Guess who’s back, back again
Mandy’s back, tell a friend
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back?
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back?
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back?
Guess who’s back?
That’s right friends, I’m bringing the blog back! To be honest it was never my intention to be gone this long. I knew I wanted to make the jump in blog platforms and change my look but I didn’t realize all the steps that were involved and honestly didn’t have the time to learn the steps after a I started the process until now. Then I finally got a working website up and it was time to work on the appearance and I struggled there too. I knew the look of my blog should reflect the style you see on the blog and I thought I knew what that style was until I was told I was wrong. I used to describe my style as “modern feminine” because I gravitate towards feminine details but my style reflects my modern lifestyle as a working woman. But I was repeatedly told that the modern part was all wrong . . . ok, so what is my style then? Since I couldn’t get it right on my own I turned towards friends to give me some unbiased thoughts.
Preppy was suggested the most which is funny to me because when I hear preppy, I think plaid and cashmere sweaters with pearls and while I enjoy those things it’s not what I’m drawn to on a regular basis. Southern, chic, fun, confident, all about the details, comfortable and classic were all suggested as well. Chic was the second most common word people used which surprise me too because I don’t think of myself as chic. I think of myself as someone who would like to be chic but misses the mark if I’m being honest, so I was surprised so many people describe me that way. (An example of how we can be our own harshest critics sometimes)
At the end of the day my problem is that there’s a difference between my ideal style and my actual style in both my home and my wardrobe. Ideally, I love pink and frills – slap a bow on anything and I will love it 10 times more – but that just doesn’t fit with my everyday life of working M – F and running errands on the weekend. Sure, I COULD go grocery shopping in tiered tulle skirt but I’m too practical to buy one knowing that it would only be worn for things like grocery shopping or the occasional dinner out so time after time I make my clothing selections with one thing in mind – can I wear this to work? The more and more I thought about this predicament I realized it’s not uncommon. I think we all live a life in between our ideal and reality – no one WANTS to do laundry for example but it’s something we do because we must – the key is finding joy and satisfaction in that reality away from the ideal. It’s not that I don’t like my clothes or the things around my home, if I didn’t then it would be easy to not accumulate so much of it.
I thought about how growing up I would pour through fashion magazines idolizing the content I saw but feeling shitty about myself at the same time for not being everything (or anything really) that I saw there – thin, attractive, NYC dwellers who could afford $500 shoes on a regular basis. And then I thought about why I started blogging; because I didn’t see women who looked like me wearing the things I wanted to wear and decided to create the content I wanted to see. I also thought about my current style philosophy I try to embody in every post – you don’t have to live in NYC to be fashionable, you don’t have to be rich to be fashionable, you don’t have to be thin to be fashionable, you don’t have to wait for a special occasion to wear something fabulous.
Fashion is for everyone, every day. We might not wear our most ideal outfits everyday or live our most ideal life (mine would be on an island somewhere drinking cocktails) but we can bring a little bit of our ideal into our everyday life. This isn’t going to be the place where you’re going to find the hot off the runway looks and I’m never going to pretend like I’m the most fashionable person on the internet but I do hope you will see a little bit of chic reflected in my everyday life and I hope you’ll be inspired to add a little chic to your everyday too!
xx,
