Style Trumps Fashion

Ice Cream Sundae Dress

I don't know why, but this dress makes me think of Ice Cream Sundaes. Maybe it's the cool colors...the very "summery" feel of it. Or maybe it's the layers of color. I don't really know, but I like it!

Heels: Nine West,  Dress: Suzy Chin for Maggie Boutique (purchased at Nordstrom)

This is the dress that my friend wanted me to share with you ASAP! I wore it out to a birthday dinner date with her. It's another Suzy Chin, so it is supremely comfortable and looks great even after a big meal. You know how some dresses look awesome as long as you don't sit a certain way or stand a certain way, or do something silly like EAT? Hmph. I'm not okay with that. I want to be comfortable and look great, and this dress does not disappoint.

The secret is in the little tricks she plays at the waist. See that band of ruched yellow? It simultaneously draws the eye to the waist, which is flattering to my hourglass figure, while refusing to show any belly poochiness that may develop from dinner. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not all worked up about my dinner showing. In a dress this fitted, however, it can be uncomfortable if the dress doesn't accommodate dinner.

This dress once again shows the designer's penchant for asymmetry. I really like the interesting drape of the bodice, and the asymmetrical shoulders. Oh, and I absolutely adore the length!

Do you like how involved my animals are in the photo shoot? They can't resist!

The Date Dress to End All Date Dresses

I'm not really a Little Black Dress enthusiast. There. I said it. To me, black is boring and predictable. I feel that it creates a subdued - or even depressing -  feeling to the occassion. If I need something dark, I go for my dark-chocolate brown midi. Most of the time, however, I ignore the "rules" about subdued and wear what makes me happy.

Enter the Red Dress. I really like this designer. Not only does she make a great fitted dress, she adds interesting detailing such as the assymetrical neckline, cap sleeves and ruffle from the waist down. This dress is supremely packable, making it great for overnight getaways.

Heels: Nine West,  Dress: Suzy Chin for Maggy Boutique (purchased at Nordstrom)

When it came time to pack a Date Night Dress for our spring trip to San Francisco, I knew without a doubt that my Red Dress was just the thing. All it requires is a slip, high heels, and whatever simple jewelry I want...and I'm set.

And also? It's RED! How awesome is that? For someone who refuses to be overlooked, a red dress like this is much preferable to the LBD.

Orange = Awesome

Orange can be a challenging color to pull off, but when it works, it works Oh So Well!

Boots: Frye Campus,  Blue Dress: Eileen Fisher,  Orange Tunic: Eileen Fisher,  White T: J. Crew

This was a school day outfit for my first week of Spring Quarter. It was still cool, so I was thankful for the many layers (slip, blue dress, t-shirt & tunic). The weather also made it feasible to wear this wool tunic, which I adore but can have trouble working into an outfit. This variation is one of my favorites.

To keep the chill off my arms, I added this cardigan (also from Eileen Fisher):

Rising Tide - Making My Skinnies Work Through the Spring

I had a heck of a time getting a halfway decent photo of this outfit. I kept making goofy faces. I guess I was off my game.

Anyway...

Now that I don't really need to wear boots all the time, I've taken to rolling up my skinnies. I like the highwater look, and don't want to shop for a cropped pair of paints, so rolling up a pair that I already own is a great way to make the pants work year-round.

Shoes: BCBG,  Skinnies: Paige Denim,  Blouse: Anthropologie,  Jacket: Talbots

I love the decorative hem of this blouse, but it can make it hard to style. Clearly it's meant to be worn untucked, but that isn't particularly flattering for my figure (not enough waist shaping). Adding the jacket helped keep me warm and provided a bit of waist shaping that the blouse lacks - while allowing me to show the pretty embroidered hem. You can see the outfit without the jacket (and another slightly goofy face) below:

Before I Pack It Away For The Season...

I wanted to show you this awesome sweater that I bought when we were in Ireland last summer. It has pockets and a belt, and goes with pretty much any casual jeans-type outfit. I wore it to school on a day that I didn't even want to get out of bed. It was a perfect, comforting layer to snuggle up in. Since it's a cardigan and I had the option of leaving it open, it allowed me to avoid the sweaterific frumpiness that often creeps in by late winter around here without losing any of the cocooned-in-wool feeling that a giant sweater offers.

Booties: Clark's Indigo,  Jeans: Paige Denim,  Top: Alhambra Outlet,  Sweater Coat: Ireland!!!

This is not my idea of spring dressing, but it's from early March and, frankly, here we are in mid-April and I could be wearing it right now and feel perfectly comfortable. As I type this it's in the upper 40s and raining. Ahhhh, Seattle, I love you!

Incidentally, here's the outfit without the cardigan:

The cardigan functions as an excellent "statement piece", as evidenced by the relative blandness of the jeans + top alone.

Early Spring Date Night

I'm sure that I have mentioned my love of fifties-era fashion. In many ways, women's styles of the late fifties were designed for a body type similar to mine. Granted, I don't own any "shapewear", nor am I interested in a bullet bra. For my hourglass figure, however, that era offers a great deal of inspiration and I don't even have to use a waist-cincher to create the silhouette!

Shoes: Nine West,  Wiggle Skirt: Me-Made,  Top: Anthropologie

The wiggle skirt that I made last year is a bit roomier than it used to be. I've lot about ten pounds, so that wasn't a surprise. It's still fitted enough that I don't feel like I need to take it in to get the va-va-voom effect I'm after. The hot pink "sweater girl" top was a fanciful find from the sale room at Anthropologie. It's a beautiful vibrant color in a super soft cotton.

It's very unusual for me to wear a top that exposes so much of my chest. Rob and I had an interesting conversation about that, actually. I have always operated under the guideline that embraces "showing off" one or two favorite assets, but not necessarily the whole shabang. So, if I want to wear a short skirt, I don't usually also make it a mini. If I'm wearing a tight top, I don't also make it low cut. Since I almost always wear fitted or tight clothes in order to show off my (1) my bum and (2) my small waist, I rarely wear mini skirts or low-cut tops. In this case, while the whole outfit is certainly fitted, the length of the skirt and the sleeves lend a bit of modesty that balances the fittedness as well as the low-cut aspect of the top.

I felt very Joan in this outfit. Well, you know, evocative of that style, at least...

Shame-free Blogging Haiku

In honor of Shame-free Bogging 2012 I wrote a haiku: A body renewed Essentials expressed through style Messages in cloth This offers a glimpse into why I dress the way that I do, and why I put so much consideration into my outfits. It isn't about the clothes, it's about the story I'm telling with them. For more information about Shame-free Blogging, please browse through the category listing. Thanks for stopping by!

Second Annual Shame-Free Blogging Event April 15!

It's time for the second annual Shame-Free Blogging Event! You can read about the motivation for this event by clicking on the Shame-free Blogging category button. The main thing to know is that this event is an opportunity for positive body image to rule the internet! We all know that bodies come in all shapes and sizes. We also know that it can be very hard to maintain a healthy, positive body image when we are constantly compared to photoshopped "ideals" - whether female or male.

Here's your chance to write a love letter to your body, or perhaps a thank you note. Maybe you've been working on coming to terms with some aspect of your body, or maybe you've always felt proud of it but haven't felt a "safe" space in which to share that.

The rules, such as they are, are simple:

• Write a body-positive post on April 15 (I know it's a Sunday this year, but surprise your readers with a weekend post).
• Copy and paste one of the icons below to your post.
• Leave a comment on this post with a link to your Shame-Free Blogging Event post.
• Link to this post so that your readers can see who else is participating and how this event came to be.

We're starting out small. With my school work I wasn't able to devote the time to spread the news about this event to like-minded bloggers in the way that I was able to last year. That said, any body-positive additions to the internet are welcome ones!

    

A special shout-out to my friend Megan for creating these beautiful badges!

Arya

Transitional Colors

The transition from winter to spring can be very subtle here in Seattle. It's usually the difference between lower-to-mid forties with drizzle and lower-to-mid fifties with drizzle. This year we had the wettest March on record. It can be a real challenge to shift from winter wardrobe to my spring or summer one because our spring is more like a slightly warmer winter, and our summer comes abruptly on July 5 (shout out to my locals who are nodding their heads at this urban legend). So even though most of the country was having warmer than usual weather, our March continued much like our November - February had: cold, windy, and rainy.

There are only a few last photos of March outfits to post. I'll start with this one:

Boots: Biviel,  Fishnets: Nordstrom,  Dress: Anthropologie

I love these green boots, but have a lot of trouble pairing them well with an outfit. I like a lot about this dress, but I think it needs to have some length and/or volume decreased in the skirt in order for me to love it. It gives me an opportunity to wear the green boots, though, and I appreciate it for that perhaps more than its multitude of pockets!

Although I didn't need a sweater in class, I was thankful that I had this hand-woven wool wrap. I bought it a few years ago at this cool boutique in Ballard called Earth Hues. The thread is wool, so it's super cozy but so fine that it's also very airy. It's extra long, which means I can wrap it and have arm coverage or do something a little more artful like you see above. I adore the bright colors, which punch up the feel of this outfit from winter doldrums to a "spring is coming" feeling.

The Icing On The Cake

I've been away from this space for a couple of weeks, wrapping up spring quarter at school. Quarters are killer, it feels to me like we go straight from mid-terms to finals with little time to catch a breath. Hopefully I'll get more accustomed to the pace with each passing quarter.

This week I had an interview with a midwifery practice. In my program at Bastyr University, we do a preceptorship along with our didactice work. You could think of it as doing an internship while doing your academic degree. We start in the third quarter, and work through until graduation (June 2014 for my class). We have to be in a least two different "sites" (practices or clinics) over the course of the program.  There are specific skills we must master and document, along with numbers of client contacts and babies caught, in order to graduate, get certified, and get licensed as midwives.

Pumps: Nine West,  Suit: Mr. Oh's (ROK),  Blouse: Ann Taylor LOFT

So, for those of you who know me or are a facebook friend - no, I'm not done with school yet, I'm just getting into the juicy bits! The interview is so that the midwives at the practice can get to know me and see if they want me to be their student. It also gives me the opportunity to see if I like them and want them to be my preceptors.

When it comes to attire, it is my observation that most midwifery practices around here have a business- or smart-casual office culture. That's great for everyday wear, but for an interview I know that I can always make a good impression by wearing a suit. I wanted my personality to still show through, though, and also wanted it to be a little bit dressed down. So I chose this untucked surplice blouse, my big silver earrings, a stainless steel cuff bracelet and my cool labradorite ring to wear with my suit jacket and trousers.

This is the trousers portion of the suit that I had made for me when I was stationed in the Republic of Korea in 2001. Last year when I interviewed for midwifery school, I wore the skirt and jacket. That was, in part, because the pants were too tight. I am happy to report that they fit great now! Check it out:

I'm going to tell you a secret that the diet industry does NOT want you to know: scales are not good indicators of whether your exercise and diet efforts are paying off. For example, I have lost ten pounds since before surgery at the end of July. I currently weigh about 6 pounds more than I did back in 2001, but I'm wearing the same size of clothes. I work out much more effectively than I did back then, so even though I'm heavier, I'm not fatter...I'm leaner and much more toned & defined.

So, how can you track whether your weight-loss goals are working? Well, first of all, I would encourage you to look beyond weight and focus on health, wellness, and fitness. We can be healthy at many weights, what is more important is body composition. Excess body fat is generally considered unhealthy because of its affects on insulin production and organ function. I'm not talking about having jiggly thighs here, I'm talking about visceral fat. To track your body composition and fitness, you can use a combination of low-tech tools, such as measurements, "thermometer pants", the scale, and increased strength & endurace to track improvements in your fitness and changes in your body.

Personally, I track my workouts (how much I lift, how many reps, how many sets) so that I can see my gains. Once a month Rob helps me take my measurements and I take bathing suit photos (front, side, and back). Every so often I pull on a pair of thermometer pants to see if they fit/look good/feel good yet. I also weigh myself, daily in fact, but I have let go of obsessing about what the scale tells me. In fact, I've learned a lot about how different foods affect my weight (bloat), and how my menstrual cycle affects it (I carry an extra 2-4 pounds premenstrually, and it vanishes as soon as my period starts). All of this information helps me put together a big picture and figure out when it's time to shake up my routine (due to a plateau in my results).

If you're interested in learning more about this holistic perspective of female fitness and fat-loss, I highly recommend the book The Female Body Breakthrough. Along with the changes I had to make to my diet due to allergies, the exercise program in that book is the foundation of my transformation. For me, this is about reclaiming my body from years of trying to conceive. It's about doing activities that I enjoy, and that make me feel happy, strong, and confident. The icing on the cake is that it's helping me look the way I want to look, too!