BEFORE and AFTER!

I’ve always enjoyed getting my hands on books that show the transformation women go through in searching for, and then finding, their own “style”.

Style that with a little bit of help and sound advice is based on common sense and a bit of intuitive “know-how” by people who somehow have a grasp of what “is” as far as what to wear, how to “do” - makeup and hair; and how to make the most of what you have.  How do these people do it?

We had a few series on television.  Susannah and Trinny (Britain). Carson Kressley, (USA) and  Gok Wan (another British fashion consultant).   I even saw another one on SBS the other night doing “makeovers” but didn’t catch his name.

While Susannah and Trinny and Carson Kressley “touched” upon makeovers for women who didn’t quite fall into the small and petite mould, none of them really went into the subject head-long, or feet-first! 

Even some of my favourite books by Mary Spillane (Color Me Beautiful) don’t embrace the subject fully - I guess they have always wanted to be seen as being “politically correct” in not including real size plus-sizers.

But it takes someone like Monif C (USA) to show, not only in black and white, but vivid striking, dazzling, blinding colours, what cleverly designed fuller figure clothes can do for a woman.   (I make no apologies for promoting Monif C time and time again, for I believe she is one person who has her finger on the pulse of what a woman wants when it comes to plus-size fashion.  *  I also include Janelle of Love Your Peaches in this belief, and I will be saying more about LYP a little later.)

Some time back Monif C did a presentation of “before” and “after” photographs of a selection of women wearing her garments.  One thing that strikes me at first glance in the “before” photo is that ALL the women are wearing either jeans or leggings and either black or white tops.  Is this a reminder that many of us try to wear the ”uniform of the invisible woman”?   I’m guilty of it sometimes - are you?

The “invisible woman” - wanting to be part of the crowd, wanting to be seen as fashionable and fitting in with what the world seems to think we should dress like, and wanting to hide some of our luscious curves?  

How attitudes change when you feel and look good.

Comparing the second lot of photographs to the first you’ll see more than a transformation as it relates to the colours and designs of the garments:

(i) there’s also a remarkable but subtle change in attitude of the girls.  Look carefully, it’s almost as though they’re breaking out of their shell of self-protection and blossoming as proud women.  Saying to the world - hey, LOOK at me!   It’s VERY subtle, but it’s there.

(Mind you, I’m not suggesting for a minute that these women were not all proud and confident women BEFORE the “after” photos, but it’s there for everyone to see).   

Experiment yourself - ask a friend to take a photo of you in your everyday jeans and tee shirt and then dress up and ask them to photograph you.  You’ll see for yourself the change in how you look at the camera, and even how you stand in front of the camera between the “before” and the “after”.   

Being a woman and loving being a woman.

I love the cheekiness these women show in their photographs - so many women have forgotten how to be cheeky.    There’s an art to it (as well as being flirty without going overboard) and that’s one of the feminine attributes I often comment on, as having been lost in recent decades.   OK, I’m known to be a bit of a bore and a prude, and I’m comfortable being seen as that - sometimes!  Yet I believe femininity in all its many guises has undergone a toughness and roughness that hasn’t done us much good at all.  In trying to become “one of the men”, too many women have lost their softness and attraction.  It’s all very well wanting to be seen as “equal”, but when that route means you lose your innocence and gentleness, then you’ve lost many of your “differences”.  And let’s face it, we are different, and those differences are what attracts us to each other. 

But I digress.   

The other thing you’ll notice in these photos is the baring of arms.   We all experience the  time-changes that our bodies go through - gravity plays around with us willy-nilly, and our upper arms often remind us of pelican wings as they spread them to dry in the sun.  So we hide them (the arms, not necessarily the pelican wings!)  Even young women hide them.   The second photo shows women confident in baring their arms.

If I have a favourite amongst these women it has to be Roxanne.  She looks terrific even in the “before” photo.  And she has great legs!

Then let your eyes take in these two photos and see if you don’t agree with me.  She looks absolutely stunning.

© 2013 Rosemary Parry-Brock

Photographs © Monif C, USA

YOU SHOULDN'T WEAR THAT! OH, NO? JUST WATCH ME ....

My wardrobe is, I suspect, similar to many other plus-size women.  It contains a number of favourite garments as well as ordinary every-day wear.    And I’m not shy in confessing that some of those favourite garments are anything up to 15 years old.  Beautiful fabrics, beautiful classic and sophisticated designs/styling and beautiful to wear.  They’re worn for specific occasions, and they’ve never gone out-of-date.  For the simple reason that I discovered my “style”; and my “colours”, and I have built up a personal knowledge of what I like and what I consider likes me.   

Like most women I like receiving compliments when I know I look good - yes, I’ve become a vain and conceited “growing-older” lady, but I see no reason why if someone compliments me, that I should toss it back in their face, when after all, it makes me feel good and womanly to have received it in the first place.  And that would be absolute rudeness and bad manners, and wouldn’t in any way endear me either to the person who has made the compliment or even myself.  I would be doing myself a dis-service.

You shouldn’t wear that! has to be taken as a grain of salt most times, because it doesn’t apply.  Even if the person saying it is either Susannah, Trinny or that guy Gok.    I’ve taken many notes from the shows of Susannah and Trinny and I’ve read lots of articles by Gok and while I’ve sometimes gained some knowledge worth while,  at other times I’ve shelved what has been said into a filing cabinet in my mind.  For I don’t have to agree with them, every time, about everything.

Mind you I did find Carson Lee Kressley more realistic in his attitudes, his philosophy and his apparent genuine concern to inspire women to open their minds to new ideas.   Of course within his shows there were numerous times when he said you shouldn’t wear that!  And any intelligent viewer could, after he explained why, see his logic and reasoning for making many of those statements.  But we don’t all have the benefit of a personal Fashion Advisor like Carson Lee Kressley to give us advice.   

It’s not only the generously endowed woman who is told she’s wearing the wrong thing either.  Any woman of any age, shape or size can be told she’s wearing something she shouldn’t.

Like being told you shouldn’t have a special little cupcake with your coffee as a sweet indulgence once in a blue moon,  wearing clothes that other people find fault with, is mostly their problem and not yours.

I am constantly inspired by women of size in their understanding of what suits them and what doesn’t.   Not many of these women even ask themselves what they should be wearing - they've already worked it out!  

It comes down to personal taste and when that personal taste is based on pure common sense and practicability as well as affordability, no woman can go wrong.   

The importance is to feel good, and as we know from past experience, if you feel good, then you darn well look good.   It works every time!

'Til next time. 

©2013 R Parry-Brock, Australia 

THE BEAUTY OF BLACK

As everyone who knows me knows ..... I love the colour black.   While it's become almost the "uniform" of today's young corporate woman and mother, it's a basic colour that proves again and again how versatile it can be, for ANY woman of ANY age and ANY shape.    I accept that many people don't see, or won't agree, that black is a colour, but that doesn't faze me - I call it a colour and for me that's just what it is.

Tamsin Cooper of New Zealand is an extraordinary young woman who creates the most beautiful clothbing and accessories, and I'm highlighting a couple of things from her most recent selections.  For those of us who unfortunately can't "fit" into much of her clothing - (her sizing doesn't cater for us, but who knows ..... in the future?), her accessories are dazzling.

Woman of Substance!

Why is it that a young curvaceous woman is “categorised” as being FAT, with the inference she is out of control and if she will not bend to the manipulative control freaks in our media and fashion industries who want her to become what they say she HAS to become.  Skinny.

Now don’t get me wrong.  There are naturally skinny girls, and they are as natural as naturally curvy girls.  Someone along the line, especially within the media, has been hoodwinked into believing (and surely they’re intelligent enough to work out what is real and what is not real!) that unless you’re thin then you’re not deserving of being recognised as “equal” in needs and wants.   Being hoodwinked is one thing, trying to deceive all women into the same thinking is downright dangerous and discriminatory.  But the women’s magazines particularly go on their merry way, pointing the finger and abusing women of their femininity.

Let’s look at Pierce Brosnan’s wife, Keeley Shaye Smith.  Photos that appear in the press and on the internet show this couple is more interested in each other, than the photographer.  In fact one would get the impression that Pierce Brosnan can’t keep his hands off his wife!   

And Keeley Shaye Smith wears what she likes!   Fashion gurus would shout and scream that a woman with curves such as Keeley Shaye Smith should never wear small sprig florals and two piece swimsuits - she thumbs her nose at them and wears what she chooses.    She can be feminine and flirty, she can be conservative and professional.  

Then of course there’s one of our favourites.  Dawn French.   

Candid photos used to show her as a normal next-door girl you’d be proud to know, while professional photography (a good makeup artist and photographer who knows how to make any woman glamorous) can present her like this.

Following her divorce at more than 20 years the wife of Lenny Henry, Dawn went on a diet and lost 8 stone.   While claiming all it took was giving up chocolates and carbohydrates, the new Dawn certainly looks different and hopefully feels a lot happier - well she’s just recently married again and that’s a great way to start a new life.  

Does Dawn French do what the fashion world and the media tell her to do?  No, she has her own “style” and she makes a personal statement.  Just like Keeley Shaye Smith.

We heard the the furore that surrounded the massive loss of weight/gain of weight of Kirsty Alley.  

Women’s magazines, newspapers, television current affairs worldwide had a field day.   The sad thing about this is that women everywhere bought the magazines, watched the current affairs, and lapped it all up.   They nodded their heads and while munching a chocolate biscuit most likely said, fancy letting herself go!   Honestly, women can be so cruel to each other.  And they do it openly.  

Oprah Winfrey is another “star” who see-saws around the weighing scale.  One minute she berates herself for putting on weight, (the female audience all nod their heads in agreement) and the next she is parading on stage proudly announcing that she’s shed her weight again (the female audience again all nod their heads in agreement.)  

Don’t these “stars” see what they’re doing?  Not only to themselves but to the women who read about them, and watch their shows?  They’re poking fun at themselves and laughing at themselves.  Not kindly but harshly.  And whether they know it or not, or whether they’ll admit it or not, they’re laughing at us.   Because they know (that while they have the power and influence) that women everywhere will follow and do what they say.

Why can’t these women accept that their bodies are not meant to be extra thin.  If they’re on the voluptuous side of things, then why not be proud of what they have?  They, as well as many of us, can’t get passed the mentality that thin equals beauty equals healthy!  It’s a fallacy.   Big can equal beauty can equal healthy!

Inevitably we come back to the problem of knowing who we are and what we are, and having the right to choose how we live our lives.  That includes how we dress.

If you’ve never been told “you shouldn’t wear that!” then you are indeed a fortunate woman.  Most of us have been subjected to this sort of verbal abuse (and that’s what it is - abuse) based on other people’s ill-conceived and poorly conceived perspectives of what a woman should look like.

Why should I dress like my next door neighbour, who is 5 ft 10 and slim, or my grand-daughter who is 5 ft 2 and “in-between” or the masses who inhabit K Mart, Walmart, and Target stores (OK, I admit I buy clothing from these chain discount stores but I don’t necessarily wear the garment in the same way as a younger or older woman - I’ve learned to accessorise and do things with clothing!)   My age, my life-style and my life-experiences won’t allow me to look like either my next-door neighbour or my grand-daughter and I don’t want to.

I’m an individual - I’m me, for goodness sake.  I don’t want to look somebody else.  Why waste time in trying to be a copy-cat when I have the opportunity of being me!   I demand the right to know what I want and how I want to look.   Don’t get me mixed with all the “celebrities” - so many of them are beginning to look the same to me anyway (maybe that’s because I’m growing a little older?)

‘Til next time.

©2013 R Parry-Brock, Australia