As you are now well aware, I was laid off before the holidays and have since been going into the city for some job interviews. Although an interview outfit post is soon coming, I also wanted to share what is in my bag and my current interview bag essentials. I should note that this list of items are a bit winter specific in some cases and that I omitted the obvious such as my cell phone, keys and wallet. Take a look! Continue reading
This holiday season has proven to be hectic with trying to balance work and everything else to the point that it became very difficult for me to even start my Christmas shopping when usually by this point I would be finished. Even as I write this I only have one stocking stuffer to show for all my shopping efforts, and its not even for anyone on my list…I got it for me. Anyway, here are some gifts ideas of things I found as I did some online shopping. If you like me are way behind in shopping, make sure to put in our orders as soon as you can, Christmas is next Friday! In an effort to finish the year on budget I’ve made sure that everything on this guide is $30 and under, minus shipping though many retailers seem to now be offering free shipping due to holiday rush so that cost shouldn’t be as bad as it usually is. Happy shopping! Continue reading
Ever since I was a tween, my biggest insecurity were the appearance of my arms. They are big, covered with stretch marks, and scars– things that I believed absolutely had to be covered. This insecurity would effect me most once it started to get warmer. For me this usually meant that sleeves (not short sleeves, mind you) and sweaters made up most of my daily summer wardrobe, even in 100 degree NYC humidity. While other girls and young women would wear their tanks and spaghetti-strapped summer dresses, I wore thick hoodies (sometimes over long sleeves).
This continued on as I have entered adulthood. Even with the scorching sun outside, I would stay covered, replacing my adolescent hoodies for shrugs, cardigans and blazers.(It should come as no surprise that I usually spend the summer indoors.) I truly believed that as big as I was, I had no right to show off my arms. Nevermind that the various types of cover-ups didn’t make my arms disappear from existence or give them a slimmer appearance. This all changed mid- May in a Target fitting room. As I stood there looking at my reflection in the mirror, I just could not figure out how to wear the Lilly Pulitzer Sea-Urchin-for -You Satin Florence dress with a shrug and retain the overall silhouette of the dress. That’s when it hit me, why did I have to? It was then that I decided to stop hiding my arms and embrace them as they are. Continue reading
Currently its being argued that it is the shopping practices of plus size women that affects retailer supply to their customers. I find this accusation to be ridiculous as you won’t ever hear this same argument within straight size fashion. Nevertheless, retailers and designers stand firm on this stating that their potential customers are just not interested in particular styles or even quality. Could this be true? Do we want good quality plus size fashion? Continue reading
In addition to this blog, I am actually a design and art history historian as well as a cultural anthropologist. It’s a quite a mouthful I know. Though much of my academic writing and research has taken a back seat since receiving my masters last spring, I have made some efforts in the final months of last year to expand on some projects I had started in graduate school, including my paper on Target, its designer collaboration collections and plus size blogging– a paper I submitted last October to be considered as a possible presentation for the Fashion, Style, Appearance, Consumption and Design area of the 2015 Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association’s National Conference.
I was told that once you send in your abstract for consideration it takes approximately a minimum of two weeks to hear back from the area chair, I heard back in two days. From that day I was in crowd-funding and paper editing mode. It was an intensely stressful time given the the other responsibilities I had to deal with such as work, looking for another job, apartment hunting, eventually moving, and starting this blog. It should come to no surprise then that I did my final edits to the paper and accompanying PowerPoint the week before I was set to present. Yet even with all the anxiety fueled by the craziness that is my life, I was very excited to spend Easter weekend in New Orleans for my first (national) conference.
I think my abstract is the longest in history; there was so much to cover in such a little space.
I arrived the day before I was scheduled to present which gave me a chance to sit in other panels for different academic areas, such as Film Adaption, Fat Studies, Tolkien Studies, Material Culture, as well as Libraries, Archives and Museums, to name a few. Admittedly the experience did shake my confidence as I started to question the significance of my paper as the work by my fellow scholars was not only impressive, but presented in such a way that kept the audience engaged for the entire panel. I was in awe of these scholars who clearly have had much more practice than I. Continue reading
Big City, Curvy Girl, Thin Wallet 