I am on a self-imposed clothes buying ban until after Femme Conference.
I know I’ve talked about it a little bit here, so I won’t bore you too much, but the hardest part of the ban has been letting unique fashions pass me by. Items sell out quick in my size, and there is no guarantee that things I fall in love with now will still be there waiting for me in a few weeks. So, you can imagine my excitement when Rachel contacted me from Re/Dress to tell me that Deb wanted to send me a dress I’d be lusting after. Here, we both win. I get a dress, and you get to hear about an awesome dress!
If you are fat and never made it into Re/Dress while they had a physical location, I want to express my condolences. Re/Dress was a magical place, and the direction that Deb is taking the store as an online-only business continues to be pretty magical. I will never forget the time I spent in that store, the fashions it brought me, the friendships and connections it cemented (I count four former shopgrrrls among my favorite people in the world!), the magical moments spent at a party tipsy amongst racks of clothes curated for fat bodies, and the dreams it helped me dream. When I saw this dress, I fell in love. It was one of those special loves where I couldn’t imagine it on my body and I didn’t even care. Deb posted a picture on the Re/Dress tumblr while she was on a buying adventure, and I was hooked!
When it arrived, I experienced something that happens to me a lot (which I’m sure I’ve talked about here before), I didn’t like it very much. I mean, I loved the print. There’s a lot of 90′s Versace influence happening this season, and I’m a sucker for it. Tthe fabric was silky in my hand, and it looked awesome when my friend Danny put it on. But I didn’t love how it fit my body.
So this solution was born:
Basically, I hiked the dress up, put on the amazing teggings Deb sent with it (this femme now owns two pairs of hot pink teggings, which is pretty pleasing, to say the least), and strapped a belt over the whole thing. This look gave me confidence. The dress is more like other dresses I’d wear.
I love a body conscious dress when it is short. I feel like my body is in proportion (which really means that I’m used to seeing my hips this way). A long bodycon dress, that is something I hadn’t conquered quite yet.
Today, while one of my favorite unicorns was kindly taking snapshots for me outside at work, I decided I’d like to see what it felt like to go all the way with this dress. I’m into pushing boundaries, even/especially my own, and I figured I could always pretend it didn’t happen if I hated it.
I actually kind of love it. Clothes aren’t always what we expect them to be. When unfamiliar things (bright patterns) meet complicated bodies (this dress is technically at least a size too small) and interesting gender feels (me), there’s a lot to work through, but at the end of that work magic sometimes happens.
The dress I’m wearing in this post was provided by Re/Dress. You can find it online here. The teggings are also courtesy of Re/Dress. Gold flats are some Steve Madden babies I scored at a fat clothing swap. A big thanks to Deb and Rachel for taking such good care of me!
The dress is lovely, you are lovely, and I enjoyed reading this.
loved the outfit when i first saw it on here and it loved it even more seeing it on you at femmecon. so much hotness. xo