Fashion Blogs

All day today, all day yesterday, all day everyday I think of fashion.  What I’m wearing, what the stars are wearing, what the designers are creating, praying I can keep a design in my head till I get home so I can sketch it out.  I have this insatiable thirst to be around all things fashion.  So much so that when I’m not somehow exercising it, I’m restless.  Obession?  Very well possible.  So, what do you do when your passion becomes your archnemesis?

So far, I’m choosing to write about it.  I wonder how far I can push the enevelope with my style because I can no longer surpress it.  I feel like a caged animal, a lion ready to be let out.  Elle, Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily, here I come!  At the same time, inside the lion is a cub travelling back and forth between fear and awareness of my true identity.

A lion cub has to find out it’s a lion, one of the fiercest animals on earth.  It’s just like us.  We don’t know from birth that we are awesome.  It takes years and some life blows and victories to find that out.  By day (in some amazing CC Nveve styled outfit of course) I’m a federal analyst auditing tax dollars.  Monday through Friday, walking the halls of my job, I ignore the stares while secretly wishing someone would ask me about my crazy mismatched outfit so I could tell them I’m not crazy, I’m fashion.  (Ok, so I’m not exactly ignoring them so much as not internalizing the judgment.)  After 5, I’m trying to unleash the beast scouring fashionista.com, citizencouture.com, and peering through fashion magazines, and now confessing I’m Elle’s next style correspondent like I’ve lost my mind.  Here’s the thing, when you finally discover the one thing that feeds your innermost self, you aren’t satisfied until you’ve done something related to it.

My pastor, Bishop Alvin Stewart explained when someone taps into the thing that’s their purpose, you can’t stop them.  You can tell them to turn the volume down, but you cannot stop them.  Well let me tell you something, my purpose was muted for many years and now I can’t even turn it down.  Now, I have to turn it up.  You can’t change your life until you despise your present! [paraphrased, Bishop Alvin D. Stewart, ALARM International]

Friday, I wore a black and white houndstooth skirt with a zebra print blouse and a black and white striped jacket with black patent leather Giani Bini pumps.  If all the prints weren’t enough, I added a bold red lip (Mary Kay, nothing but the best for this face).  I absolutely loved my outfit.  To me, it was a man’s tie broken up into three distinct pieces.  (Hey, if Vogue can pair a multi color stiped tunic with a multi color floral mai skirt, why can’t I pair random black and white patterns?)  I got so many sideway looks that day.  I didn’t care.  That morning, I decided I was going to be who I really am.  “I’m a better me then I’m  a pretender,” Bishop Stewart.

I’m eclectic and my style reflects it.  My outfit tomrrow is a bit shocking and very mismatched.  I’m visiting family tomorrow and I know one or two of them will have some jokes for me.  Their jokes won’t phase me or deter me from my mission: to represent myself in the fullest.  If I’m not me, I insult God because he created me unique and unforgettable.  I dare not tell God I disapprove of his creation.  My style speaks to who I am.  I’m creative, accepting, a little out there, bold, daring, and I’m a fabulous designer!

So to all who are reading this, I have an assignment for you.  Seek the thing that makes your heart race and tell me about it.  Whatever that thing is, it’s you.  I charge you to go after it with a bit a reckless abandonment because everyday you don’t, you loose a piece of your identity.  Don’t cage the beast; don’t even try to train it!  If you’re a writer, then write the book.  If you’r a sport journalist, start your own publication.  If you’re a dancer, then dance until you blister.  Your effectiveness lies within your passion.  Start tapping into it and watch God take the doors off the hinges for you to live it!

I was going to wait til tomorrow to publish this post so I could add a pic of the black and white motif, but the restlessness wouldn’t calm down until I published it.  Check back tomorrow afternoon for pictures of my outfits for the whole week!