The Summer Struggle

Hi everyone!

So, I'm sure everyone has experienced the "summer struggle"… Especially those that live in the South. The "summer struggle" is something that I've defined as when it's blazing hot outside and freezing inside. Going to the grocery store, to the mall, even to the movie theatre are the most places where this happens. WHAT DO I WEAR????? is my never ending question. I don't want to dress in complete winter attire because I will overheat. At the same time, I don't want to wear daisy dukes and a crop top because I'll just freeze, and if I forget a sweater I will be an ice cube. Also, it's annoying to carry a purse on one shoulder and an unsightly sweater on your arm- talk about needing a third arm to shop with! Not optimal. What is a fashion girl to do? Well, I've managed to come up with some solutions!

                       

Outfit 1- This is what I would wear out on a typical summer day, most likely to the movies. My legs typically don't get cold sitting down, so hence the denim shorts. My arms are the first part to get cold usually so I have a three quarter sleeve, semi-sheer shirt on with a camisole underneath. Open toed sandals can sometimes make you colder, so I have paired this look with white lace flats. (side note, as you can see by my mint green necklace in every picture, this is my current fashion obsession. I will soon prove that my mint necklace goes with everything.) Also I felt like wearing my glasses here because they make me feel smarter, although I really do need them when I drive. 

Outfit 2- This is what I would wear shopping or out to lunch on a hot summer day. This way I have complete mobility of my arms (obviously you need that when scouring the racks) and if the shopping mall is outside, I can get a nice tan on my arms :) My legs are covered by my mint skinny jeans so I don't get as cold inside. The small straps on my blue and white tribal print top and open toed Tory Burch-esque sandals ensure to not overheat the body. My favorite summer color is-- you guessed it-- mint :)

I also keep a sweater in the trunk of my car if it's an absolute icebox somewhere. So that's solution number 3 :) What's your favorite way to style your outfits to beat the heat and cold in the summer? Let me know! And as always, vivre la mode, tout le monde!

Styling crop tops

Styling crop tops by logantscandling 

Smoldering in navy

Smoldering in navy by logantscandling 

I loooove making these collages because there are so many cute things that I want to wear on here! I just love this dress-- feathers rock. This is something classy you could wear out to a fancy date, to a nice cocktail lounge, to a nice birthday party, etc. Navy is a great color day or night! 

Back to school ease

Back to school ease by logantscandling on Polyvore

So, I've discovered this new app called Polyvore, and it is kind of life-changing. I love it. So, I'll probably be posting some of my collages that I put together on here. This outfit is back to school inspired, just because it is easy and cute, perfect for September afternoons walking around campus. 
And as always, vivre la mode tout le monde!

The Good Girl Complex

Hi everyone!

I hope your summer is going fantastic and is full of sunshine! But if you live in Texas you'll know that's impossible, for every other day is rainy and our weather is bipolar. Anyway, I'm so sorry I haven't blogged in ages. And I know it's been ages, because I keep thinking of good things to write about and then forget about it instantly. Being busy with friends, school and now that summer is happening, my new part time job has kind of consumed my life. So… Today I'm finally talking about something that I've coined "The Good Girl Complex."

I was hanging out with my friends I went to high school and middle school with just recently, and they were texting someone on their phone. They brought me up by saying "I'm hanging out with Logan tonight. Oh you remember Logan, she's the good girl we went to school with." ...Huh? That struck me as kind of odd, but I brushed it off. Some time later I was eating dinner with another set of friends, playing with that fun app Snapchat (we're all addicted to it, don't pretend like you don't do it too) and my friend got a reply to the picture of her and I that said "Your bff is almost as pretty as you, what's she like? ;)" She said, "Hey, don't think about her like that, she's a good girl." That word again. What does that mean? Now, maybe she knew what he meant behind that statement, and was stopping him from making crude jokes. But still, that label again made me think. These are only two recent encounters that I can remember verbatim, but i've been living with this "identifier" for so long I can't even remember when it started-- most likely in middle school, where everybody gets labeled. I've been called a good girl by my family, friends, boyfriends, and I've come to know it can be both a compliment and an insult, and most often it steps into the insult-zone.

Everyone is obsessed with labels. Especially in this day with movies like Mean Girls and 21 Jump Street where we see them making fun of cliques and labels. Geeks, jocks, cheerleaders, goths, hipsters, rednecks, richies, good girls, bad girls, sluts, fashionistas, rebels, druggies, etc. But this is reality... When did the world become segregated into good girls or bad girls? If you're not one, you're the other? If you don't sleep around and drink every weekend, you're a prudish, old-fashioned good girl? What did those "good girl" comments my friend said imply to that other person, that I'm no fun to be around or that I'm boring? Some people might call me crazy or hypersensitive, thinking being called a "good girl" is a bad thing. Not necessarily, it just depends on the context. You see, the definition of "good girl" has changed over the years. Now, it's a stigma, a cliche, a stereotype, or even going so far as to say a prejudice. It implies shyness, innocence, blindness, naivety, being a loser, old-fashioned, a prude, and even having a boring personality. Don't believe me? Take a look just a few pop culture references.

In magazines' fashion spreads, the "good girl look" is always modestly dressed with soft hues, soft hair, young looking models, making them look innocent, geeky, lame or boring. The cliche of pink, soft and innocent. Good girls never dress daring or fashion forward. 

This makeup look is called "girl next door glam." Pretty, yes, and I love T-Swift as much as the next girl, but it's not the most fashion forward makeup I've ever seen. Good girls can't have a smokey eye or a bold red lip?

In songs these days, good girls are portrayed as innocent, naive and don't know how to have fun. Example one, Good Girls Go Bad by Cobra Starship.

"I know your type

Yeah daddy's lil' girl

Just take a bite

Let me shake up your world

Cause just one night couldn't be so wrong

I'm gonna make you lose control

She was so shy

'Til I drove her wild

I make them good girls go bad"

Or how about Good Girl by Carrie Underwood? (I love her by the way, she's fantastic)

"Hey, good girl 

With your head in the clouds...

Why, why you gotta be so blind?

Won't you open up your eyes?"

So let me get this straight: good girls don't dress cool, don't have fun, don't dance or go to parties, don't date bad boys, socialize, make mistakes or have regrets?

And another: Good Girl by Lily Kershaw:

"I'm going down, down, down

I'll dig my own shallow grave

I'm going down, down, down

Good girls aren't supposed to misbehave

I'm not a good girl anyway"

Those two pictures are "Good Girl Gina" memes, used to perpetuate the idea that good girls say the right things and do the right things all the time. But nobody is perfect, no matter how good of a girl they are. I wore the title "good girl" like it was an outdated sweater in high school; I thought that made me boring. I thought it made me different, an outcast. I thought it meant people didn't think I was fun to be around. But that changed when I started really thinking about what it meant for my life…

You know what I call a good girl? A girl who treats people with respect and people respect her back. A girl who holds her head high and doesn't change for other people. A woman who can have fun without going crazy. A woman who dresses fashion forward but can also dress with class andmodestly. A good girl IS different but because she chooses to live her life respectably. But that doesn't mean she can't have fun! Good girls can party and laugh just like everyone else, we aren't prudes. She can do whatever she wants to do. No one is perfect. So… Should no one be called a "good girl" anymore? No, that's not what I'm saying. It's perfectly acceptable in conversations, if being used for good. Just don't use it as an insult. It can very easily become a backhanded compliment, because it (like many labels and names) can cut deeper than you think. Good girls are people too!

Feel free to comment if you've have an experience similar to mine! Oh and don't worry, more fashion advice to come soon.

As always, vivre la mode, tout le monde!

How to Dress Up a T-Shirt

Hello friends!

Now that a new school year has started, and summer is still in full swing here in the heart of Texas, I figured I would do a post on how to dress up a t-shirt! Sometimes I get tired of wearing the same old t-shirts and cotton athletic shorts all the time. So here are some pictures I took of myself wearing the same shirt but paring different items with it. Just look at the differences between all of them! I love spicing up my day-to-day going to class looks like this. I hope this post helps y'all that are stuck in the "summer uniform rut"! :)

Granted some of these have pants and jackets... Just pretend they are shorts or the jackets are vests. Lol. I did my best to make this post really cool with my limited college kid wardrobe.

So here I have a striped jacket with contrasting colors, the tank and the skinny jeans match the jacket. Neutral flats, accent bracelet. Don't be afraid to wear white after labor day! That's such a myth, white is chic.

Same thing as above but with matte black high heels. This is more work appropriate I'd say.

More casual with regular blue denim skinny jeans and flip flops

With a white tuxedo jacket, which are still very in by the way

Cute and Flirty, infinity scarf with a cotton gathered skirt and sandals

Multicolored skirt (that has pockets by the way <3)

Super classy! I have no idea why I put all these together, but it was fun. Pencil skirt, statement belt, and black heels

So my underlying point in doing this... Don't be afraid to mix it up, mix prints or mix colors! Have fun with it! If I had some really cool heels, I would have done an outfit with a statement shoe. And if I had a colored cardigan and printed shorts, I would have done that look too, lol.

I tried, and I hope this helps! Any questions? Or have a great way to dress up a plain tee? Comment and let me know!

As always, vivre la mode, tout le monde!

"Say 'Yes to Body Confidence'"

Hey y'all,

I saw this on the internet a few weeks ago and I just thought it really resonated with another post I did a while back about the dark side of the fashion industry. I really liked what this article had to say, and so please please please visit the link, read it, tell your friends, tell young women and even young girls. I feel this is very important to tell women and even men too, because so many of us have self confidence issues. The title in purple is a hyperlink and I have the actual link typed at the bottom as well. Be sure to click on the second page of the article (I almost missed it lol).

I just wanted to quote some things from the article and just kind of talk about some things. So here are some quotes I found interesting first:

Saying No To The Say No To Size Zero Campaign

"'Ditch the super skinnies'? That seems ironic to me. If encouraging the modeling industry to use curvier models is about giving a more unbiased representation of what women look like, then why would we need to “ditch” anyone? Why can’t all women’s bodies be appreciated?"

"We are all ‘real women’."

"Another branch of this crazy faux-motivation is ‘Fitspriration’... It appears to be another way of telling women that if you haven’t got a washboard stomach you’re a failure. I don’t buy it."

"Can we look beyond weight and shape? Love each other, applaud each other and stop judging each other? It creates such division when we hate on each other. Most people I know either hate their own bodies and wish they were skinnier/more toned/more curvy, or spend time judging other people for being a certain way. When someone is happy with their own body, they usually don’t feel the need to belittle someone else’s. It’s usually insecurity that leads people to point out the supposed ‘flaws’ in another person."

"Rather than saying “No to Size Zero”, I’m just going to say “Yes To Body Confidence” and “Yes To Health”."

<http://hellogiggles.com/saying-no-to-the-say-no-to-size-zero-campaign/#read>

     And now, here are my thoughts. I always thought that if someone would take a stand against the skinny models, that everything would be okay. I thought that skinny models were why the fashion industry is so vapid and superficial. But it's not them, it's us. The truth is, we judge everything. Especially when it is not our place to. It's just human nature I guess, sad but true. And for those of us that struggle with body confidence issues, it's even worse. If you struggle with body confidence, you're not alone. I struggle with it too, but now that I've read this article, I am definitely saying yes to body confidence and yes to health.

     This article definitely opened my eyes at every size being discriminated against in one form or fashion, instead of just the thin ones or just the curvy ones. In this day and age, it is hard to see past the superficial beauty that society forces us to see, and think it's okay to judge others when they don't look like the typical definition of beauty. Why do we have to judge each other? Why do we see the flaws in ourselves? Why do we have to hate each other just by the size of our waists? I don't have the answer to that. Maybe there will never be an answer. But I do know, that it starts with ourselves. If we don't love ourselves, how can we love others? We are all human beings, and we are all beautiful in God's eyes. Jesus loves us no matter what, and I know that I need to try harder to love others like that; because everyone deserves love. :) it'll be hard for sure, for we are going against the societal norm, but I hope one day that there will be less hate in the world.

     Here's something to brighten your day :) in case you haven't seen it yet, here's another one of the Dove Real Beauty campaigns. I love this so much :) we are all beautiful, and we don't even know it! That is the scary thing, the sad thing even. I am so HAPPY Dove has started this real beauty campaign, because I think now more than ever, everyone needs to be told they're beautiful, or handsome, because men have confidence issues too. So please pass this on, or at least tell someone they're beautiful today and every day! I'm not even sure if anyone reads my blog posts, but if you do, I pray this makes you feel beautiful and gives you the strength to pass it on. This is me giving you a hug! *hug* :)

Vous êtes belle/ beau!!!! (You are beautiful!!!!)
And as always, vivre la mode, tout le monde!