The Notice Me Dress

I had my birthday this week and to mark the occasion I wanted to go with the family for a meal.  I also wanted to use the occasion to find a dress that showed how my confidence journey had progressed.

When the lovely people at SimplyBe let me review a few pieces for them, I immediately noticed this Anna Scholz dress as being one that stood out from the crowd.  With it’s bright, bold colours and colour block design it is a world away from anything I would have previously chosen (black, black and more black) so I decided that this was the one for me.

The dress is very well made and has those little details that you get with a quality dress, such as a weight on the inside of the cowl neckline to ensure that it hangs perfectly every time.  There are also pockets to the front of the dress which add a different dimension to the dress.

As you can see from the first photo, if you have a larger chest the expanse of colour at the top of the dress may be a little much, so I added a necklace and also a shrug which finished the look for me and also covered my arms.

I wore the dress for my birthday meal and I loved it.   With a lot of people wearing dark and muted colours in the restaurant, I felt like a peacock strutting my plumage with the bright colours and felt confident in it.

The dress can be found here, priced at £70.00.  I also wore t-bar shoes from Love Label and a shrug from Very.

Facing Up to Facebook

I have been meaning to create a Facebook page for the blog for a while now.   I have been chickening out of doing it for ages but finally this week have bitten the bullet and given it a ago.

It is one thing doing a blog and posting it on Twitter etc, but Facebook can be and is a nasty machine at times and I knew that I would be opening myself up to a lot of potential criticism, particularly with regard to the plus size clothing and reviewing.

Most of the people I know on Facebook have never heard of a blog before and the thought of posting photographs of yourself on there is an alien concept to most.  Putting on my confidence shoes on however I created the page which can be found here!

I've done the page primarily for photo posts and also in relation to body confidence issues.  Now I have found confidence and self belief, I want to pass that confidence on to others, help other people find their confidence too.

I've had some great feedback from the Facebook page from friends, from others I am not too sure about but time will tell.

Maybe someone will see a post I write or something I wear and have confidence to think it or wear it themselves.  Maybe they will, maybe I'm just putting all this out in the cosmos not doing much at all.  But I'd rather try to do something then sit still, not moving forward.

What is a Real Woman?

There is a phrase “One man's trash is another man's treasure”.  Whilst I don’t particularly like the wording used, the meaning behind it stands true.

Not everyone’s version of perfect is the same.  There is not one standard for how people should look, behave, be.  We are all different because we were meant to be.  Striving to be perfect is pointless but in fact, there is no such thing.

I have seen a lot of arguing and debating on Twitter and other forums lately, which has been spurred on a lot by the media.  The “real women” argument and what that statement means.  For me, there is no argument.  WE ARE ALL REAL WOMEN!!

Whether you are fat, skinny, tall or short we are all women.  We are all different and there is no perfect example of what we should be.  Creating camps of fat v skinny is just ridiculous.

Even in today’s world woman still face challenges.  In many countries of the world women are still second class citizens.  We still fight for the rights to our own bodies and the phrase “She was asking for it” is still bandied about.  We face enough challenges in life without fighting between ourselves over who is thin and who is fat.

As long as you are happy with yourself, no one has the right to judge you.  Happiness isn’t something that comes as standard and if you can attain it, then you are already winning.  I don’t care if someone I meet is fat or thin.  If they are happy in themselves, that is what shines through.

I’ll end my little mini rant with a quote from Dita Von Teese which is rather apt

“You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches.”