What's eating you?

I'm a pretty big believer in writing every day. I used to really like doing morning pages, and writing about whatever I felt like just as my day was getting started. It felt like it helped me get the creative juices flowing, and most writers agree that the ability to write consistently and well is a habit you develop, not necessarily a skill that you're born with.
I do push myself to post every weekday, or at least every weekday that I'm working. In the warmer months, that wasn't too hard. If I didn't feel like writing or couldn't think of much to say, I could always fall back to a short outfit post and still feel like I was posting some decent content. Now, of course, it's winter, and daylight hours are short, so I can really only take outfit shots on the weekends. I hadn't realized how much I relied on typically having two posts a week that were just there and sorted out for me.
Of course, now that I have to be a little more creative about generating content, I'm having a little bit of a mental slump. I know, realistically, that I have plenty to talk about. I'm cooking every night, and some of my recipes are turning out pretty damn well. I'm knee deep in some awesome books and TV shows. There's a lot of stuff going on in the world that I have strong opinions about. I've also been toying with doing a campy little sci-fi or fantasy serial, which would help me dip my toes back into creative writing on a deadline.
As interesting as I would find it to write those kinds of posts, I'm not sure if it would be a positive step for this blog or not. A lot of the advice that I've read about blogging is to create a consistent brand. My posts are already a bit scatter shot - one day a fashion post, one day a movie review, the next day a social justice rant - and diversifying even further might just make the folks who were only interested in, say, the fashion aspect of the blog, tune out. I'm not so vain as to think that this will ever be much more than a hobby for me, but watching my readership grow has been a real point of pride. I'm still in the very minor leagues in terms of readership, but I am reaching a much broader audience than I was even a few months ago. I don't want to lose that readership to poorly thought out editorial changes.
I'm talking about this in part because I know a lot of the people reading this are fellow bloggers, and you guys probably have similar problems at least some of the time. It can be hard to balance quality with consistency, and creating content that both appeals to a broad audience and is reflective of a genuine voice and personality.
This is a really fucking long winded way to say that I couldn't think of anything to write about, so here are some pictures of old Hollywood babes eating. Enjoy.

Some of my favorite hat wearing, vintage loving bloggers

I love looking to other bloggers for style inspiration, and accessorizing is one place where I need a lot of it. Although I'm sure I'd still own some hats if I didn't see them in the blogosphere, the aplomb with which these ladies wear their varied and stylish chapeaux has definitely inspired me to step up my game.
Oh, and I don't own any of these photos, they are the sole property of their creators. Just FYI.
Solanah, Vixen Vintage
Come on, what list would be complete without her? She's gorgeous, she's got a killer hat collection (or at least, she did; I know she's moved away from vintage blogging a little bit), and her outfits are so varied and expressive of her personal style that she can't be imitated. Vixen Vintage is one of the first vintage blogs I ever read, and she pretty much tops my inspirational style list.




Tanith, Tanith Rowan
This Aussie milliner's blog is amazing. She not only creates amazing modern and vintage style hats, she's a great educational resource, and has done a whole series of posts on hat trends of the past. I really like to go back and reference them when I pick up a kind of random new hat that I'm not sure how to wear, since the vintage photos are a great reference for accompanying hairstyles and accessories as well. She's also hugely, adorably pregnant, so help put her baby through college and go buy one of her hats.




Jessica, Chronically Vintage
You guys all know Jessica, so I'm sure it comes as no surprise that she's a mad hatter after my own heart. And she's got an awesome name, so there's that. One of the things that I admire most about her style is her knack for accessorizing, and her amazing Etsy shop is beautifully curated and reasonably priced. I seriously want half the stuff in there.




Laura, Paper Mothball Vintage
Laura's got a little bit of a leg up in the "wearing things and making them look awesome" race, since she's actually a professional model. However, she's also an excellent writer, an even better photographer, and a seriously talented designer, so you'd be mistaken if you thought she was just another pretty face.




Just Another Wardrobe Experience
I think what I love most about this German blogger is how naturally she wears everything. She can be dressed head to toe in 40s gear, but she never looks like she's wearing a costume. The casual elegance with which she incorporates her hats into her wardrobe definitely inspire me to pop one on myself.




This, obviously, is not a complete list of all of the vintage bloggers who wear hats, or all of the vintage bloggers who wear hats that I like. It's really just a few of the ladies out there who consistently make me stop and say wow every time I check out their blogs. If you know of any other hat-crazy bloggers out there that I didn't mention, please give them a shout out in the comments. I could be that I haven't heard of them, and it would be awesome to find a new favorite.

La Vie en Blanc

Happy Friday, everyone! And to those of you in the good old U.S. of A., happy Labor Day Weekend!
So yesterday was my 100th post. Whaaaaaaaat. I know that I post kind of a lot, but I never realized that I did it quite that much. I only started this blog in late March of this year, so that means I've done 100 posts in only six months.
I'm really happy with how well this blog has progressed. I feel like I've really found my voice (a lot less pretentious than one would assume from my first post) (no, I'm not going to link to it, because it makes me cringe a little bit) (well, not that much, but still), and I've also found a comfortable posting schedule, with a good variety of the different things that I want to talk about. Yes, I'm usually talking about clothing or vintage photos or something like that, but I also find space to talk about my nerdy tendencies or feminism.

Vintage fashion and social justice: how could I resist?
So, from here on out, you can expect me to bookend the week with outfit posts. It makes sense, right? I dress up on the weekends, so I usually post that on Mondays, and I can usually manage interesting outfits a couple of times a week, so I can post about it again on Fridays. In the middle, I can do a list of things that I'd like to buy or a movie that I've seen recently that I like or something that's made me really mad (or happy, I guess) about the state of the world. It may not be the most coherent blog format in the world, but one of the things that I wanted to do when I started this was reflect a real person, and a real person's interests. Mine, obviously.
Labor Day is coming up, and while I'm certainly going to continue to wear white well after that date, the burst of warm weather that we're having in Chicago has me running to the lightest dresses in my closet.
I picked this dress up a while back, at a local flea market called The Vintage Garage, for only $10. Although it's comfortably light-weight, as well as being light in color, I think it's one that I'm going to carry with me through fall. I'm picturing it with a high necked blouse underneath or a cardigan on top; the longer length, with a pair of tights and some ankle boots, still seems really perfect to me, like that great 30s tea dress that I want but can't seem to find for the right price.

I really love these shoes, which are very 20s or 30s inspired, but they're just a tiny bit too tight on me. I keep meaning to have them stretched so that I can wear them all the time.

This dress works much better with a belt than without, I think. It's very fitted through the torso - so fitted, in fact, that I can't wear a bra with it. By my own strange calculus, since I can't do anything to prop up the girls, I have to cinch the waist to maintain the same proportions. That's just math, folks.

I'm finally wearing the dress clip that I purchased from The Best Vintage Clothing. I read something somewhere about clipping a dress clip over a necklace to make them more versatile, and that actually works really well for me. It makes a really beautiful pendant, and I've been returning to it a lot this week.

When I purchased this dress, I initially intended to have it hemmed to just below knee length. However, as we've crept closer to fall and I've gotten more into 30s styles, I've fallen a little bit in love with the lower calf length. My legs are very muscular and not exceptionally long, so it's not the most flattering length on me, but sometimes what's traditionally flattering doesn't always have to be the final consideration when you think about clothes. That's not to say that I want to look bad, but one of the fun parts of fashion is questioning, and sometimes breaking, the rules. Who says you have to be supermodel tall to wear tea length?
By the time I post again, we will have officially passed the unofficial start of fall. And it will be, like, 80 degrees here, so I still won't be able to bust out my sweaters and tweed. Please remind me how annoyed I am with how hot it is now when it's negative 20 and snowing this winter.

I'm trying not to try to keep up with the Jones'

People who know me know that I like to buy stuff. I mean, even if you don't know me, the fact that I blog about fashion might be kind of a giveaway. Really, how many times can you talk about the same dress, or pair of shoes, or piece of jewelry? Acquisition is part and parcel of keeping a blog fresh and interesting.

Speaking of fresh, Eddie Munster hair, do or don't?
I make decent money; not enough to go crazy with, but enough to be comfortable and afford some luxuries. I do have to prioritize what I want to spend my money on, though, and lately my priorities have leaned pretty hard towards new clothing. In the past few months I think I've bought three or four dresses, maybe the same number of skirts, a few tops, a new pair of shoes, some jewelry. None of the pieces that I've purchased have been very expensive by themselves, but it all adds up pretty quickly.
I've talked a little bit about blogging and body image, and the way that putting yourself out there on the internet can create pressure to look a certain way, and can also warp the way that you see yourself. Buying new things works in kind of the same way. When I buy stuff, particularly from brands that are popular with other pinup and vintage loving girls, I can write a review and tag the company in it, and the company will then usually promote the post, which gives my blog a boost. I'm always looking for more traffic, so I tend to repeat behaviors that get it for me, which means that I end up buying more new stuff. I'm like Pavlov's dogs, but with printed circle skirts instead of white lab coats.

A skirt that I love and have never worn outside the house. It's not in the best shape, but with a little love it would be a stunner. This photo is one that I took when I was trying out my corset for the first time, which is why it looks so weird.
I wouldn't say that I'm a terribly ambitious person. My goals in life are pretty modest - make enough money to live comfortably and a travel a little bit; find a partner who makes me happy and whom I can make happy in return; do a little good in the world where I can. Of course, I also want to look good doing all of that. But the thing is, I'm kind of competitive, and if I'm doing something I want to do it really well. That means that now that I'm digging into the blogging thing, I'm always pushing myself to promote it in any way that I can, to write the most interesting posts that I can, to get the most eyes on it that I can.
Ideally, it would be nice to make a little money off of it, or maybe parlay it into some kind of paying writing gig. As I've mentioned before, though, it's hard to get paid to write. Lately I've been trying to remind myself that this should be fun, something that I do because I like it, and maybe to hone my writing skills and develop my voice, rather than something that I'm resting all of my hopes for the future on.
Daffny from A Vintage Nerd wrote a great post about not comparing yourself to other bloggers (or other people in general), and it was a good reminder for me to keep things in perspective. Although I would love to be able to spend whatever I want to new clothing, I'm just not one of those women who can afford to pick up the latest from Pinup Girl Clothing every month, and that's ok. It's great for them that they're able to do it, and I'm sure I'll always have a touch of wardrobe envy when I see them showing off their fabulous outfits. Sometimes I just need to give myself a mental slap in the face and tell myself to snap out of it, a la Cher in Moonstruck. I have a lot of nice things, more than most people, in fact. The only thing that I'm going to gain by trying to keep up with other people is a lot of dissatisfaction, with a side of deep-fried credit card debt.

This domino print skirt is a leftover from my lolita days, and it's actually pretty cute! I'm always lusting over the novelty prints that I see other girls wearing, but I have the bad habit of ignoring the ones that I already have.
This weekend I did a boatload of laundry and reorganized my closet and dresser. I did a couple of repairs that I've been putting off, spent some time getting stains out of pieces, and even did a little ironing. Going through my wardrobe and seeing all of the stuff in there that I haven't worn in a while, or particular outfits that I had brainstormed about but had never gotten around to wearing, was surprisingly satisfying. With all of my clothes clean and put away, I also realized that I don't have a whole lot of room for anything else. At the very least, I need to buy more hangers before I buy more clothes.

I also found the dress that I thought was lost for good! It was at the bottom of one of my boyfriend's boxes of clothing, which was only unpacked last week.
I'm also refocusing some of my mental energy on other priorities, like travel. My boyfriend and I have been talking about taking a trip to Europe for a few months now, but with our move a couple of months ago, him starting a business with his brother, and me expanding my vintage wardrobe, we haven't managed to put a whole lot of money aside. However, Google launched their Google Flights feature not too long ago, and one nifty thing about it is that you can view a bar graph showing the average cost of a flight to your destination throughout the year. That means that you can actually see when the cheapest time to fly is, rather than having to guess and check. Having a good idea about what I'm going to have to pay and how long I have to save is making it a lot easier not to order something new just because it happens to be on sale.

Na na na na na na na na Iceland!
Does anyone else struggle with this? How do you keep your blogger envy at bay?

Body image and vintage clothing

Depending on what source you're looking at, between 70 and 90% of women in America express dissatisfaction with their bodies. Many of them turn to fad diets, body-shaping garments, or even cosmetic surgery in order to change their appearance. It seems like every week, there's some tabloid cover with a smiling celebrity celebrating their weight loss, or cruel speculation about how someone's gained weight and now no one loves her.

I usually feel like I have a pretty positive body image. I've always been a fairly confident person, and my body type is considered acceptable, even desirable, by society's standards - tall and fit, with a small waist and a big butt. I know, intellectually, that I have nothing to complain about. No one discriminates against me on the basis of my size. People don't make comments about what I eat, and it's wholly unremarkable if I exercise in public. No one's ever told me that "some guys are into women like me," as if I could only ever appeal to a niche market.
It can be uncomfortable to talk about how I think of my body because, as a thin person, no one really wants to hear me complain. I want to be clear that I'm not trolling for compliments, and I'm not trying to ask for anyone's sympathy. I fully acknowledge that any issues that I have are relatively minor, but I think they're issues that a lot of women have, and I think it's important to talk about them, particularly in the context of blogging.
The world of fashion is populated by thin women. This is just a statement of fact, and is not intended to denigrate them in any way. There is a very particular body type in fashion (at least in high fashion; I will get to pinup and retro styles in a bit) - tall, slim hipped, small breasted, with the long, slender limbs of a gazelle. Toned, but not muscular, and very lean. That's the typical model body type, and the most popular fashion bloggers tend to look to have the same look. Not as tall, perhaps, and maybe a bit softer and rounder, but it's still all about slender, graceful bodies that the clothes can hug and hang off of just so. Of course, it's also unusual for anyone to acknowledge how difficult it can be to maintain that body type. I'm sure that for some people it's natural, but most people have to be on a pretty strict diet to get to and maintain a size two. There's even an Instagram account called You Did Not Eat That, which capitalizes on the phenomena of very slender fashion and lifestyle bloggers posing coyly with macaroons, slices of pizza, giant burgers, and ice cream cones mere inches of their lips.
Although others usually see me as a relatively thin person, it can be hard for me not to zero in on what I think is wrong with my body when I look in the mirror. I said before that I usually feel pretty good about myself, but sometimes if I haven't been eating well or am just going through a rough patch emotionally, I look in the mirror and all I can see are legs like tree trunks, flabby thighs, and cellulite. My boobs look too small, my ass looks too big, and where the hell did these bingo wings come from? My weight rarely flucuates by more than five pounds either way, but the way that I see myself can vary widely from day to day.
When I take photos for outfit posts, I'm always conscious of how I pose. Hands of hips to make my waist and arms look slimmer, head tilted to elongate my neck, up on tip-toe if I'm not already wearing heels to make my legs look longer and slimmer. I try very hard to be conscious of any bias that I might have, and that includes being biased against heavier people; still, I work very hard to make sure that I, myself, look as thin as possible. I'll take photo after photo trying to get everything just right.

I don't wear pants that often, and I almost never post photos of myself in them, mostly because I really don't like the way my hips and legs look in them.
I have mixed feelings about the influence that the vintage fashion world has had on me. On the one hand, size acceptance seems to be one of the core tenets of the scene, and the body types that you see are far more diverse than in mainstream fashion. The message that women of all sizes are beautiful is widely distributed, and popular clothing brands work to make sure that they can accomodate a variety of sizes. Practically speaking, there's also greater acceptance of using undergarments to reshape your body. Don't like your waist? Wear a corset! Don't like your ass? Girdle, she wrote. It's kind of refreshing to hear that you don't have to achieve physical perfection all on your own - just go out and buy this thing to put on under your clothing and problem solved. Vintage fashion generally acknowledges the articfice involved in nipping waists and cantilevering breasts, which creates more realistic expectations.
On the other hand, much of the media that we draw inspiration from features women who are almost as slim as today's fashion models, and if you prefer to buy vintage rather than reproduction, good luck finding larger sizes. I'm often annoyed by how much cheaper really beautiful items can be in very small sizes. I'll stumble across something on Etsy and think, "Oh my god, that dress is amazing! And it's only $60? And it's... 32-24-32. *sigh*" It just makes me think that I'm a medium now, and that's ok, but what if I were a small? Or better yet, an extra-small?
I've never had an actual eating disorder, although I am prone to disordered eating. It's gotten better, but there was a time, not that long ago, when I would count every calorie, obsess over how much I was working out, feel extreme guilt if I slipped up a little bit, and then have a down moment and eat until it was painful. On a couple of occasions, I would take laxatives afterwards to "get the food out of my system," as I thought about it. It's behavior that I recognize now was deeply unhealthy, and could have led to something much worse. I have to be careful about how I think about dieting and exercise and my body, because even though I recognize how terrible some of my choices were, I still find myself falling into that mindset sometimes.
I'm going to keep blogging, and I imagine I'm only going to become more deeply immersed in the world of vintage fashion as time goes on. I want this blog to be successful, so I'm probably going to continue to take dozens of photos every time I want to post an outfit to make sure that I'm presenting the best possible version of myself and my clothes. I want to be honest, though, about how I feel about myself, and the struggles that I have had and continue to have with my weight and with my self-image. I would feel like a fraud and like I'm doing a massive disservice both to myself and those of you who read this by doing anything else.