Fashion blog finds
If, like me, you are feeling dismayed at the prospect of hauling out your boots and tights and turtlenecks again, when it seems like you just put them away — take heart. Already Pretty gathers together a nice range of alternative options for your winter fashion “basics” from other fashion blogs.
I also subscribed to a few of the blogs AP had highlighted (how am I not already reading Academic Chic?). I think the rise of fashion blogs is an unmitigated Good Thing. Enough of airbrushed supermodels wearing three hours worth of makeup and $5,000 worth of clothes. Thank God, I’m old enough now that they don’t give me a horrible body image, but they don’t give me any useful ideas, either, that I could actually use to improve my appearance in the unairbrushed, budget-conscious, meteorologically unpredictable real world. I want to know how to look good when I have a freelance writer’s clothing budget and a 1.5 mile to work across brick sidewalks. Jimmy Choos are not part of that equation, I tell you what.
Fashion blogs are better for that kind of thing. They’re about style as a thing we live, not a thing we aspire to — and certainly not as a thing we can only earn by having flawless figures and skin and bank accounts. I’m pro-fashion: you can have all the socialist and feminist revolutions you want, but people are always going to want to dress up and look good. We’re a visual, social, cooperative, competitive species. Put that together with opposable thumbs and the capacity to use tools, and you’ve got yourself an animal that’s gonna accessorize, hon. Seems like every couple of years there’s some new archeological dig revealing that decorative fabric or jewelry goes back a few thousand years further than we thought it did.
Dressing up and grooming one’s self is a natural, social function that ought to be about hygiene and joy,* not about self-hatred and excessive consumerism. I think fashion blogs are bringing back the real spirit of that. Magazines don’t; they’re too busy making you feel insecure so that you’ll buy the stuff they advertise.
Do you read fashion blogs? Which ones? I think I’ll be reading a few of the ones AP highlighted, and of course I’m a great fan of Beauty Tips for Ministers and a couple of Muslim fashion blogs. (Everything I know about layering I learned from Muslim fashionistas.) And I’m a great fan of Mrs. O — I hope to get the book for Hanukkah! — although I have been led astray by it before. (Mrs. Obama is six feet tall and has skin the color of chocolate. I am five feet four and have skin the color of halvah. This means that the bold, often mixed patterns and “statement” jewelry that looks so smashing on her makes me look like a badly upholstered fainting couch. I must remember this.)
Do you get anything out of clothes at all, or are you more like Mr. Improbable that way? Would you like to see more fashion blogging on this blog? It wouldn’t be at the expense of other content, just in addition to. Do you have fashion problems you’d like Miss Conduct to solve?
*Okay, because you people know I couldn’t resist it:
Oh Dress, You Merry Gentlefolk
When dressing up for work or fun
Let nothing you dismay.
Remember you can now wear white
Well after Labor Day.
And love your body, dress it up
No matter what you weigh,
O tidings of hygiene and joy
Hygiene and joy!
O tidings of hygiene and joy!
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“Maybe you are like my dear husband, who I believe has some kind of sartorial learning disability….
Maybe, too, “fabulous” is a feeling you do not get from clothes. If Mr. Improbable were to say, “I feel good in this shirt,” he would not mean that the shirt enhanced his confidence. He would mean that the fabric was not scratchy.”
I’m of his party.
I do own one fabulous garment, a concert jacket in black tensel (sp?) made by local singer Paul Guttry.
But mostly, I dress like a six-year-old, low maintenance comfort all the way. Just didn’t get the gene, I think.
The blogs you pointed to will help, though, if I ever decide/need to upgrade, so keep it coming!
Wow, thanks for the shout-out, Miss C! I’m honored.
Most fashion blogs have no context for me, since the clothes don’t come in my size! I’m not that into what most people would consider fashion, but I do have the Fatshionista Livejournal and
Musings of a Fatshionista
Pretty Pear
on my blog feed readers.
I’m getting too old to follow Young, Fat and Fabulous, but it still gives me some ideas.
JG, The Rotund blogs about fashion sometimes, too:
http://www.therotund.com/
And she is one hella well-dressed woman, I tell you what; I saw her when she and Kate Harding did a reading from “Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere.”
I don’t always follow “fatshionista” blogs faithfully because a lot of the issues don’t apply to me, but I do read them off and on. They’re kind of like the Muslim fashion blogs in that way for me: what kind of fashion do you do, when magazines and the marketplace aren’t doing it FOR you? If you’re into creativity in fashion, the blogs by/for/about folks who get marginalized by the fashion industry–Muslims, fat women, old people–are not only humanistic and joyful, but have way better ideas!
Advanced Style (http://advancedstyle.blogspot.com/) is another good blog–older people with fabulous street fashion.
Our family’s name is Couture — what a cosmic joke! We’re the worst-dressed family I’ve ever seen! My sister wore a red slip (as a dress) to do a reading at a church wedding! My cousin wore a spaghetti-strap dress to a party — with a turtleneck sweater under it! From these and many other examples, I learned not to trust my own fashion judgment. I stick to solid colors and classic styles, as much as I covet those paisley and leopard spot jumpsuits. I recently discovered that scarves are the best accessory ever (get them at Goodwill). It has never occurred to me to read fashion blogs because I’m not into “fashion.” To me, “fashion” means standing out, while I’m simply trying to fit in.
NWTPTG, I think that’s hilarious! Your family name, I mean. So much for nominative determinism. The last name I was born with is “Lent,” and I can’t give up *anything* I like for 40 days.
My family name is Goodman; I won’t go on with this thought.
Fabulous is a feeling I get from clothing, but for me it’s about style, not fashion. One of the great advantages of being retired is that the amount of mental energy I have to spend over “yeah, it will look good, but will it look too weird for work” has gone way down!
Shulamuth, I’m being careless about language: I, too, mean “style” and not “fashion.” In fact the whole point of my post and response to JoGeek was exactly about the difference between the two. I suppose I’ve started saying “fashion” because that’s how most clothing-style blogs identify themselves. Also, unless it’s clear that the context is clothes, “style” is a more ambiguous, polysemous term.
This list and the links from these blogs provided a lot of interesting entertainment for me this weekend. I’ve been working on a wardrobe overhaul for the past few weeks, mostly in the starting phase of weeding out things that no longer fit or are just not “me” anymore. I’m seeing a lot of interesting things on the style blogs, and enjoying the “remixing.” I do wish I could find a few as enamoured of non-jean pants as I am, though.
Wow, thanks for the mention! I’m glad it brought me to this very fabulous blog of yours and this post on the benefits of style blogs over magazines is really great! My sentiments exactly! S. of http://www.academichic.com