Look Your Best Week

The ladies over at Academic Chic are doing this again this year, and I think it's awesome. It plays nicely into my whole 'shop from the closet' experiment.

Speaking of which, I found this blog entry describing why and how people tune into outfit posts. I admit that I am a bit obsessed with them, and I love how people present them. Photography draws my eye a lot, and I feel slight mortification that my photos are all taken with our old digital camera in our very crappy bathroom. But I am not a fashion blogger, so cut me some slack.

While reading through all of these blogs this morning (okay, well, reading the links from Already Pretty), I came across this awesome Margaret Cho quote:

"And I have a lot of self-esteem, which is amazing, because I’m probably somebody who wouldn’t necessarily have a lot of self esteem, as I am considered a minority. And if you are a woman; if you are a person of color; if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender; if you are a person of size; if you are person of intelligence; if you are a person of integrity, then YOU are considered a minority in this world. And it’s going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere, especially women’s and gay men’s culture. It’s all about how you have to look a certain way, or else you’re worthless. You know, when you look in the mirror and think, “Ugh, I’m so ugly, I’m so fat, I’m so old.” Don’t you know that’s not your authentic self? That is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising: magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so that you will take your hard-earned money, and spend it at the mall on some turn-around creme that doesn’t turn around shit. If you don’t have self-esteem, you will hesitate before you do anything in your life. You will hesitate to go for the job you want to go for. You will hesitate to ask for a raise. You will hesitate to call yourself an American. You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote. You will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue. I urge you all today, especially today in these times of terrorism and chaos, to love yourselves without reservation and to love each other without restraint. Unless you’re into leather, then by all means, use restraints. Thank you."

That was sourced back to this blog that I immediately added to my favorites.

Her stated mission:

"Size 14+ women are desexualized, infantilized & prematurely aged by commercial apparel designers, given insanely few choices for covering their bodies, and made to pay double for half the quality.
Egregious sequins, boatnecks, 3/4 length sleeves, bad graphics, thin polyester:
I, for one, am outraged.And you are too.NonPlus looks into the toxic world of “Plus-Sized Fashion” and teases out the interesting & incredible from the insulting."

AND, she's local. Cool.