Article-tacular. Some things make me worry about the ways of the world...

... and this is one of those things.

I'm going to be referring to the lovely lj community fatshionista a fair amount in this blog, as it is the source for a lot of the material I find on fat stigmatisation.

Also, as a general disclaimer, I'll be using the word "stigmatisation" to refer to a whole manner of things (including ignorance, unfairness, unprecedented judgements and unjustified opinions) that stem from a negative attitude towards fat people.

Amongst the many posts on fatshionista today was this one, which pointed us fashion-loving fatties towards a plus-sized model featured in the French version of Elle magazine. I've got to say, I was impressed by Elle's balls here. I mean, if fat stigmatisation in countries like England and America is bad, I can only imagine how much it's stigmatised in France, where obesity is not as prevalent. Certainly obesity is very stigmatised here in Japan, but only in reference to Japanese people - they're cool with us foreigners being fat. Double standards, huh?

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, this plus-sized model. She's a size 18 UK (so maybe about a 16 in American sizing), and she appears to be quite tall, but as I was not able to find out her height in 1 minute's worth of google searching, I deemed the task irrelevant (my laziness scares even me sometimes) and moved on. To say that she is pretty would be doing her an incredible injustice, I feel:



She's fucking GORGEOUS. I realise that this invites a whole wave of people to say that I must be one of those types who thinks that people are only beautiful if they have curves... rubbish. Cameron Diaz is one of the most beautiful women in the world and she has few curves to speak of. Keira Knightley has fewer still, and Anne Hathaway isn't the curviest of individuals. You don't have to have a body like Angelina Jolie or Anna Paquin to be gorgeous, and Tara Lynn here certainly seems to be doing her part to promote her side of the scale, as it were.

(This just in: she's 176cm. So yeah, pretty tall)

So there I was, enjoying the photos in the 20-page Tara-esque spread (worth checking out, btw. There are some nice photos there, including a nude shot that I didn't really see much point to, because it is, you know, a FASHION magazine, where fashion generally equals CLOTHING, but whatever, she looks fabulous in it as well), and I decided to go back to LJ and tell the fattie (that's what we call ourselves on fatshionista) thank you for the link. The other comments already on there talked about negative comments directed towards our heavy-set babe here.

Oh Lord, here we go, I thought to myself. Because I am a curious kitten, I obviously now absolutely HAD to have a look through the comments. Some of them upset me, I won't lie. It's amazing how ignorant people can be. But some of them made me raise a somewhat curious eyebrow. So I thought I'd post a few on here.

She's really pretty, but I'd like her a little thinner. Not twiggy, mind you, just about 20 pounds less.

If she was 20 lbs less she wouldn't have a job. She'd be too big for regular modeling and too thin for plus size modeling. I think 20 lbs less would be better for her health wise, but not career wise.

There were a lot of comments like this. "She's pretty, but she'd be prettier if she was thinner" sort of thing. A lot of them had the "not Twiggy!" angle, but I still think you're doing her an injustice by saying that she should lose any weight. This brings about the whole point a lot of people are trying to make in the FA movement: Why? Why would she look better if she was just a little thinner? Would she REALLY look better if she was just a little thinner? I don't think it would make very much difference at all, quite frankly. 20lb less would probably be bad for her career though, I'll accept that. In fact, I would have liked this comment if the poster had not posted "I think 20 lbs less would be better for her health wise". That makes me clutch the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger and think angry thoughts, before thinking "No, no, it's not their fault. It's just what society tells them." Fat vs. Health is an issue for another incredibly long blog post, I think.

She looks gorgeous. But she's the exception.

Sadly this person had 79 fans. I'd give them a well-placed "fuck off", but I think the person who commented on their comment summed it up pretty well:

Gorgeous skinny women are the exception, too.

This comment had 258 fans. AND they had correct grammar (that's right, I will become that petty for the sake of this argument)! In your face!

She is beautiful.­..a woman's body (shapely and curvy), self-confi­dence, and just plain hot! It's about time we started celebratin­g real women again! Thanks, Elle!

There were HEAPS of comments talking about Tara being a "real" woman. At this, I again feel the need to place thumb and finger on bridge of nose and pinch slightly. Isn't it about time that we stopped this, people? Don't all of you "real" women out there get sick and tired when the skinny-obsessed media labels you as "too fat"? Don't you think that, by insinuating that the willow-like people of the world are somehow "not real", that you're doing the same sort of negative categorising that the media does to you? I mean, I know skinny people, and most of them are pretty real-seeming to me. I think it's unfair to say that an ectomorph with about as much ability to become round and curvaceous as an endomorph has at becoming lean, is "not real". Don't get me wrong - it's wrong to put them on high pedestals as well - but I think we can be better than this. People are people. We come in all shapes and sizes, and THAT should be celebrated.

FANTASTIC - and I will be bookmarkin­g for motivation (or seeing if I can order a hard copy). She's probably 20-30 lbs heavier than I was in college, but [now] I'm up about 60 lbs. Pictures of the ridulously skinny are of no help - I couldn't get there when I was healthy and an athlete, so I certainly won't get there now. But maybe, just maybe -- if I can cut down ... -- I could achieve this and love it! Thanks, Elle, for showing beauty in a different size.

You're so not helping, dude. What's wrong with your current weight? The whole POINT (I thought!) about this was that it was showing beauty as achievable in a variety of sizes. Not just in skinny people and not just in people like Tara! You, too, are beautiful, with your 60lb more than Tara.
And I'm really starting to hate when people talk about "cutting down" on food intake, as though it's a really good thing. Most people are pretty bloody good at naturally eating, more or less, what their body requires. "Cutting down" means that your body is consuming LESS than what it requires. That is NOT a good thing!

Beautiful face but I'm sorry I don't want her body.

Only posting this one because I enjoyed the reply:

thanks so much for the same hackneyed "but you have such a pretty face" that we plus size woman have heard all our lives

You go girl.

How is a big roll of belly fat sexy or beautiful?

Dunno. Just is. How is being a jerk helping to extend your cock size?

I don't think women are sexy at that size.
I don't think women are sexy at a size 0, 2, 4 or 6 either.
I also think that the fashion media should show women of all sizes, shapes and colors.

I absolutely agree with the third line. I added the first two to show that nobody's perfect. :P

She has a pretty face but she is also overweight so this is really no better than featuring anorexic looking models. Thin women, athletic women, and average sized women are all "real" too you know. Shouldn't we be pressing for health instead, a happy medium between overweight and anorexic? All I know is this woman could not run a mile without stopping..­.

Oh piss off. You can't just look at a person's shape and immediately know whether they're healthy or unhealthy. I agree that in-betweeners need to be in these mags too, but that doesn't stop you from being a judgemental prick. I hope she CAN run a mile without stopping, just to show you up.
Love this reply to that comment:

You do not "know" that at all. You assume that. I'm "overweigh­t," "plus-size­," "fat," etc ., and I am healthier than most of the "skinny" people I know. I walk everywhere (don't own a car), bike, walk stairs for exercise, etc. Fat does not equal unhealthy, just as skinny doesn't mean healthy.
...
Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes...mo­st importantl­y, it comes from within. And all the haters here, regardless of how "healthy" they are, seem pretty ugly to me

What the dick does health have to do with any of this anyway? It's a FASHION magazine, ffs!

My mother use to say,some dog's like meat on there bone's LOL!!!!!

And MY mother used to say "Gillian, if you ever use an apostrophe on a plural I will kick you out of this house."

No thank you. Fat is not attractive­, nor is it healthy. And anyone that says "Yay, finally someone that looks like a real woman." needs to go on a diet.

This arsehole has a picture of Quagmire as his avatar. I think it suits, although Quagmire occasionally, you know, has a heart.
Believe me, buddy. There are PLENTY of skinny people out there who prefer their women (and men!) chunky, and even, occasionally, fat. And I would quite honestly fear for these skinny peoples' lives if they decided to go on diets. There are plenty out there who think that fat is VERY attractive, and if you want to go into the purely perverted side of it, check out some of the porn out there featuring overweight people. There are actual humans out there whacking off to that shit, because they think it's HOT. Truly the world has gone topsy-turvy.

As a woman on the lighter scale of normal, I don't understand the obsession with weight. She is beautiful for who she is whether skinny or overweight­. There are beautiful women who are overweight­, there are beautiful women who are skinny. This woman would be beautiful if she were 20 pounds lighter too. Trying to say that women have to be round to be womanly is the other extreme of the scale where you have to be skinny to be beautiful. It's just the same kind of thinking with a different vocabulary­. Stop obsessing with weight, then the true beauty will show.

This. ... So. Much. This.

And I'm quoting it last because I think it sums up my beliefs really well. I think this person has pretty much hit the nail on the head. Letting beauty be controlled by your size and shape is a bad way to go about doing things, because nobody is able to absolutely 100% perfectly sculpt themselves into any shape that is out there. It is cold, hard, unchangeable, undeniable genetics that dictates, for the most part, how we look. And it's sad when people spend so much of their time trying to deny the body that has been sculpted for them through billions of years of evolution, rather than trying to use the features that they've been given to make themselves look and feel both beautiful and unique.

England made me ugly!

Well, that's not quite true. Maybe I should explain.

Before I left for England in September 2008, I spent about 8 months working in a stationery store (Officeworks, for all Aussies in the know) in Sydney. In an effort to look respectable, my hair was more or less lovely and straight every day, my make-up was subtle and nice, my uniform suited me well... in short, I looked like this:



Now, after two and a bit years of university and schlumping around to all sorts of different places, I tend to look more like this:



Not bad, I guess - but certainly not as nice as I looked in 2008.

This isn't England's fault. If anything, England has been a massive help for me, because there is much more variety in clothing that I can actually wear, so there is more opportunity for me to create my own style, and I'm slowly, sloooooooowly doing that - it's tough when you never have money.

I think that it's more to do with, above anything else, a lack of need to be hot. This in itself is kind of obscure, because I often feel like I do have a need to look hot, but when I looked hot in Aus, it was always because I had work that day and professionalism said that it would be sloppy of me not to put in a considerable effort with regards to my appearance. On days when I didn't work, I didn't tend to put on make-up or straighten my hair or generally worry as much about how I looked as on days when I did work.

Just a thought.

Rant-tacular (on obesity stigmatisation and the damaging effect it has on people)

So a week and a half or so ago I was checking my livejournal, as one does, and I came across an article in a community that calls themselves ed_ucate. "ed" here means "eating disorder". I joined the group a year or so ago, when it became relatively clear to friends of mine in the know that I have disordered eating habits. Anyway, I find the community good in a number of ways. It is helpful, first of all, to read about other people's disordered behaviour and how they deal with it. I also find it quite intriguing from an academic perspective. I am an academic, after all, and I like to read up on medical issues of this caliber (I really should have gone into medicine. Perhaps it's not too late...). I especially enjoy reading about people's perceptions of eating disorders, and reading up on these perceptions and seeing what sort of evidence these perceptions are based on.

Anyway, a week and a half ago, I came across an article written by a German girl with bulimia currently on exchange in Copenhagen. She's 21, so my age, and she was talking about, essentially, her life at the moment. It's not been easy for her of late - she's been feeling bad about not taking all of the opportunities Copenhagen has to offer her, she's struggling with her eating disorder, she's got boyfriend-related worries, etc. But one thing that I noticed in particular was that, in the beginning of her post, she talked about the "good goals" she'd set for herself when she first arrived in Copenhagen a few months ago. Most of these goals were indeed goals that I myself set when I first came to Japan - learn the language, study hard, etc. But one of them gave me pause - "lose weight".

Hmm. I didn't like that. Not at all. And there are reasons for that. So, I present to you all now the looooooooong rant I posted on livejournal that day about this. Let me know what you think.

There was a post over at ed_ucate earlier today from a woman of 21 (my age) who is struggling quite a bit with a whole manner of things. Obviously, since ed_ucate is an eating-disorder-based community, her ED was one of the primary things that she was struggling with. Not that I think anybody with an ED doesn't struggle with it, but anyway.

One thing that bothered me in particular about this person is that she said, fairly early on in her post (and it was a pretty long post) that her BMI fluctuates between 25 and 35, and at the moment is at around 30. For those unfamiliar with the BMI... I encourage you to continue being unfamiliar with it, because if ever there has been a more bullshitty excuse for a measure of body physique, I have yet to find it. However, 30 is considered overweight. And throughout the article it became fairly clear that she is overweight, as it were. At one point she even mentioned how a doctor told her that, while she certainly had symptoms of bulimia, she was too fat to actually be bulimic (and at that can I just say to this doctor, in the most heart-felt way that I can manage, FUCK. YOU.). She also talked about having "good" goals for the next few months, most of which were pretty good (learning another language, studying hard, etc), but one of these goals was "losing weight".

This is a tricky situation. Obviously when one is trying to get over an eating disorder, thoughts about losing weight really should not exist. But if a person is actually overweight, then what?

There are two related problems here. The first is that some would follow the beliefs of that, *ahem*, "doctor", and think that proper eating disorders are not possible in overweight people, unless of course that eating disorder is binge-eating disorder (yay! *waves the BED flag*). The other is that close friends and relatives of the overweight ED-sufferer in question will, while being concerned (hopefully) about the ED, think that maybe the ED can be re-wired in such a way that the sufferer can lose weight.

Either way, there is this general idea that losing weight is of extreme importance here, DESPITE the eating disorder.

It occurred to me, while I was trying to think up a suitable reply for this poor woman, that her struggles would be made so much easier if losing weight wasn't an issue for her. But sadly, it is an issue. Not for any logical, valid, important reason (like, say, because her health is in actual danger - in fact, she seems to consume so little every day that I'd almost be prepared to say that the fact that she is overweight is saving her from dying of starvation. Note the "almost"), but because everybody around her - her parents, the "doctor", and society at large, is telling her that she should. Diversity doesn't seem to apply when it comes to body mass. As soon as a person is overweight, the all-around belief is: "You, my friend, are too fat. Conform!"

Does anybody else think, in this day and age, where diversity is supposed to be encouraged and celebrated, that this still-completely-acceptable way of thinking is INCREDIBLY STUPID?

The part that really broke my heart was when she said something along the lines of: well, as it stands, all my life I've thought that if only I could lose the weight and become thin, then I could become prettier/more loveable/more acceptable. How am I supposed to completely change that life-long belief?

Indeed. How is she supposed to change that life-long belief? I think it broke my heart because for so long, I thought exactly the same thing. Hell, quite a lot of the time I STILL think exactly the same thing. And when I say "so long", I mean, like, since the beginning of high school. So, 12. Probably before then too, I don't know. And was it my fault that I thought that way? I don't know. But I definitely don't think that the people who cared for me are entirely blameless, nor are the people who care for any overweight child, who think that telling the child shit like "you'd be so pretty if you lost weight" is helping them. In saying that you are indirectly saying that the child is currently ugly, and the only way for them to not be ugly is to be thin. Please, carers, why not go one step further, and roll out the eating disorder red carpet for them? Help them to take those first few tentatives steps into the world of constant. food. obsession, and a complete inability to think about anything, really, except food, and create a final result: a young adult who is probably fatter than ever before.

I'm sorry. This sort of talk makes me think really angry things about the people who, had they been more accepting of me the way I am, have stopped me from being controlled by something that I should be able to control. Just think, if they had said to me "Gillian, you're fantastic just the way you are. Do not change who you are. At all." rather than "Gillian, you would be so much more amazing if you were just a little bit thinner", or "Gillian! You've lost 5kg since I last saw you, right? You look SO much prettier now! Keep it up!", I could, quite possibly, not be in this hell that stops me from having ANY confidence to do ANYTHING, AT ALL, EVER.

Am I angry? TOO RIGHT I AM! This obesity stigmatism is the STUPIDEST, most UNFAIR, most INCREDIBLY HORRIBLE THING EVER. So many skinny people out there think that by promoting weight loss and healthy eating and exercising around the clock, that they are helping us poor, disadvantaged, ugly, helpless tubby people to lead better, more fulfilling lives. Would you like to know instead, you people, what you are promoting? You are promoting prejudice. You are promoting hate. You are promoting shame. You are promoting disgust. You are promoting an attitude whereby conforming is the only solution. You know what? Go away. You don't give a flying toss about our health. If you did then you would spare a second to realise how your propaganda is making fad diets, over-exercising, eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression acceptable, and you would see that what you're doing isn't improving our health at all. What you care about is that not everybody in the world is the same as you, and you want to change that, because fat people are not aesthetically pleasing enough for you. You're bullies. Plain and simple.

I'm through with believing that the only way that I can ever find love, be successful, and have a happy life is through fruitless dieting that I know from a literal lifetime of experience is going to do Sweet Fanny Adam. I'm through with all of the pretentious talk that most women seem to think is totally normal and sociable (you know what I mean. "Oh, you've lost so much weight! You look terrific!" "You think so? Thank you!" "Oh, I envy you, I have these rolls all over me and I just want them to go!" "Oh, I know, me too. I recommend this new thing I'm trying. Basically I eat 20kcal a day, feel like total crap all the time, and have barely enough energy in the evening to give my husband a decent knobbing. The weight's been just flying off me!" "That's amazing!"). I'm going to congratulate people if they lose weight and they are proud of themselves. But the second they start giving me weight-loss advice, I am going to throw the packet of biscuits that I will probably be eating right in their face, then be bitterly disappointed because those biscuits would have been tasty, and now would have face all over them. I am going to walk confidently with my skinny friends, knowing that, despite my fatness, and indeed maybe a little because of it, I bring a uniqueness into this world that cannot be matched by anybody else. I am going to believe that I am just as deserving of love, success, and happiness as any skinny person out there.

To tell you the truth, I probably am not actually going to do any of these things for a good long time, because I'm still riddled with the doubt and insecurity that comes from a lifetime of knowing beyond any question of a doubt that I am too fat to be considered deserving of any of these nice things. But hopefully, some day, I'll get there. I live for that dream.


This was the reply I ended up posting to the woman on ed_ucate :

I know exactly what you mean, because I have been there (and I mean, seriously. I've been there). There is such stigmatisation over being overweight, and it is a ridiculous, unfounded kind of stigmatisation. The only possible argument there is for being overweight being a bad thing, is if some health-related deficiency always occurs as a result, and many studies are showing that this is simply not the case. It is your actions, rather than your physicality (as well as other factors arguably out of a person's control, like environment, genes, gender, ethnicity, age, that sort of thing) that aid a person's health. Which is why there are so many incredibly fit, agile, healthy fat people out there, and so many disgustingly unhealthy thin people.

As for being thin making a person ok/loveable/worthy... well, as I said, I absolutely know what you mean, and until very recently I very firmly believed that there was no way that I would ever find love or be successful or be anything else that I want to be, while I remain fat. But I've gotten involved with a community on LJ that's really been helping me change that opinion. I won't lie - right now, a lot of the time, I still believe that I would find love and be more successful if I was thinner. But when I realise that thinking that is absolutely wrong and that in saying it I'm selling myself drastically short, the feeling that that realisation brings about is unspeakably wonderful. Funnily enough, when I do think like that, and when I can do things like tell my mum (in my head, of course) to go away and that I don't have to spend my life being ruled by how much I weigh, my ED seems to be much better.
This is merely a suggestion, of course. But I think, particularly for us overweight people with EDs, that it definitely merits thinking about.

Thanks for reading guys. <3

Updatetacular.

Gorsh, how long has it been? A year? Bit less? I do apologise for that, all... none of you or so who follow this and were, clearly, waiting with baited breath for my next post. I feel that I've let you down in a big way.

I've got a few fabulous things that I'd like to post on here, and this shall be done in the space of a few blogs. I thought I might take Fashion Hustlings in a different direction, and use this blog as a place to post about all things fat-related, as well as about my personal fashion choices.

The two issues are not completely dissimilar, at least as far as I'm concerned. As an overweight individual, when it comes to fashion, being fat is inevitably always going to be an issue. And that is totally fine - I think that when it comes to fashion and trying to dress oneself in a flattering way, everybody has issues that they need to think about - the colour of their skin/hair/eyes, their overall body shape, what they feel comfortable wearing, etc - and that's all good.

But I think that when it comes to fatness in general, another issue - the stigmatisation of fat people - needs to be recognised. There are, obviously, a LOT of reasons why fat stigmatisation is bad. And believe me, if I am able to keep this blog up and running, I will be addressing these issues in plentiful detail. But mainly I want to think about a well-known situation whereby any person who is fat cannot possibly be attractive or have much variety available to them when it comes to clothes. This is wrong, on so many levels, and I would like to, in some small way, help people to see this.

I'll hopefully also begin linking to other, far better (as in, older) blogs of a similar nature. There are some incredible fat activists out there, all with really poignant ideas and all doing amazing things for the Fat Acceptance and Health at Every Size movements. I think that, fat or not, these sorts of blogs are worth checking out. It's like with anything, really - knowledge is power. I would argue that in mainstream society the very idea of fat acceptance is kind of laughable. Surely fat is bad, after all? It's not healthy. Obesity is a leading cause for so many different diseases and ailments. It's not like other forms of stigmatisation, because people can control how much they weigh, easily (I mean, I control my weight. It's not that hard at all), and stigmatising might help them to become healthier, and surely that's in their best interest?

No. No no no. This is all wrong (yeah, even the diseases one), and I am, hopefully, going to slowly, methodically, show you why.

So, welcome back, everyone!

Skintacular

I'm going to start with this not-particularly-descriptive statement: I love my skin.

"Your skin, Hustler?" some people who actually know me might be wont to comment. "Why, of all of your features, is it your skin that you like? After all, you have that cute button nose the big-nosed people of this world would die many times over for, the incredibly interesting different-coloured eyes, the nicely-shaped legs, the breasts that are admittedly kind of small for a fat girl but really a very nice size all around, and that incredible wine-red hair"

Don't go thinking that I'm up myself or anything, because I'm certainly not. At least not when it comes to appearance. But everybody has good and bad features, and generally it's up to the individual to either hide the bad features and accentuate the good ones, or to make the bad features truly work for them. This is what I've been considering doing with my skin.

"But wait, Hustler," you might be saying. "Didn't you just say that you love your skin?" Why yes, I did. But what I love about it is how incredibly flawed it is.

"What is it? Acne? Freckles? Moles? Scars?" - well, all of those of course, but those things are pretty minimal compared to its most major flaw. Let me talk to you all through the media of typing at 70wpm about Keratosis pilaris. The wikipedia entry on it describes it as a "genetic follicular" condition, that appears as tiny red bumps on the skin. It's commonly referred to as "chicken skin", because some of it does look quite chicken skin-y. It comes in several different forms, and affects 40% of the adult population. Because it involves excess amounts of keratin, a skin protein, surrounding hair follicles, it's often mistaken for acne by those who have it.

Obviously, I have this, or else why the hell would I be talking about it? Keratosis is usually seen on the upper arms, thighs and arse, and there can be a reasonably small amount of it or quite a large amount of it. I have probably one of the worst cases of it I have ever seen on a human being. Genetic my arse, because nobody else in my family has it like I have it, and my mother and brother don't have it at all. I have it all over my arms, all over my legs, all over my arse (i think. i don't look at my arse in the mirror that often), all along my chest, my back, pretty much everywhere except my belly, the soles of my feet and my palms. On my face I have a different manifestation of it called keratosis pilaris rubra faceii. This is where the skin on one's face is strangely red and blotchy, even when one hasn't been working up a sweat. It's everywhere, basically, and I've had it ever since I can remember. I can recall looking at my skin, then looking at other people's, and wondering why mine had these strange goosebumps on it. I remember my friends saying that I should get acne creams because they thought it was acne. I remember other friends saying "wow! it's so bumpy!" Yes, my keratosis and I have had an interesting life.

I used to quite severely dislike it. It was different after all, and being about 20kg heavier than most of my classmates, I really didn't need anything else that made me different. I'd absolutely cover my arms with foundation, marvelling at how awesome it was that it couldn't be seen. I'd avoid singlet tops and complain to my mother about it.

But then I read a Draco/Ginny HP fanfic where Draco spends a paragraph or two considering Ginny's physique. He says to himself at one point "how has she made arm freckles sexy?" That line gave me pause. It made me think to myself "Well, if she can make arm-freckles sexy, then I surely can make keratosis sexy."

So away went my foundation (except for on my face where it's supposed to go), and along back came the short-sleeved shirts and my proudly displaying my keratosis to the world. Whether or not people think that it looks good I don't actually know, but I admit I do actually look at it every now and then and think "i actually really like this". Because it's unique. Other people have it, but not as much as me. Like being ginger, it's something special. My current thoughts are that if I worked out enough to make my arms look like dynamite, I would happily wear singlets and pose prettily in photos showcasing the length of my upper arm in all its keratosis-y glory.

For those of you with no idea of what the hell I'm talking about, I'll post a few photos on here now. For those who find keratosis unsightly, I suggest you don't look.


My lower left arm.


My face - centre. My eyes are closed because of the flash.


One side of my face


My upper arm


Bonus picture of me doing... sexy glasses-lowering face? I dunno.

So there you have it. Enjoy

And so Fashion Hustlings has begun! (Hustlingtacular!)

And boy, this site seems so much simpler than Livejournal.

Like everybody else with an interest in fashion who enjoys posting pictures of themselves posing in such a way to emphasise their most pleasing assets on the internet, I've decided to start a fashion blog. Admittedly doing this will be tricky at best since I have very few outfits and not enough money to extend my wardrobe in the way that I would like. Still, hopefully in the future I will be doing this and showing new and interesting outfits all the time.

What inspired me to do this was a combination of factors. Before I became as interested in fashion as I am now, fashion almost seemed like a faraway dream for me. This was partially because my fashion sense was terrible, but mainly it was because I currently stand at 5'5" and weigh 95-100kg. To put it frankly, I believed that I was too fat for fashion. And oh, how very wrong I was.

A friend of mine on Livejournal, luciannamalfoy, suggested that I check out a comm on LJ, fatshionista. Fatshionista, I thought, with an appreciative eyebrow-raise. Well at least they don't beat around the bush. So I checked out this comm and discovered, to my amazement, women, men and genders in between my size if not bigger, displaying pictures of themselves wearing the most amazing combinations of clothing. Did they look thin? Fuck no. They wore clothes that in many cases seemed specially designed to show off the very curves and fleshy bits that mainstream society at present dubs unsightly and shameful. But my God, they were stunning. As was said in an article in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/jan/30/fat-fashion-blogs) yesterday, these people were "staring defiantly at the camera, daring someone to suggest they're not gorgeous". And I wouldn't dare suggest it. They were gorgeous and still are.

So, I figured, why the hell could I not be the same? I had a bit of a look at my limited clothes supply, put together a few outfits, and had my friend snap pictures of me to post. The comments I got were wonderful. I had people telling me that I was gorgeous, that my skirts and boots were fantastic, that my hair was incredible. It was so uplifting that it struck me as bizarre, almost, that people wouldn't make an effort to dress themselves well. The results showed themselves instantly.

So it's a new year now, and I've decided to, above all else, make an effort to make myself look and feel spectacular. The make-up is going on, the time is being spent considering clothes, the hair is being manipulated into interesting shapes and patterns instead of being tied up. I'm embarking on a journey to discover my style, and any readers of this blog will hopefully be joining me.