Wearing: American Apparel skirt, Aldo shoes, Tarino Tarantino bracelet, all via Buffalo Exchange; Old Navy top via Savers
I went through something of a second growth spurt a year or two ago, around my 21st birthday. Before, I’d had slightly above average boobs that looked big on my small frame; suddenly, I had huge boobs, a butt and hips and thighs to match, and shimmery silver stretch marks that sprouted out of nowhere. I had no idea what to do with this. I wasn’t comfortable with my new body and I tried to make everything look smaller, smaller, smaller (because of course, that’s what women are supposed to do, and even strong-minded women with opinions of their own get sucked in sometimes).
I tried to hide everything, and when that didn’t work out so well, I thought I’d buy pretty, drapey clothes so that at least the architecture of the clothing would be distracting from my actual body underneath it.
As you can guess, it didn’t work so well. I didn’t like it. I didn’t feel comfortable or happy or sexy in these clothes and that, my friends, is not acceptable.
So I said, fuck it.
(As you can see.)
I could mask my curves, try to minimize the epic boobage, and the best I’d come up with would be dowdy, sloppy, Wendy Pepper-wear.
I don’t do dowdy, or sloppy. And I hated Wendy. Austin FTW.
Instead, I play it up. Exagerrate. Work with what I’ve got, as much as I can. The end result may not be to everyone’s liking, but you know what? Neither am I. And that’s okay.
Because when you spend so much time trying to mask your flaws, you’ll end up masking some fabulous things too. And if you’re focusing on “flaws” and “not flaws”, you’ll indubitably end up taking away everything that makes you – you.
(I instantly fell in love with Rachel in this interview, when she said that she loves the gap in her teeth and thinks it’s sexy. Damn straight, Rachel. Damn straight.)
And here’s how it works in life:
If you work on your weaknesses, or even your averagenesses, they’ll never be as strong as your strengths. You’ll just end up uninteresting, unhappy, and uncomfortable.
Instead of trying to level your inner playing field, revel in the unevenness of it, the peaks and valleys.
(The curves, one could say.)
Instead of thinking about minimizing “faults” (psst – who told you they were faults, anyways?), maximize your strong points. The end result is much more compelling – we want to see you, in all of your glory, in all of your aspects – not a cookie cutter vision of what’s trendy or how a nice girl should act.