Craving the darkness

Lately I’ve been drawn to black and gray layers: to the borders between dark mori, lagenlook, and witchy goth. I’ve been drawn to lace, velvet, zippers, asymmetric lines, balloon hems, crinkle fabric, mixed textures. To earth tones, quiet greens and browns. To amethysts and moonstones. To long, flowy skirts and dresses perfect for twirling in forests.

Click each image for details; yes, all the clothes are plus sized. They’re mostly from the expensive European shops that I spend way too much time drooling over, but there’s some ModCloth and Torrid in there too.

’90s purple witch by lrock212 featuring a zipper pouch

Green and brown woodland fairy chic by lrock212 featuring platform shoes

Huzzah for pink plus size coats!

As someone who’s nearly always worn black coats (with the exception of the awesome faux-leopard coat my mom thrifted for me), I’ve been really excited to see the recent proliferation of pink plus size outerwear. Winter is so much more fun when you can go out in bright colors that stand out against the snow, slush, and darkness.

Here are a few of my favorites–click the image for details:

 

Pink plus size coats by lrock212 featuring womens plus coats

A trip to a very cartoony alternate universe

This sunset was so Disney-esque I almost wondered if it was real.

This past weekend, Steve and I went to DisneyWorld. His company was recently bought by another company that gives its employees an annual trip to Disney, so even though I had no particular desire to go there, I figured I might as well because it was free.

Well, I won’t be doing that again. There were a few things I enjoyed–like spending half a day bumming around the pool at our resort–but I just couldn’t shake the saccharine, sanitized, scripted soullessness of it all. The aggressive cheerfulness. The lack of any opportunity for the surprises and serendipities of travel. The constant insistence that this was “the most magical place on earth.” (Pro tip: places that are truly magical don’t need to announce it every five minutes.)

And worst of all: the bland, fake, horrifically depressing caricatures of places I love. Ironically enough, we stayed in a “New England-style” “beach” resort–whose “beach” was a thin strip of perfectly-raked sand, in which was planted a “No Swimming” sign, along the edge of a man-made lake.

The view from our balcony

From restaurants named “Martha’s Vineyard” and “The Cape May Café” to nautical décor, the resort tried hard to imitate the beach towns of my childhood summers–and succeeded only in inspiring a queasy mix of attraction, revulsion and homesickness. I kept thinking, “This is so pretty! But it’s a soulless cartoonified version of everything I love! But it’s so pretty!” and my head would spin.

The worst part was the “boardwalk” connecting our resort to another resort: a veritable Potemkin Atlantic City. There’s something uniquely disheartening about strolling the wide, non-splintery planks of a spirit-less boardwalk on an artificial beach.

Wednesday Fa(t)shion Inspirations, 10/15/14

BUTTAH LOVE

fortysixjay

Sunday Links, 10/12/14

Fa(t)shion
-Nicolette Mason’s ModCloth collection is finally here! Check out her and Gabi‘s blogs for some fabulous pictures of a real-life girl gang modeling the clothes, as well as a discount code.
-Bethany reflects on fat femme power.
-Kobi Jae of Horror Kitsch Bitch has started an Alternative Curves Blog Hop. I didn’t have the time/energy to put together a themed outfit this month, but I’m hoping to participate next month!
–How Madewell bought and sold my family’s history.
-Tanesha of Girl With Curves has released a full range of clothes for fall.
–Eight cute plaid dresses in fat sizes, now with 50% more ’90s references.
-Affatshionista reviews Gwynnie Bee.
–Style advice for a 50-something trans woman just beginning her transition.
-I wish I could have been at Re/Dress’ meet and greet event with Tess Munster!
–Change your style, change your life.
-Want to see what a Glitterati box looks like? Check out these three posts.
–Manish Arora’s new fall/winter collection is amazing–this is exactly the kind of imaginative fashion I want to see in size fat.
-Ugh: one-size-only clothing store is the last thing teen girls need.
–Gabi’s trip to London Fashion Week with a group of other fatshion bloggers looks so fun.
–Spotted! Blogstar Chastity Garner in Vogue Italia.
–Fashion and feminism: a chat with Ana Marcela Villa of AKV.

Fat Acceptance
–6 must-read perspectives that destroy the War on Obesity.
-If you’re in Sacramento, San Francisco, or Chicago, check out Virgie Tovar’s upcoming events.
–Stop policing my daughter’s appetite.
-I actually like Subway’s sandwiches, so I’m always disappointed to hear about them using fat-phobic advertising.
–Women’s value is not based on whether men find us attractive.
–“Homeland” dares to show fat sex, and it’s only “weird” or “disturbing” if you’ve always assumed fat women are sexless freaks.

This musical protest, in which demonstrators disrupted the St. Louis symphony to sing a “Requiem for Mike Brown,” gives me chills:

OOTD: Fall floral and a fuzzy sweater

There’s nothing like a fuzzy sweater when there’s a chill in the air and the leaves are turning colors.

Dress: Yours Clothing, sweater: SimplyBe, teggings: Re/Dress, tote bag: LeSportSac via eBay, shoes: L.L. Bean, necklace and headband: Forever 21, earrings: Betsey Johnson via eBay, bracelets: Deb Shops

Wednesday Fa(t)shion Inspirations, 10/8/14: delicious donuts edition

Just Me, Leah

a multicolor vortex

OOTD: a teen tutu-punk fantasy come to life

This outfit is pretty much the epitome of my teenage style dreams. If you’d told 16-year old Laura that she’d grow up to wear a long pink tutu with a pleather jacket and metallic boots, she would have been very happy.

Shirt: Newbury Comics, tutu: Zelie for She via Re/Dress, jacket: Torrid via clothing swap, boots: Target, socks: Domino Dollhouse, headband: Crown & Glory, bracelets: Hot Topic, PacSun, and Torrid, earrings: a boutique in Paris, mood necklace: Claire’s, tattoo choker: eBay, purse: Boohoo

A few weeks ago, I finally decided to buy a new Nirvana shirt–for the first time in 18 years. I still have the shirt I got when I was 11, but it’s really faded and a bit small, so I figured it was time for a new one.

On “feeling fat” and the multiple truths of fat experience

Jenny Trout recently wrote about “feeling fat” vs. actually being fat in the context of reactions to Meghan Trainor’s song “All About That Bass.” Her main point is that, although body image is a problem for many women of all sizes, our conversations about body politics need to center the experiences of fat people–especially those on the larger end of the spectrum–who face regular discrimination for their size. She makes the important point that:

While average-sized women are concerned with not “feeling” fat, fat women are facing challenges that affect their lives far beyond damage to their self-perception. Plus-size clothing stores Lane Bryant and Torrid only sell clothing up to a size 28, at prices prohibitively expensive for low-income women. Buying clothing in a physical store is, if not impossible, then highly unlikely, for women who exceed the “plus-size” category.

Our health is at risk, too, and not just from the obesity-related illnesses we’re warned about; we’re faced with bias from the medical community that puts our health, and potentially our lives, at risk. Obese people face rising weight-based discrimination in the workplace, women especially.

I agree 1,000%. This is a big part of why I also felt uncomfortable with “All About That Bass” being held up as the body-positive anthem of the summer. Fat activism is a civil rights issue, and as its ideas have spread, they’ve often been watered-down to “inspiring” pictures of size 8-ish celebs and platitudes about loving your body (as long as it’s not too fat). We need to keep bringing the conversation back to the realities of being fat in a fat-phobic culture: workplace discrimination, medical bias, street harassment, lack of available clothing, lack of properly-sized chairs and medical equipment, discrimination in adoption proceedings, policing of children’s appetites–in extreme cases, even taking them away from their parents simply because they’re fat–and the ubiquitous messaging that our bodies are a disease to be eradicated at all costs.

OOTD: lace, lilac, and lavender

It’s really and truly fall–and fall in New England is pretty awesome. I’ve already been apple-picking twice, enjoyed lots of apple cider donuts, eaten many pumpkin-flavored things, and enjoyed the foliage everywhere from my own street to the woods. I even hate the rain less than usual, because it makes the leaves look so bright.

And of course, I’ve been having fun with cooler-weather dressing. Sweaters and leggings make it so easy to add color, texture, and pattern to any outfit.

Dress: H&M, sweater: Old Navy via clothing swap, teggings: Re/Dress, shoes: Naot, bracelets: Deb, necklace: So Good, earrings: a small shop in Western Mass.