Flattery.

I feel like I'm becoming terribly sartorially predictable recently because my last post featured something gingham and, well, so does this one. Sorry! I've actually become a bit obsessed with the print lately, I wrote an article about it and bought about three different pieces in (pastel) colours as "research".

I bought this ugly/cute smock dress several months ago now, but I've been doing a lot of thinking about how I feel about it. (Yeah, sorry, pretentious fashion nerd alert). I don't own many things in lilac, mainly because when I started my intense pastel trajectory I had lilac hair. The zoomed in checks are really cute and I love how weird the shape is.

(Sorry about the super boring backdrop, as always)

I really like the way it looks like a weird parachute. It looks like it doesn't fit properly, and I think that's so funny. My legs looks very spindly (like those Salvador Dali elephant sculptures) and my body looks like it might topple over from the imbalance. I'm trying to dress in a way that is more comfortable and that seems to include being less precious about whether it makes my body look good or not. I was thinking back to when I was about 15 and I used to watch all of those fashion shows on TV, the ones that tell women how to dress for their "shape" which basically means "correcting" it to resemble the ideal, hourglass figure. It's strange how obvious that misogyny is, but at the same time how little it is actually called out or even noticed. Even before I recognised the gross body politics I remember thinking God, how boring! If you like something, why can't you wear it? Why do you have to care about how it makes your body look? Obviously I know I have a lot of privilege in this area because I'm pretty skinny, but as my own way of questioning those awful dressing standards women are expected to adhere to I'm starting to actively think less about what "looks good" and me or what is flattering, and focus on what I actually want to wear.

My best friends bought me this Tatty Devine necklace for my birthday. I love it so much and the quote is so perfect for the way I've been feeling lately. That whole "your body is the house you grew up in" thing is so poignant I think, and I love that this is what they thought about for me. One of these sent me a very unsubtle message a few weeks before asking me "hypothetically" what my favourite quote was and, because I'm an English Literature student, I replied with about ten really long poems and book quotes before he told me it had to be less than 200 characters. They actually chose this one for me all by themselves and it couldn't be more perfect if I'd chosen it myself.

Dress - Asos, tights - Asos, shoes - Syd & Mallory's Emporium, shorts - ebay, headscarf - vintage, necklaces - vintage/Tatty Devine.

Some more new things! Bunny tights and jazz style shoes. I wish I'd taken a close up picture of these because they're so cute, the little holes you can see are heart shapes and they have jagged edges around the ankles.

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Be back soon for more ramblings about my personal identity in relation to material possessions!