My NYC plus-size shopping experience got slightly derailed even before it started. The midtown Lane Bryant was listed on Google Maps as "permanently closed", something I'd swear it wasn't last week when I made my maps. ReDress NYC, the only plus-size vintage shop I've ever heard of, closed its doors in November. The midtown branch of Avenue is having an everything must go sale prior to closing its doors. Perhaps there just aren't very many fat women in Manhattan...?
I had to go to Avenue regardless, as I was about to run out of underwear. I find shopping at a going out of business sale to be rather depressing. It makes me feel like a scavenger, picking over the body of someone not quite dead for valuables. Still, I got four pairs of panties, a set of summer jammies, two tops, and two pairs of jeans for $132, so I can't complain too hard.
Now I'm off to Monif C to buy an infinity dress, and to cruise the fashion district with a friend from college!
I'm a huge Neil Gaiman fan, have been for almost 20 years. I got to meet him once at a signing in Champaign-Urbana about ten years ago, and he was so kind as to sign every last volume of my Sandman graphic novels (I went through the line four times, the last time going back behind about two people). He could have turned me away, but he chatted amiably with me, and was so incredibly kind and gracious to my friend Ava, who'd brought him a Chinese-dragon beanie baby. (He asked if he could give her a hug!) I consider both him and his wife, Amanda Palmer, to be the two luckiest people in the world for being married to each other, and I've never read anything he wrote that I didn't love.
He makes some great points about making mistakes and breaking rules, but I've transcribed my two favorite passages here.
Remember, whatever discipline you're in, whether you're a musician or a photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a singer, a designer, whatever you do, you have one thing that's unique: you have the ability to make art. And for me, and for so many of the people I've known, that's been a lifesaver. The ultimate lifesaver. It gets you through the good times, and it gets you through the other ones. Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong. In life, in love, in business and in friendship, and in health, and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when life gets tough, this is what you should do: MAKE GOOD ART.
I'm serious!
Husband runs off with a politician? MAKE GOOD ART. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? MAKE GOOD ART. IRS on your trail? MAKE GOOD ART. Cat exploded? MAKE GOOD ART. Someone on the internet thinks what you're doing is stupid or evil or it's all been done before? MAKE GOOD ART.
Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and it doesn't even matter. Do what only you can do best: MAKE GOOD ART. Make it on the bad days; make it on the good days too.
Sometimes I feel like I'm still figuring out my medium, figuring out my voice, figuring out what in the hell I want to be when I grow up and what to do with my life. I'm definitely in the stage where I make more bad or mediocre stuff than good stuff, and make mistakes by the dozen. But I figure I can't go too wrong if I just keep on creating, whether it be words, or drawings, or fashion, or fiber. I need to get out of the habit of waiting, or doubting, or self-editing too soon, and just CREATE.
Words going around in head? Write them down.
Something I want to be able to draw? Learn how to draw it and practice, practice, practice.
Something I want to have to wear? Design it and make it.
Fiber speaking to me? Get it on needles and see what it becomes.
Every day, rain or shine, happy or sad, energetic or tired, whether it becomes a piece of gold or a piece of shit, JUST CREATE.
And also, document it and get feedback. Use my dusty DeviantArt account. Blog, whether it's here or on my comparably dusty LiveJournal account, or in some other location entirely. Put pieces up for sale, on etsy or Dawanda or at Farbspiel if they'll let me. Create because I yearn to create, but share my creations with the wider world.
Neil also had some fantastic wisdom to share about making sure you can keep working:
You get work... however you get work. But people keep working in a freelance world – and more and more of today's world is freelance – because their work is good, and because they're easy to get along with, and because they deliver the work on time. And you don't even need all three! Two out of three is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver on time. People will forgive the lateness of your work if it's good and they like you. And you don't have to be as good as everyone else if you're on time and it's always a pleasure to hear from you.
Hmmm... My stat levels aren't maxxed on any single one of these, but they're closest to full on "on time" (at least, I was usually pretty good at turning in term papers on time in uni unless I was having serious health issues) and "easy to get along with" (as long as I don't totally bowl people over with the force of my personality). I'm high up there on "good" with non-fiction writing, but in all other pursuits, I don't feel like I'm there yet. So while I work on "good", I'll do my damndest to be extremely prompt and likeable, I guess.
So, the take-home lesson of Neil's talk: MAKE GOOD ART. I'll do my best.
This blog post is high on content but low on context. I mostly just want to round up all these links in one place so I can close a bunch of tabs in my browser! And since it's pretty much relevant to my blog, rather than doing the simple thing like bookmarking these sites, I'm putting them here on my blog. I'll get back to this entry later to add some of my thoughts on each site once I have a chance to go through them.
At the moment, however, my apartment is a mess, and I've realized a major lacuna in my wardrobe: accessories of an "I can't be arsed to deal with my hair today" nature. Hence I have a whole lot of cloches, snoods, headwraps, beanies, and other sorts of gear on my "Remember and Compare" stack on Ravelry, and want to get started on making one ASAP, as today is also one of those "hair-be-out-of-mind-and-my-way" days.
Without further ado, fat-positivity and fat-shion blogs in Germany:
Beauté Plantureuse
Because French always sounds cooler than German, unless you're into Industrial.
Pausbacke
Not much to tell yet, save for the cute ginger in the splash graphic.
Reizende Rundungen
German for "Lovely Curves". She's got a really long list of recommended blogs in her sidebar, so I might be able to find some other German Fat-o-sphere bloggers through her.
Between the fact that I was still fighting The Upper Respiratory Infection That Would Not End(TM), and the fact that we ended up having to take Frida along, I didn't end up getting to do as much clothes shopping as I would have liked. What I did end up doing, however, was clothes shopping by necessity! Paris was way, way warmer than I was led to believe based on the weather forecast, and the clothes I packed were way, way too heavy for walking around in the City of Lights.
I will say this much: Un Jour Ailleurs is utterly worth avoiding. The sizes only go up to 50FR (48 in the rest of Europe), so unless you're an in-betweenie, you won't find anything useful. There's another clothing shop on the Rue de Rennes, within a few streets northeast of UJA on the same side, that made a similar claim to "Grandes Tailles", but only went up to 50FR as well. Here's me, wanting to scream and throw things. Clearly I need to do more research before I'm able to actually SHOP. *headdesk*
The one plus-size shop that I actually liked, namely Couleurs on 17 Rue de Rivoli (no website, apparently), had a pretty nice selection, and I ended up buying two sleeveless tops to tide me over for the rest of my trip.
This cute take on the classic sailor top, sans sleeves, with a cute and functional zipper set in on one shoulder:
And this abstracty floral with elastic ruching three places on the neckline:
Couleurs had a bunch of utterly cute dresses from designer Elena Miro (there's also an Elena Miro boutique in Paris), and if they hadn't been made of 100% polyester, I would have been sorely tempted by them.
RANT WARNING:
If I haven't stated it here before, let me be absolutely clear: I hate polyester with the passion of a thousand burning suns. Plus-size designers should just straight up NEVER use it, because BIG WOMEN SWEAT, and polyester does not breathe. The ONLY exception I make for polyester is when it's in the form of microfiber (and then it says "microfiber" on the label, not "polyester", even though microfiber is usually made from PE, polyamides like nylon, or some combination of the two). Really, designers, please: if you're thinking of using polyester satin, use silk or cotton sateen. If you're thinking of using polyester jersey, use modal, tencel, a viscose blend, or something really yummy with bamboo fiber. Your schwitz-ing customers will thank you.
Unfortunately, I just didn't have the energy for more shopping, or a shopping-friendly travel companion, so I didn't scour Paris the way I'd hoped to. Clearly I need to go again in the future! Even if I'd had more energy, I might not have had more money. On an entirely accidental but intriguing walk through the Quartier Juif, I stumbled onto a high-end handicraft fair. I ooh-ed and ahh-ed like crazy, took lots of business cards, and then fell into conversation with a delicious young man who made Steampunk-themed jewelry. Long story short, I spent half of my cash shopping budget on a surprise I'm giving to Lars for our 9th anniversary in May.
I also only got to hit one yarn shop, La Droguerie, but I happily spent all of the rest of my cash plus a bit of extra from Christian on a gorgeous bamboo-linen blend yarn. I got a fair amount of white, and about 10 shades of blue to blue-green, which I'm knitting into a sleeveless top in a chevron lace pattern. Should be gorgeous and very yummy for summer!
One thing that always amazes the introverts in my life is how easily I can just talk to random strangers. Thanks to this ability, I ended up dishing extensively on plus-size fashion with a young Swiss woman who was staying at the same hotel. Ironically enough, her mother runs a plus-size store in Lausanne! Time for a road (or train) trip! She made it to Jean Marc Philippe, which I didn't, and got a couple of truly fantastic items. She said her mom carries JMP, although not the whole line, and she's always loved his stuff. I pointed her towards Marina Rinaldi, as she was unfamiliar with them; I hadn't bothered putting the MR shop on my map, as we have both an MR boutique and at least two other shops besides that carry that line here in Munich. However, since my map is publicly shared, I'm adding it now, in case other FAT-shionistas are heading to Paris before I go back.
Almost 6 feet tall and nearly 200 pounds, Anna Kleinsorge is a plus-size model. She argues that having sexy clothing options doesn't enable someone to be obese -- quite the opposite.
"If I'm wearing sweat pants or a paper bag every day, I would grow to fill that paper bag -- whereas when I have something that looks awesome on me and makes me feel good, I'm out, I'm doing stuff, I'm with my friends and experiencing life," she said.
