Why I write this.

Today I got an email about the season's "sexiest, most affordable dresses." I love a good dress, so of course I clicked to see what was being featured and was let down once again.  Sure enough, $99.99 qualified as a super affordable dress that we should "stock up" on.  And it was made of jersey.  I don't  know about you, but a $100 dress is a splurge and it better be awesome. 

That email reminded me why I started this blog and I realized that I never really told you all why I do this for the whopping $2 per month I earn from the site traffic.  It's been six months and now I'm a little amazed that I spend so much time on it and that there have been over 11,000 visits to this page.  So in case you're interested, here's the back story.

The past couple of years I started to feel really left out of fashion and frustrated because each month I would happily sit down with my issue of Lucky and InStyle and then not see more than three things in 200+ pages that I could possibly afford and not much more that would actually work for my life.  I don't want to wear a dress, ankle socks, and platform heels or layer high waisted shorts with a blazer.  I also don't have more than $100 to spend on a shirt, but I don't want to buy things from Forever 21 that will fall apart.  Realizing that I must be in some minority demographic, I got good at making medium/low outfits and learning to get good deals on name brand clothes.

In addition to style, I was like all the other women who complain about not seeing bodies similar to theirs in print and in stores.  I'm on the large side of average (10, give or take a size) and it takes skill to be able to look at something on a rack and see if it will be flattering and walk past 70% of the stuff in a store because it won't work for your body.  I looked online for ideas, but found mostly complaining or the same few tips over and over.

I started thinking about blogging after I was interviewed for the Dallas news in January and the reporter said I knew more about clothes and shopping than other people she'd interviewed and encouraged me to share the knowledge.  I searched around and found lots of 'this was my outfit today' blogs (great for ideas, but you can't usually find what they're wearing) and lots that feature more daring ensembles like the ones in magazines, but none that posted clothes like me and my friends buy and hardly anyone writing about dressing different body types with actual examples.  I decided to give it a try and see if anyone would read what I wrote, and you do!

I try really hard to keep the content relevant and not too obvious, and I think I've developed a better eye for outfits and now home decor as well.   All of your comments remind me that there are lots of us regular women and I appreciate all of them.  I read every one and hope you'll keep coming back and tell your friends too.  Thanks for being part of my little venture into writing.  :)

Blood, Sweat & T-Shirts

Last Friday I had time to catch up on my tv watching, and stumbled across a pretty impactful show on Planet Green (originally aired on BBC).  It's a documentary series called Blood, Sweat & T-Shirts and it placed five twenty-something Londoners who love cheap fashion inside Indian garment factories.  They lived with the workers, worked in the factories, and saw how little their paychecks go despite the hard work and long hours.  A stick of deodorant cost an entire day's wages for someone on the sewing tables.

I will admit that I don't give much thought to where my clothes come from.  I know most all of our clothes are made in foreign factories but I trusted that conditions were decent.  On this show, I recognized labels from Target and was really saddened by the fact that the people who make those shirts make around $2 per day and live in poverty.  And that's in the nice factory!  There were lots of factories that were just disgusting and the workers had to sleep there under the sewing machines.

You can read about the show here 

It really made me think about the true price of a $7.99 shirt.  If we keep buying these clothes and putting pressure on retailers to keep prices so low, then we're supporting the need for low wages so that a shirt will cost only 25 cents to produce.   Then, on the other hand, I know there are people here who can't afford to spend $25 on a shirt made by well-paid workers and if orders are reduced, those same Indian workers will have no job at all.  What's a girl to do?

I know I can't buy all my clothes from Etsy and vintage stores, and the fair trade clothing sites I've found features lots of plain, unfashionable stuff.  So, internet, what do you think we should do?  Know any good sites that sell cute fair trade clothing (besides American Apparel)?  Share with the rest of us!

Who are these people?

First of all, this isn't meant as a shot at anyone, merely an observation. 

Last night I was reading a magazine and started thinking about all the clothing brands out there where every piece is over $100.  Almost every outfit shown featured something in the $300 range and I hadn't even heard of the brands. These aren't the Gucci and Donna Karan's that you've heard of, or even J.Crew and their $60 tank tops, but small labels selling $269 skirts.  Who buys those clothes? 

Clearly they have customers or they wouldn't be around.  If you go shopping in Dallas, it would appear that every other person drops $130 on a shirt or there wouldn't be so many places to buy them.  InStyle and Lucky act as though we should all jump at the chance to buy a $90 black skirt since it is $400 cheaper than the designer version, but it's still expensive to me.  Perhaps I'm in some low class demographic and don't even know it? 

Maybe when I'm super successful and have money to burn I'll drop $1000 on an outfit, but I don't think I'll ever go "$68 is a steal for this thin cotton tank" when I know what I can get for $19.   Clearly I'm far too practical for my own good.