OOTD: All that glitters is gold

top and skirt: Pink Clove, teggings: Re/Dress, cardigan: Kohl’s (forever ago), shoes: Naot, tote bag: Target, necklace: eBay, earrings and rhinestone wristband: So Good, bangles: Torrid and Deb, rings: from Claire’s and a toy store back in high school, flower crown: Crown & Glory

I’m so, so in love with this top and skirt, which I bought with holiday money from my grandparents.

The shirt is baggier than I’d like–I’m in between two sizes on Pink Clove’s size chart, so I ordered up, and it’s definitely on the big side. The material is also surprisingly un-soft for velvet. It’s comfortable on the inside, but the outside, which brushes against my arms when I walk, is rough and a bit itchy. That said, I love it anyway, because it’s just so fabulous. And wearing my (also fabulous) sequined cardigan solves the itchy-arm problem.

While taking outfit pictures, I came across one of my feline friends, Vancouver. He’s such a sweet kitty. 🙂

Sunday links, 1/5/13: the fluffy pups edition

My malamute neighbors enjoying the snow

Fa(t)shion
–Let’s queer the NYT “debate” about women and makeup.
-So much yes to this: Feminism, fashion, and the politics of adornment.
-Ashley Nell Tipton has a new super-adorable line of dresses and skirts–and they come in sizes up to 6x!
–What 1939 thought fashion in 2000 would look like.
-Advanced Style rounds up the best outfits of 2013.
-Leah profiles the brand Taking Shape, which has gorgeous and unusual clothes. I love their colors and cuts, and I hope they come to the US soon (currently, they’re only available in Australia and the UK).

Fat Acceptance
–Sorry all you well-meaning medical professionals, but wearing a fat suit is not the same thing as actually being fat.
-Ragen poking fun at diet tips is pretty awesome.
-Golda Poretsky makes the case that the child “obesity” crisis is a red herring, obscuring the much scarier issue of child poverty.
-This body-positive yoga retreat in Hawaii sounds amazing.
-USA Today profiles badass fat activist Amanda Levitt.
-Jes is starting a Smash the Scale revolution for 2014!
–Why “don’t talk shit about people’s bodies (including your own) is a better resolution than “fight fat talk.”
–Let’s normalize bodies of all sizes.
-The Fit Fatties Forum is launching an online movement challenge, the Fit Fatties Virtual Events.

I always love seeing fat dancers.

Things that give me hope

1.) New York’s Youth Poet Laureate, Ramya Ramana, reading her poem titled “New York City” at Mayor Bill de Blasio’s inauguration (transcript available here):

When I watch this young woman read, I can almost believe that change is possible. That the tides are turning. That we, the people, can and will rise.

Not just because of the beauty and fierceness and demand for justice that shines so clearly through her performance–although that alone is enough to blow me away.

But because this beauty and fierceness and demand for justice takes place at the swearing-in of a new mayor in the city that is America’s heart. The city that has been sanitized and stratified by 12 years of Bloomberg’s neoliberal policies. The city that has become an extreme–and extremely visible–symbol of an economic system that crushes lives and spirits.

The city that refuses to give up fighting.

In that fight, I see a world of new beginnings.

2.) Rebecca Solnit’s essay, “The arc of justice and the long run: hope, history, and unpredictability.”

Solnit argues that “[s]ometimes cause and effect are centuries apart; sometimes Martin Luther King’s arc of the moral universe that bends toward justice is so long few see its curve; sometimes hope lies not in looking forward but backward to study the line of that arc.” She gives examples of social and political seeds that germinated for years, decades, even centuries before bearing fruit: the role of hip-hop in the Arab Spring uprisings; the influence of Thoreau’s writing, which sold few books when he was alive, on both Gandhi and King; the effect that a seeing a talented black trumpet player had on a young man who grew up to help end segregation by aiding the plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education.

Follow-up to my piece on art in Boston, with lots of pictures

Benjamin Reynolds contact juggling at Figment 2013.

First off, thank you to everyone who read, shared, and commented on my post earlier today! I am so grateful for the creative communities I have here in, as Jojo calls it, “Bostosomedfordville,” and I’m glad that my piece resonated with many of my fellow Bostonians.

Second, throughout this post I’ll be using a few pictures that I dug up while working on the original post, but didn’t have enough space to use. Enjoy!

Morris dancers at NEFFA 2009.

This morning, I tweeted the link to my post to Sarah Kendzior, and she responded, “Thanks! I’m not sure we disagree that much. Boston has great things to offer, I only wish daily life were more affordable.”

I appreciate that she clarified her position, and I think we do agree more than we disagree when it comes to art, money, and cities. I still wish her original essay hadn’t made such sweeping generalizations, but I’m glad it started so many conversations and inspired me to write about why I love my Boston so damn much.

Sometimes I get sick of living here–not because of anything wrong with the area itself, but because I have cravings for adventure and new places to explore, and Boston can get pretty small after a few years. So it was great to have a reminder of all the things I love about living here: how amazingly creative my friends and communities are,  how there’s always something unusual and fun (and often geeky) going on, what a wonderful big little city this is. Or is it a little big city?

Is creativity dead in Boston? Not the one I know.

An installation by artist Lisa Greenfield during the Fort Point Open Studios, 2009

Social critic Sarah Kendzior’s latest piece, Expensive cities are killing creativity, didn’t sit right with me. Normally, I find myself all but jumping up and down in agreement with her work–but this time, I found much of her analysis jarringly at odds with my own experience.

Kendzior describes expensive coastal cities like New York and San Francisco as “gated citadels,” playgrounds for the rich, places where corporate pressure and the high cost of living reward conformity and stifle creativity. (Although she doesn’t mention Boston specifically, she does include it in a follow-up tweet.)

But my Boston doesn’t feel corporatized, sanitized, like a gated citadel. My Boston isn’t a place where creativity is undervalued, or valued only when it enriches wealthy children. My Boston certainly isn’t a place where “you live when you are born having arrived.”

My Boston is vibrant and creative as hell. Especially here in Somerville, where I’ve lived for five and a half years–and which has the second-highest concentration of artists in the country.

First off, I can’t talk about creativity in Boston without mentioning the folk dancing and music scene, which has been the base of my social circle for as long as I’ve lived here. There’s an incredible number of regular social dance events, culminating in the yearly NEFFA festival, a veritable folkie paradise of singing, jamming, dancing, and outdoor cuddle piles. We have gender-free contras, guerilla contras, a dance and music camp in nearby Plymouth, lots of overlap with the swing and blues dancing scene, great concerts at Club Passim and other venues–and most importantly, a strong sense of community. Individual people may come and go, but the community stays–and I doubt it’s going away anytime soon.

Outdoor contra dance in Copley Square, 2007.

Wednesday Fa(t)shion Inspirations, 1/1/14: New Year’s Edition

Happy new year to all! I hope you had as much fun as I did last night–I had a wonderful group of friends over, met some awesome new friends (including one who’s also into fashion and makeup and YAY I love meeting people who are on the same girly-stuff wavelength!), sung along to Once More With Feeling, played Cards Against Humanity, and generally had good silly fun while being dressed up and enjoying everyone’s fancy-pants-ness.

I’ll post pictures of my outfit and the party soon! Also, it seems like every blog I follow is doing some kind of end-of-year post, whether it’s a list of top posts/favorite outfits or reflections on the year…I feel like I should, but I kind of don’t want to. So, we’ll see…maybe I will come up with something I want to write about, maybe not. But I have a lot of non-new-year-related things I want to post about, so keep your eyes out for those!

Without further ado, here are some amazing outfits I’ve admired lately:

In My Joi

Garner Style

Reflection of the day: on car culture and change

Sometimes I look at people who are incredibly knowledgeable about cars, like my dad, and think: if the US ever manages a shift away from car culture and sprawl toward high-density building, public transit, and walkable/bikable towns, we will be losing so much knowledge and culture.

It reminds me that with any social shift, even positive and necessary ones, we always lose something.

Quote of the day: on uniforms and uniqueness

source: Using Entertainment

“When I started my music career, I was a maid. I used to clean houses. My mother was a proud janitor. My stepfather, who raised me like his very own, worked at the post office and my father was a trashman. They all wore uniforms and that’s why I stand here today, in my black and white, and I wear my uniform to honor them.

This is a reminder that I have work to do. I have people to uplift. I have people to inspire. And today, I wear my uniform proudly as a Cover Girl. I want to be clear, young girls, I didn’t have to change who I was to become a Cover Girl. I didn’t have to become perfect because I’ve learned throughout my journey that perfection is the enemy of greatness.

Embrace what makes you unique, even if it makes others uncomfortable.”

– Janelle Monáe via Obvious Magazine

Sunday links, 12/29/13

A purple doorknob in Brooklyn, where I spent Christmas with Steve and his family

Fa(t)shion
-In tutu news, Kiyonna has a tulle skirt that comes in black and dark red, and Tanesha of Girl With Curves is selling black and cream tutus (although sadly they’re both sold out at the moment).
-Philly fatshionistas, check out this clothing swap!
-Marianne reviews the plus size clothing rental company Gwynnie Bee, which I’ll also be reviewing soon, as I recently did a free monthlong trial.
–Floral blazers for men = hell yes.
-Two interesting posts on the politics of looking “sloppy.”
–Color of the year 2014: radiant orchid.
–Fashioning fashion: the pink top.

Fat Acceptance
–French women and thinness: “If you are fat, you won’t get that job.”
-Ragen writes about crap she’s sick of hearing. I especially like this point from the comments: “People who whip out the old ‘tax dollars unfairness!’ saw never care that fat people’s tax dollars go to pay for public goods and services they then have no access to because they were only made to accomodate [sic] thin people, or how unfair THAT is.”
–The violent side of fat shaming and denying body acceptance.

Climate and Sustainability
-Scary shit: Are we falling off the climate precipice? Scientists consider extinction.
–All I want for Christmas is for the youth climate justice movement to seize its full potential.
–The fossil fuel divestment movement can succeed where politics failed. This piece also makes the important point that we need to avoid demonizing the working-class people who dig up fossil fuels.
–How to build a permaculture suburb. This might not work quite as well in a colder climate, but it’s inspiring nonetheless.

Wednesday Fa(t)shion Inspirations, 12/25/13

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