Dessert-buffet-tacular! And why having a belly can be awesome.

Greetings, watchers! Have you all noticed the subtle change in my name? It seemed criminal of me to have a blog that talks primarily about fat acceptance stuff, and for it to have a title that doesn't reflect its content well. For this reason, I decided to add a T, thereby changing "Fashion" to "Fatshion"; a blend between "Fat" and "Fashion", because that is what this blog is. Or at least what it aims to be.

So, today was pretty fantastic, I have to say. You'll all be relieved to hear that I wore clothes:



I've GOT to start turning my light on before I take these shots. Anyway, my outfit today was admittedly not very interesting, but I wanted to show you all a picture of my purple skinny jeans. Unlike that sorry excuse for skinny jeans I presented a 'before' shot of in my sewing outfit, I can actually call these babies "skinny" without feeling the need to demand that they explain themselves. However, they are INCREDIBLY baggy on the top half. I won't be criticising Asos for this, because fatties are so diverse in their body proportions that it is impossible to make trousers that will fit correctly on each and every one of us. However, needless to say, these jeans require a makeover. And I'll be getting to that arduous task in a few days' time, hopefully.

Anyway, today I gathered up a group of merry men (myself and my friends B and R) and headed to a dessert buffet place in Shibuya, called Sweets Paradise. If anybody out there, anybody at all, is vaguely interested in the prospect of all-you-can-eat cake, this is the place for you.

Behold! Pictures!







And the remaining debris:



After licking our plates clean and thinking that we will quite possibly never have to eat again, we went to karaoke and ended up staying there for three hours. Some of the songs I showed considerably prowess in mimicking (ie. B and R's ears weren't bleeding after I was done with them) were "Telephone" by Lady Gaga, "The Sweet Escape" by Gwen Stefani, "You're My Best Friend" by Queen, and "In My Life" by the Beatles. I wanted dearly to sing "On My Own" from Les Miserables, because the damn song has been in my head for the past three days, but they didn't have it in the song catalogue. We headed home afterwards, feeling full, happy, and as though we'd done something, if not necessarily worthwhile, certainly incredibly fun, today.


People appear to have arrived back here from an event that was taking place tonight at a nearby restaurant (an event I would have gone to, had it not cost 2,500 yen and only been for two hours). And of course, they aren't troubling to keep their voices down. Most considerate of them.

One thing I noticed while sitting in the karaoke room listening to B and R singing obscure K-pop songs, was how I was sitting. I was slouched on the couch, my feet resting on a footstool in front of me. My hands were clasped lightly together and resting on my stomach. And because of the shape and size of my stomach, my hands were able to rest there, quite comfortably, without any danger of falling off and lying to rest awkwardly by my sides.

This got me thinking. If I did not have a stomach that stuck out like mine does, I would not be able to attain such a comfortable yet non-threatening position. If I wanted to put my hands somewhere comfortable like that, but I didn't possess my sort of stomach, I'd probably have to fold my arms. Indeed, I do do this on occasion. But that is a very threatening-looking position, and probably the sort of position you want to avoid when you're out with friends. So instead you're stuck with putting your hands on your legs, or to your sides, which can be kind of awkward. I, however, seem to carry a personal "handstool" (as opposed to "footstool") with me wherever I go.

So amused was I by this discovery, that I decided the time was right for me to make a list of the advantages to having a protruding, squishy belly, flabby arms, a well-padded posterior and wide legs like mine. The disadvantages to having such appendages are plentiful, but I think we can all already name a great many of those so there's not much point in me repeating them. This angle, however, is pretty new. So, here we go:


Fatshion Hustlings' List of Awesome Advantages to Having Body Fat

1. The fat stomach's aforementioned "handstool" use. Very handy when your hands are bothering you and you want to put them somewhere vaguely accessible, so that they can be called on easily when you next need them.

2. Fat people make excellent cushions for other living creatures. So far the only living creatures that have utilised my body for this purpose are my brothers and a few past and present cats. But none of them have issued any complaints about the comfort of my body. In fact, one brother used to use my arm for a cushion, and he once said "It would be sad if you lost weight, in the sense that your arm wouldn't be so comfortable anymore." And I can vouch for that - I use my arms as cushions often. I think this is a particularly good point, however. Let's consider intimate relationships for a moment here. I'm admittedly no expert, but I think one of the great things (and certainly one of the things I'm looking forward to) about a romantic relationship is the ability to draw comfort from each other's bodies. At the moment when I want comfort, I will stroke a cat's fur. In an intimate relationship I can absolutely see myself stroking my lover's hair for comfort. I'll also breathe in the familiar (and really, really nice - don't ask me why) smell of my cat. You get the idea. There's comfort in the familiarity, the warmth, the affection, the uniqueness of it. And fat bodies, in my opinion, are so well-equipped at being a source of comfort for people. We are squishy everywhere, so our hugs are fantastic. We make excellent cushions, so leaning on us is wonderful. And we carry that squishiness with us everywhere. You can even squeeze our arms to relieve stress, if we permit it. I'm kind of happy to know that I can provide that sort of support to people, just by being me.

3. Our fat is kind of fascinating to watch. It jiggles when we move! You can press down on it for ages! It can be poked and prodded and played with! Come on!

4. It protects more vital organs. OK, not entirely sure if that's true. But if it is? Awesome!

Edit: A mate of mine, D, provided me with this link, which shows that, yes, this is in fact true. Or at least it was in the past. :P

5. It is a form of stored energy, so we could potentially live off it for a long while, should food ever become scarce. This is a weak point for a number of reasons, but I'm putting it up anyway. Admittedly, if our bodies were starving, they'd eat up muscle before going to the fat cells, and fat in itself is hardly nutritionally sound enough for humans to survive using their deposits up. But yeah, if I were to be in a famine-like situation (extremely unlikely of course, but for argument's sake let's say it happened) I would last for far longer than people without that sort of emergency storage.

6. It protects us from the cold. I don't really like wearing jumpers. Mainly because in the course of one day I have to wash my hands a few times, and I HATE how wet sleeves feel on my hands. As such I'll avoid wearing jumpers whenever possible. And because I'm fat, that's so much more doable than it would be for a thinner person. My brother is frequently cold.

7. It protects us from injury. An image of Homer Simpson being hit by a cannon ball comes to mind. But yeah, it's true. I rarely get badly injured, even though I'm pretty klutz-y. When I fall down (an event that in itself measures on the richter scale) I'm normally OK to jump right back up again, because it's rare that I'm going to directly hit some bone or joint or something. Most of me is surrounded by a layer of blubber, or the blubber sticks out enough to protect protruding bone in its wake. On the other hand, one very thin friend of mine has bruises down her spine. She says she gets them from lying down, because her spinal column has no protection from the ground, or whatever. Um, OUCH! That would MAJORLY suck. I can't imagine getting injured just from lying down. All around me is soft, reliable padding. You've got to feel sorry for people without it.


That's about all I've got for now. But I think it's a pretty good list so far. And I think that for all fatties it is worth bearing this stuff in mind. Fat acceptance is about "accepting" our fat (because people like things to be spelled out in titles, and all), and that's absolutely great. But maybe part of doing that is to figure out what about our fatness is actually BETTER than what other people have, so that when other people start talking about the disadvantages of being fat, you are able to turn around and say "touche, old boy, but we can ALSO..."

Just a thought.

Outfittacular! And what I do with my razor.

This probably is not a post you'll want to read if talk about body hair makes you squeamish. I will try to be as tasteful as possible, but, yeah. You've been warned.

So, to kick things off, here's what I'm wearing today:



And to the side:



I am truly sorry about the shitty lighting. If you click on the photo and enlarge it, you should be able to see it fairly well.

I've worn this outfit (or at least the top half of it) a few times now, and I quite like the purple/light pink combo. The shirt is one of the many items of clothing I got for my 21st birthday last year, and the cardigan thing is something I purchased off yoursclothing.co.uk. The jeans are Marks and Spencers, purchased before I left the UK to come to Japan. They're nice jeans actually - quite thick, but stretchy and comfortable, unlike the other pair I bought there that digs into my stomach like it knows for sure there's buried treasure under there.

I'm also kind of liking what my hair's doing today. I gave it a pretty decent wash last night, so it's feeling pretty soft and the curls are quite bouncy. The issue of taming the curls is one I will have to deal with at some point in the future.

All right, that's the outfit out of the way. The main thing I wanted to talk about is something that I think a lot of women, and certainly a lot of fat women, have to deal with. Body hair.

Body hair is not fun for women, particularly in this day and age when even hair that EVERY woman has in abundance is considered unsightly, and the only hair that is really, truly permissible is what grows on your head. This irks me, as someone who struggles to grow adequate hair on her head but has absolutely NO trouble growing it on the rest of her body.

Now, hair comes in a variety of formats, as I think most people know. The hair that grows on the head is different to the hair that grows on the arms and legs is different to pubic/facial hair. This is why many men grow beards that are vastly different in colour to the hair on their heads. My brother's beard is alarmingly ginger-y. Even if you didn't know this, you probably had some kind of intuition about it because of differences in the characteristics of the hair (it feels different, looks different, etc).

Everybody has the light arm and leg hair from childhood (with some rare exceptions, of course). When puberty hits, a lot of this hair will turn into the thicker, more noticeable hair that exists on the more stereotypically "manly" of men in more abundance than on anyone else. Some men don't grow much of this hair at all, and such men are often teased about never having gone through puberty. Of course, in this "hair is horrible!" age those men are at a considerable advantage, but whatevs.

On women, this hair is only really supposed to grow on our nether-regions and under our arms, and for the women that I personally would deem "lucky", this is the case. On many of the rest of us, however, this black, thick, unsightly hair appears on many other parts of the body. To anybody who reads this blog, has this problem, and thinks that they are utterly alone in their suffering, take it from me: YOU'RE NOT.

And so at this juncture, I would like to talk about the wonderful (*cough*) dance that my beloved razor and I have to do every two or three days in the shower.

First, after I have put conditioner in my hair, I apply facial soap to my face. This done, I take the razor and carefully remove the past few day's worth of growth that has sprouted under my chin and along my lower jaw. This can be tricky, as I can't really see how it looks in the mirror, but I've been doing this for several years and haven't yet had a problem.

Next come the underarms. Not so embarrassing a procedure, because everybody has underarm hair.

Then comes my breasts. Yeah. See why I put the warning up at the start of this entry? It's common for men to have this thick hair growing around the nipples, and I can tell you now that it's not so rare on women either. I have to be really careful when I complete this part of the ritual. I'm only removing a few stray black hairs that grow there, but they grow alarmingly close to my nipples, and also if I don't pay attention I can easily miss them.

I really don't like the word 'nipple'.

Next comes the area under my navel. I'm guessing the hair grows here because it's near my nether-regions. I don't know. But anyway, I get quite a few thick black hairs growing there, so off they go.

Last comes my nether-regions. Now, I realise that many people choose to either leave this area alone (and good on you if you do), or just shave or trim along the outside, to tidy everything up a bit, present a nice bikini line, and all that good stuff. I just get rid of it all. This started a few years ago, when I was kind of curious about what it would be like to not have any hair down there, and I got a strange rash. In order to see the rash better I decided that now was the time for me to see what it was like to revert back to the genitals of my childhood. Since then it's become something of a habit. To be honest, it isn't the nicest of habits. It gets very prickly after a few days and it's always at least scratchy. I have a feeling that some day I'll get sick of the prickliness, or a future boyfriend will get sick of the prickliness, or I'll be unable to reach properly down there, or something, and I'll let it grow back. And I'd be kind of OK with it all growing back too. But for now I'll stick to my bizarre ritual.

And that's the end of it. I don't regularly shave my legs at the moment, because it's a pain in the arse to do and nobody sees them anyway. If I'm about to wear a dress I'll make the effort, but there seems to be little point otherwise. I don't do any waxing, because I'm a wimp. Although I wouldn't mind investigating more long-lasting methods for removing facial hair, because the prickly feeling is particularly undesirable there. My face feels like sandpaper.

The reason why I wanted to talk about my hair-removal rituals was to outline just where exactly body hair grows on some women. I am, I believe, fairly hairy for a white overweight chick. I would wager that black people and brown people often have far more extensive hair trouble than I do. As for the asians, well... yeah, bugger off. Lucky bastards. :P

But yeah, as I said before. Everybody who is both female and somewhat mortified by the unsightly hair that grows under their chin or under their navel, you are certainly, CERTAINLY, not alone.

Outfittacular!! And my personal history with sewing.

I thought I'd take a break from my usual angry rants about fat stigmatisation (fun and hopefully educational though those are), and talk about a few other things that people might be interested in with regards to me.

First, what I wore today!


A more full profile:


And a close-up of my annoyed-looking, double-chin-tastic face:

I am watching you...

My face is looking a bit spotty at the moment, which is irritating. It always happens when I regularly apply the 3-way cleanser toner moisturiser thing. Nothing against Clinique's system or anything, but my skin seems to fare better when I'm not using any type of cleansing product. I'd stop using said cleansing products, but I use the cleanser as shaving cream (more on that unfortunate aspect of my my beauty routine in a later post)

Anyway, so, the shirt is one of my new favourites. Purchased from yoursclothing.co.uk, I love the two-tone off-the-shoulder style. There's something subtly sexy about it, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm all about subtle sexiness.

The trousers are also a pair of my favourites. Loose cargo-type affairs that I got for my 21st birthday (along with many other clothes). There's nothing flashy about them, but they're light and comfortable and I don't feel like I'm having difficulty breathing when I sit down in them, which if beyond fantastic for a fattie in these jeans-enlightened times. My one complaint about them is that they keep falling down, so I'm forever hoisting them up while walking. This problem could easily be solved by me wearing a belt (or my "belt-scarf", as I have christened it), and I've only just realised that these trousers have belt loops, so I think I'd better start doing that, hehe.

I was also really pleased with my hair today. My hair is... difficult, at the best of times. And it always has been. It has come to my embarrassingly recent discovery that my hair is naturally quite curly, and that if I start treating it as curly hair then I should notice a difference in how it looks and feels. I've been looking up ways in which to give my hair the lovin' it deserves, and some of them have proven quite positive. I've stopped brushing it and I've stopped using shampoo. I apply liberal amounts of conditioner instead and work that into the scalp. I also don't towel-dry it, instead using an old t-shirt to scrunch my hair up and let it fall down. And I don't straighten it any more, although I might be wont to do that on very special occasions. So now my hair feels amazing and there is certainly more curl coming through, but the frizzy bits are still a bit problem. I'm beginning to think the only solution for that will be to use some kind of mousse or gel. dammit. i hate mousses and gels - they make my hair crunchy.

The sacrifices me make for beauty, hey?

Anyway, onto my second topic for today, sewing. I talk often on various journals and comms about my sewing efforts, so I thought that I would outline my history of sewing and why I've recently gotten into it as a way to extend my wardrobe for the better.

I learned how to sew when I was... young. :P Six or seven, I think. I really enjoyed it, even then. There was something about the rhythmic action of pulling a needle and thread through fabric over and over again that had a calming effect on me. I also enjoyed the idea of creating something with my hands.

As a kid, I grew up in a poor household. I wouldn't say that we were part of the working class, and I've never identified as somebody of the working classes, but we certainly did struggle with money, often. As a result we got a lot of hand-me-downs from family friends a few houses up. Among these hand-me-downs was, I remember quite clearly, a coat. I wore that coat to school all during the winter, and I loved it. After a while, however, I noticed that the stitching under one of the arms was coming loose, and it occurred to me that I should try to sew it up again. Tentatively holding needle and thread (scrounged up from god-knows-where in our impossibly messy house), I performed the familiar motions carefully, knowing that this would effect something that I was intending to wear. When I was done, the result was messy, clumsy, and certainly not a selling point if I had wanted to put the coat up for auction, but there was no denying that the coat was fixed. I was incredibly pleased with myself.

In year 7 I was taught how to use a sewing machine in high school. The thought of using a sewing machine was beyond exciting for me. This was the machine that my grandma tinkered on a lot of the time, after all. And my grandma is awesome! With my newly-acquired sewing skills I made a pair of shorts, which upon reflection were ugly as sin. But it was the process that mattered. I could now use a sewing machine. Also during year 7, I made a large library bag, with my grandma, on her sewing machine, which is so much more amazing than the sewing machines at my high school.

My love for sewing continued all through high school and unto university, but the sewing I did in those years was mostly of the fixing-things variety. I shortened the hem of my skirt for year 12, I fixed one of the poorer-quality of my soft toys, several times, I fixed a lot of my clothes, etc.

Then, during the second term of 2nd year uni (about a year ago), I was looking for a picture of a French horn with which to create a default icon for livejournal. The picture on the left there was the icon I eventually created, but during my search I came across the picture on the right, which, as a Guitar Hero fangirl, AND as a horn player, I thought amazing.
Upon further scrutiny I discovered that the picture came on a shirt, and I felt myself practically come with happiness. The question at that juncture was not so much "would I get the shirt?" as it was "how fast can I get it sent over?" To my amusement, I discovered that the only size left was a 2X in men's. Whatever, I thought. At least it wouldn't be too small.








It was like a tent:



Clearly something had to be done. After taking some time to ask my loyal band of brothers at fatshionista what they would recommend me do, I ended up taking something like four inches off the hem, shortening the sleeves and widening the hemline. My final result?



While far from perfect (in fact I was to do some more altering with it when I have it in my possession again), the process awoke something in me. My love for clothes-altering had truly begun.

In Japan, my love intensified when I got this baby:



Cost me about 6,000 yen, and it is everything I want in a sewing machine and nothing more. It's perfect.

So far I have completely changed the design of three t-shirts, taken in two more shirts, and (my proudest, though still kind of unfinished, moment yet) altered a pair of jeans. And so, people, I present to you: The Hustler Sewing Gallery (so far)!

Befores:










Afters:


This was the first of the three shirts I altered. Overall I was really pleased with the result. I liked the wide neckline - again, that subtle sexiness appealed to me. I think I liked showing my shoulders. The photo doesn't do the shirt justice, unfortunately.


This one was supposed to be a similar shape to the red number, and I think I succeeded in that, but there are little differences. The main one is that this shirt's neckline isn't as good. It's a bit wider (and in my opinion, too wide), and it's a bit wonky as well. I like the shirt and I wear it (the picture on it is hilarious, for one thing), but it's not my best effort.


This one was a major accomplishment for me, because it involved me doing more with the original sleeves than just getting them off. With this shirt, I cut off the sleeves, took in the rest of the shirt, took in the sleeves (after doing every single appropriate arm-hole measurement about three times apiece), shortened the sleeves, and finally sewed them back onto the shirt again. My sewing machine played up a bit for this shirt, so the sewing isn't as good as it is on the other clothes I've done, but the style is great. I'm very proud of this one.


I was so excited about how these turned out! When I first put these jeans on (jeans that were advertised as "skinny jeans", I'll have you know), I had to resist the urge to laugh. As I've said time and time again to anyone who'll listen, the jeans were skinny like I am. So after spending a lot of time pulling them on, pulling them off again, measuring, measuring, and doing some more measuring, I took in from the top of my thigh down, doing my best to sew according to the shape of my leg. I think I did pretty well. However, the jeans sit so high up my waist that it would not be inaccurate to say that the waistband is more like a below-breasts-band. So I've still got a bit of work to do on these babies.


So, that's about it. For my next trick, I'll be altering another pair of jeans (purple ones!), but that won't happen for a while yet. I've still got an exam or two to think about.

Peace out, y'all.