and please don't make me tell you about the first of my makeup days. They were bad days, and sometimes confidence is a curse--where some people think they can't pull off anything, I tend to think I can pull off absolutely anything, and I have been wrong more than a few times.
I, too, have bought too-small dresses only to try them on a hundred times, each time convinced that it will look good, each time wrong. I, too, have bought too-big clothing "to grow into" that I never managed to fill out (shh!! ;-) ).
Somebody once said (and if I could figure out who I would tell you, but I can't find it online anywhere): "I've found that, often, the secret to 'pulling it off' is not caring about whether or not you can pull it off." I've found this to be true, as well. There have been days when I've decided halfway out the door that my outfit doesn't work, but instead of freaking out all day I just let it go, and people still complimented my style and no one seemed to notice! Of course, there have been times when people did notice, but if you have fun and just be yourself, people will remember the good and the YOU and that light in your eyes much more than they will remember that time you wore that awful shirt... or whatever it was.
I'm not trying to tell you that you should dress like me all the time, or, in fact, ever (unless you decide it'd be a great Hallowe'en costume or something... hehe). That's my style, and you have your style. I guess that what I'm trying to say here is that if you really want to wear pink sparkly falsies, do it. If you really want to wear a big petticoat, do it. If you really want to wear black lipstick, do it (just ask me about good brands first, you'll save yourself plenty of time, money, and embarrassment--I've made too many mistakes for you to make the same ones). If you really want to wear turnips on your head and sweet peas on your toes and a big red foam Rudolph nose, DO IT. And if you do that, send me a signed picture and a narrative of your day, please. Plus, while you're having fun and being yourself, you'll be helping the world, because at least the way I see it, the root of almost every single problem in history is insecurity, and we're all guilty of it.
 |
| Luna Lovegood, one of my favorite people EVER. |
Okay, I'm done being all inspirational and whatsit for today.
I love you to death, but even I get beat tired.
Good night, or good morning, or good whatever time of day it is where you are when you read this,
Lovely Wednesday.
0 comments:
Post a Comment