Fashion, Style and Me (Part One)

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I am a big bunch of contradictions when it comes to style and fashion. I used to resent the fashion industry for promoting an image there’s no way I could ever come close to achieving, but in recent years I’ve come to love it despite myself. I used to feel almost “unworthy” of pretty things by virtue of not ”fitting the mould”, but now I strongly believe that everyone has a right to style. At first, I shied away from blogging about it as I really don’t feel comfortable with the concept of posting outfit shots – I generally avoid having to look at photos of myself! I love reading about other peoples’ sartorial choices however, indeed some of my favourite blogs are fashion blogs, and I love talking about clothes, etc. so I feel that now may be the time to venture into writing about them too. Don’t expect daily outfit pics any time soon however!

To that end, I thought a post outlining my relationship with fashion and style was in order. Having been born with very visible severe Scoliosis, I’ve always had to make my clothing choices carefully, and there are some trends that have always been “out of my reach” – bodycon is the stuff of my nightmares. Some may see trying to disguise my “condition” (for want of a better word) with carefully-chosen clothing as body shame, I see it as working with what I have.

Like many people, some days I feel down about the way I look, hiding in baggy clothing and not going out unless I have to. Most of the time however, my clothes and make-up give me confidence – I can put together a pretty outfit and allow the clothes to draw attention to the features I do like – usually my legs.

I also have ridiculously narrow feet, shoulders that are about 2 sizes narrower than my hips, a torso that’s so disproportionate to my legs that I end up buying petite size tops and tall-size jeans (when I buy both tops and trousers at the same time some of the looks I get from shop assistants are quite hilarious, particularly buying tall jeans when I’m only 5’1) and I can’t walk in heels to save my life. I’m trying to work on the latter but the rest I’ll just have to live with.

I’m writing this so that I have a post I can link to whenever I write about what I personally wear, buy, or wish for, that goes some way to explaining why I make the clothing choices I do. I’m not asking for a “pity party” in sharing this, in fact, in some ways it has made shopping really easy for me – having to be so careful with what I wear for so long means that now I can walk into a shop and pick things up that I know will suit me, often without trying them on. It certainly makes life a lot easier for the boy when he’s forced to come shopping with me!

This is part 1. Now that the “serious” stuff is out of the way, part 2 will be all about what I do wear, rather than the limitations!