Sunday Links, 3/1/15

A Valrhona chocolate donut at Donut Plant in NYC

Fa(t)shion
–Size 4x (and larger) shoppers are skeptical and require special outreach.
-Skorch magazine rounds up fun items that come in sizes 30-36. I have that Ashley Nell Tipton dress!
-Nancy rounds up wonderfully witchy items. I’ve also noticed that City Chic has a bunch of black, flowy, goth-y clothes lately–I’ll try to do a roundup of some of them.
-Elena writes about how she’s had to change the style clothing she wears due to her fibromyalgia.
–Plus Size Blogger Babes is a new Facebook group for blog marketing, promotion, and sales.
-Chastity Garner and Cece Olisa are organizing a plus size fashion event in NYC called CurvyCon.
-Navabi now has a plus size wedding boutique.
-Where to buy plus size prom and formalwear.

Fat Acceptance
–Burlesque icon Dirty Martini responds to Lucky Pierre’s size discrimination incident.
–Being thin didn’t make me happy, but being fat does.
–Your experience is invalid: “This is not about you walking a mile in my shoes. It’s about you never having walked in my particular pair of shoes, but still believing me when I say they gave me blisters.”
-Fat girl comics, part one and two.
–You’ll remember Leonard Nimoy as Spock. I’ll remember him as a “Love Your Body” activist for women.

2014: A year in review

I don’t even know where to start with 2014–it had all sorts of ups, downs, and mehs, sometimes all at the same time.

When it comes to style and blogging, I’ve had a lot of fun (as you can see by my favorite outfits featured throughout this post). I’ve experimented more than ever, deepened my connections with my readers and other bloggers (you all rock!), and been influenced by a range of aesthetics I didn’t even know existed until recently, from dark mori to strega to lagenlook.

I’ve also continued to engage with my local fat community through the Facebook group I started last year, and it’s been so exciting to see it grow. Everyone is so supportive of each other, and it’s wonderful to have an online space where we can discuss anything from where to find various items of clothing to the frustrations of living in a fat-phobic world. I also like how decentralized it is–anyone can plan an event, and I am excited for the upcoming brunch planned by a new member who just moved to town!

Thank you so much to everyone who reads and comments on my blog, and everyone who is part of the fat community here in Boston and around the world.

OOTD: Globe-trotting glamour

I wore this outfit to meet up with a friend who was visiting from out of town. I felt particularly sophisticated since the necklace is from Iceland and the fascinator is from France. The earrings are from a small shop in Shelburne Falls, which may not be particularly exotic or worldly, but is nonetheless a beautiful place.

Dress: Target (really old), teggings: Re/Dress, cardigan: Kohl’s (also really old), necklace: Leynibudin, fascinator: Brykalski, earrings: a shop whose name I don’t remember in Shelburne Falls, MA, bracelets: Macy’s, So Good, and Torrid, shoes: Naot

OOTD: apple-picking in plaid (but not the lumberjack kind)

Apple-picking is my all-time favorite fall activity. Every fall, I get together with a group of friends to do it at least once. This year, we went twice–first to a new place we’d never tried before, and then to our regular apple orchard.

The new orchard was smaller and overall less exciting than our regular spot–which has a petting zoo, a friendly kitty, hay rides, delicious food, and great people-watching–but it was still a lot of fun. (And yes, this was about two months ago. I meant to get the pictures up earlier, but oh well! As the weather gets colder, it’s nice to look back on the early fall days when I could go out in a sleeveless dress.)

Dress: Domino Dollhouse, belt: ASOS Curve, crown: Crown & Glory, studded wristband: PacSun, tattoo wristband: eBay, cameo necklace and earrings: Lithia’s Creations, other necklace: I Am Joolienn, sneakers: Brooks via Zappos, folder: Tulipop

The folder is from Iceland, where I discovered Tulipop and fell in love. It’s a brand of adorable characters who live in a forest, and it’s ubiquitous among the quirky gift shops of Reykjavik. I bought this folder, a few cards to put on my wall, and a small magnet–and was seriously tempted by the Mr. Tree lamp, but couldn’t bring myself to spend that much money. I happened to be carrying some paperwork in the folder on the day we went apple-picking, so I figured why not include it in a picture?

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.

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:

My #FashionTruth

I know I’m a little late to the #FashionTruth conversation, but better late than never. I’m really glad that ModCloth’s co-founder Susan Koger has challenged the industry to change for the better, and I have plenty of thoughts of my own to add. Consider this my own open letter.

Dear Fashion Industry,

I’ve always loved fashion in one form or another, from the days when I pored over the rainbows of fabric colors in L.L. Bean catalogs to the time I showed off my new floral skirt for show-and-tell in first grade. I got really into style as personal expression in middle school, which is also when I became fat–so just as my interest in fashion deepened, I found myself excluded from it in so many ways.

Every teen magazine I read was full of unattainably-thin bodies, with only the occasional token plus size model who looked vaguely like me. As a young teen, I barely fit into a size 13, which was the biggest juniors’ size available in most stores–and then I gained weight and sized out of most juniors’ clothing. The fun clothes I saw in magazines rarely came in a size 16, and it was especially hard to find specialized items like prom dresses. It takes a toll on your self-esteem when you hardly ever see your reflection in media;  when bodies like yours are portrayed only as problems to be solved; when you can’t find your size in most clothing stores you walk into, or can only find one rack of frumpy dresses at the back of the store.

Plus size clothing has come a long way since then, mainly thanks to the rise of online shopping. I have far more options today at a size 22 than I did then at a 16. But still, it’s rare to find my size in a brick-and-mortar store, so I’ve mostly given up on buying clothes in person. And women who wear a size or two larger than I do, let alone a size 30 or above, have significantly fewer options.

This needs to change. It’s not ok that such a large percentage of women and girls don’t see themselves reflected in fashion media, and it’s not ok that so many of us can’t find clothes in our size.

I’m back from Paris and Iceland!

So remember when I said that comment moderation would be slow, and I wouldn’t be putting up a Sunday Links post last week? It was because I was on a weeklong vacation with Steve to France and Iceland! We just flew back to Boston yesterday.

We got a deal through Groupon Getaways for a week split between Paris and Reykjavik (except that the way the travel times worked out, we only had 2 1/2 days in each place). It was amazing. Overwhelming, exhausting, a bit whiplash-y, but so worth it.

I have a ton of pictures to post, including some outfit pictures I took while abroad. And I have lots of things to write about. I also want to weigh in on the whole #FashionTruth thing that’s been making rounds in my feeds. But right now, I’m still decompressing, de-jet-lag-ifying, and trying to catch up on all the internets I missed over the past week. So for now, here’s a brief preview:

Friday Links, 10/25/13

An adorable puppy who lives in my neighborhood 🙂

Fa(t)shion
-The comments in this thread about exploring the friction between attention-seeking and impatience with regard to unusual fashion choices are so interesting. And the post led me to my new style crush, Lorena Cupcake! Her outfits remind me what I love about fashion: rainbows, bright and interesting color combinations, and the sheer playful fun of putting it all together.
-These unicorn slippers are the cutest thing.
-My mind is slightly blown by Domino Dollhouse’s ring pop ring. It looks like a ring pop! But it’s an actual ring! Whoa…
-Pure fatshion (and fat love adorableness) inspiration: this bride’s gorgeous frock. It’s so glamorous, and fantastically twirly.
–Rock N’ Roll Bride’s fall/winter collection for Crown and Glory is now available. How gorgeous is the Sophie flower crown?
-Affatshionista reviews Gwynnie Bee. I keep meaning to do one of those free monthlong trials….

Fat Acceptance
–Imagine if it was really about health.
-Marianne writes about her experience doing a 5K while fat.
-I’m glad to hear that Massachusetts will no longer send “fat letters” home to the parents of fat kids.

Climate and Sustainability
–Inspiring actions from last weekend’s PowerShift, a convergence of young leaders from around the world working on social and environmental justice issues.
–Back to no future: what use is playing the long game when the arc of the universe feels so frighteningly short?

Jobs and the Economy
–How to democratize the US economy.
–Amid government shutdown, “New Economy” events across US draw enthusiasts for sustainable alternatives.
–Giving away food is great for business: the surprising benefits of local lending.
–Why Iceland should be in the news, but is not.
-This puffin makes a very good point…
–“The world doesn’t need any more costume designers.”

Everything Else
-Jaclyn’s takedown of the misogynists who call themselves “men’s rights activists” is so important.
–I am not going to pursue a PhD (I am tired).
–Willow Smith and the curious case of the carefree black girl.
–A yarn-bombed tree squid = !!
-I really like this piece exploring whether polyamory is a choice and whether it matters. I especially the like the author’s take on how to build a legal framework that serves all unconventional families without getting rid of marriage.
–Shooter boys and at-risk girls: reflections on teenage anger and the ways adults respond to it based on gender, race, and class.