It's Never Too Late to Vamp Up our Wardrobe

      I remember being able to go anywhere in the world as a child, but not because I was spoiled or just had the money laying around for the perfect moment; the true key to my expansive travel was imagination. Although I'm no longer a child at the beach with Barbie, I still allow my imagination to take me on journeys around the world with aid from my outfits. My imagination never stops flowing due my access to the eclectic people on social media. In order to expand our outfits we must learn from different people around the world by way of social media to prevent our style from being plain-jane.

      Over the years I have found the best mood kill in the world is fishing for a compliment, but no one catching on because they've seen the same bait for about a year (which is about as long as a fashion trend takes to be worn by the average person). Therefore, I make it a routine to check Instagram every morning in order to stay caught up with the trends in Tokyo, New York, Paris, and England. Just recently, because of what I had seen on social media, I picked up, what would have been, just a boring T-shirt dress and turned it into something my peers gawked over just by simply taking inspiration from a picture and adding my own flair. That day I got more than just a few pat-on-the-back compliments, with out a lot of work I was able to accomplish, what I call, the "neck-snapper," which is that dramatic look people give a person when he looks stunning.

       Unfortunately in today's society the only way to be noticed is by being loud, being smart, or creating a couple of neck-snappers. Many people, like myself, neither have the brains of a mathematician nor the voice box of a megaphone, therefore looking flawless is about our only option. Thanks to YouTube, Instagram, and retail store's online look books, making this happen, literally over night, isn't impossible. Many people have the assumption that the only way to prevent others from mistaking our name as Jane, we have to buy a whole new wardrobe, when in reality if we turn to social media they give us great examples of how to spice up our worn out wardrobe. For example, in the video below , who many of us have never met, is able to teach us how to transform garments we already have in ways that will make others wonder about us and where we got our clothes from.

       All in all it's pretty amazing that we are able to get influence from pretty much anywhere in the world by utilizing social media. From a fashion perspective, social media really multiplies our wardrobe from as ordinary as we'd like to just as breath taking as we desire.

Assumptions aren't Always Accurate

   What does it take to be a model? Many people would answer this questions with these three words:

   Skinny
   Pretty
   Tall

   Unfortunately for models, no matter how hard we try to avoid it, we have bias when talking about certain situations that we are unfamiliar with, therefore we commonly describe models as "lanky toothpicks with pretty faces." In reality, modeling has now evolved into a more inclusive industry therefore agencies are looking for someone who differs from modeling stereotypes.
   
     So many people, including myself, say their height disqualifies them from being a model, but this isn't quite true. Today''s model employers realize that their product is more credible with a face closer to the average person. Due to this realization, if I were to decide to switch from dressing the model to being the model, the fact that I'm only five feet and one inch wouldn't be an automatic dream killer because their are some companies who are anyone who can look the look even if they're just faking it. Although this may be the case, being a petite model is more of a challenge because length has always meant SEXY, FIERCE, and GRACEFUL even to this day. Because of companies desire to have length, petite models have to perfect the art and look just as tall as their five-foot nine coworker. Although petite models are put at a slight disadvantage, the end result boils down to skill rather than stereotype. This amazing break through in the modeling industry doesn't just top there.

      Due to the development of the modeling industry, the perfect smile, for some companies, has turned to one with a statement. In other words, companies are looking for that compelling gap that sits right between our two pearly white front teeth. A great example of someone who has broken through the stereotype with her own "pretty," contradicting the perfect smile, is Georgia May Jagger. Through Jagger businesses are telling the world imperfections make you beautiful and wanted in the modeling industry. This is very similar to H&M's direct display of flawed perfection when they placed "...two size 6 and size 10 mannequins, dressed in sexy lingerie..." in their store, so the next time we go to the store we should keep our eyes wide open to catch a first-hand glimpse of a company evolving in the way they hire models.
   

My Reading Life

    Many people would say that a person who reads is an educated person, and if one doesn't read then he truly isn't educated.  Before this year, my junior year, I would have turbantly gave a tirade selling myself as an educated person who used books as placemats more often than reaing from them, but after reading every day of every week, I've lerned just how far I was from being educated. With that knowledge I also learned more about who I am as a reader, my stengths and weaknesses, and what steps I need to take to improve as a reader.Surprisingly, when I read for long periods of time it was much like training for a marathon because I had to go through the same process of a runner.

    As my endurance increased I accumulated a greater knowledge of just how far I could go before reaching my breaking point. When I first started my reading journey I was reading, disappointingly, only two books per year, but now I've read three books in the span of only nine weeks. Obviously, the amount of books I've read is increasing at a rate much faster than years prior to this one, but that's not my only area or improvement. Now reading so quickly I could be mistaken for swiftly skimming through a book, I am able to breeze through a book without incessantly stuttering due to my mental vocabulary being broadened. Although I struggle with staying awake when reading, I have planned to increase my reading goal to 20 books per year. In order to do this, I must read on the weekends, like I've been doing, and also during the weekdays. All in all if I keep up my training toward my own personal marathon, I will be able to read an amount five times greater than the most challeneging book I've read, "the devil wears prada"

Picking the Perfect Outfit

    BLEEP, BLEEP, the blaring sound of my alarm clock beckoning me to break free from the shackles of  my bed. Frantically tossing clothes in the air, I scour my wardrobe for the perfect outfit to conquer the day. After completely obliterating the neatness of my room, I find the one, the Perfect Outfit.
    Dressed as smoothly as a celebrity, I step on the scene as a completely metamorphosed person. Mouths dropping to the floor, on lookers wonder about the, at a first glance, new girl.  With panache, I walk down the halls and embrace the stares from intrigued peers reverencing for me and accept their copious compliments. Compliments levitating me and allowing me to pretense the fact that I'm not confident at all. As I strut down the hallway with my newly found confidence, I begin to realize guys are offering their hearts to me; they are  insisting I allow them to devout themselves to my every need. Glaring their eyes directly toward me, girls all around me give me the notorious outfit check and realize my outfit looks, irrefutably, AWESOME as they gingerly look me up and down.
    Although all the above is plenty enough of  "a pat on the back," I'm still not to the apex of praise.  Tapping me on the shoulders, my elders ascertain to instill in my mind that they respect what I've done with today's outfit by explaining my attire's high points. Receiving compliments from my elders confirms that razing the neatness of my room for an amazing outfit was completely worth it. I, without a doubt, picked an AWESOME getup.


 http://pixabay.com/en/fashion-woman-yellow-dress-gown-300337/

How I tackled the Go World Video Project

Go World Video:http://animoto.com/play/2Q5dn4Ldids3QhfDUYdQ2g

       In today's society we are all weighed down by burdens that seem catastrophic in our eyes but petty in the rest of the world's eyes. In order to give the world a peek into my mind I created a Go World Video by starting with a good topic as a foundation, using diction that contributes to my message , and revising based on how I desired my audience to feel. The process seemed easy until I realized I had to produce similar results to those of an essay in only 30-65 words, so at that point I knew I had to start sturdy from the beginning.

     With every great argument it is crucial to have a topic that we can distend on as we write, and the easiest way I figure to achieve it is by simply having passion for the topic.  Therefor I chose to write about the one struggle that could have changed my whole life if I had handled it the the wrong way, which was, for me, my A's atrophying to, what felt like, obliteration. Because I hadn't ever experienced working hard in school and not seeing results, the solution of dropping out seemed to be pleading for me to down that path and I had no one to tell me not to. Because I was at a point when I was struggling so badly that my two options were dropping out or to keep pushing until I saw results, due to them being exact opposites I knew my message was very clear.

      Much like my topic, my goal was to choose words to narrow in my argument. For example in my Go World Video I said, "School wasn't made for asinine people, people who are stupid like her. Oh, how asinine she was to think those silly thoughts." By saying this I was able to say that not pushing ourselves until we see success is foolish. Also by the use of repetition I allowed the reader to see an obvious transition in the way I thought about myself. I also simply utilized my personal vocabulary by choosing words with a really negative connotation or really positive connotation. A great example is defeat because if we are on the side of defeat we lost a battle, we lost a since of respect, and we lost a piece of our pride. Although it seems like I knew exactly where I was going with my writing process, I actually needed to make crucial revisions to evoke the audience's emotions.

      When revising, my overall goal was to instill the emotions I felt while going through this struggle, into my audience members as they watched my video. During my struggle to improve my grades, I was depressed for a really long period of time, but slowly my hard work started to pay off. In order to create and terminate this feeling of depression in my audience under thirty seconds I revised the beginning to get really sad really quickly so the effects would happen sooner. While trying to achieve the above, I had to write, erase, substitute weak words with strong words, and repeat until I finally found the right words to express exactly how I felt once they were brought together. As for creating the relief part of my video, I did the opposite of the depression period by gradually  working my way up to the "happily ever after." By doing this I caused my audience to see the good times coming, but being so anxious for it's arrival that they became almost desperate similarly to the way I felt right before everything worked out. It's hard to believe putting all that emotion in so little words is possible, but with a process anything is possible.

        Because I had a goal in mind I was able to accomplish this by having a good buttress for my video, or argument, word choice that made my argument more specific, and revising so that I took my audience on the same journey of emotions that I went through.

Stop the Microaggressions

  Rumplestiltskin, a fairytale character in a TV series called Once Upon A Time, can twist and turn anyone's words to work in his favor and leave the other party tasting regret, the aftertaste of a bad deal. It's hard to imagine America's future leaders creating a play on words to work against others just like Rumplestiltskin, but in "Sorry, but it's your fault if you're offended all the time" Matt Walsh brings light to the issue. In the blogpost Walsh says that Americans are taking insult by twisting non offensive phrases into ones with malicious intent and he claims that we are taught to continue this way of thinking through out college by discussing these microaggressions as if they were true aggressions. Like Walsh's opinion, I agree that one should stop making these microaggressions because one isn't in the path of true harm, the microagressions aren't adding to the process of our society's development, and doing this simply just makes our society look weak.

    Although, some comments truly are meant in an offensive way, people aren't in the grasp of danger just by hearing these comments. For example, if one African American child was offered fried chicken by a person of another ethnicity they could easily say they were only approached with the deal because the color of their skin. Just like the African American child an African child has also faced racial profiling except the African's offender assumed the color of their skin meant the world would be a better place without them and proceeded to stone this African child and place him in the need for extensive care after receiving his "punishment" for being colored. Just like the African American child, many other Americans face situations when they may be belittled, but if no physical  harm is being done the situation is not a major crisis to complain about. Therefore, the complaint just becomes a microaggression and attacking that certain issue doesn't achieve much.

    In order to develop society we must improve, but microgressions counter that progression due to awareness not being raised toward the right subjects.  Many Americans are getting worked up by issues like that, but once these issues are solved they serve to do nothing more than to make certain people feel better about themselves. Earlier this year the microaggression about the Redskins' team name actually became viral. Some people thought that the term "redskins" was outdated and offensive. In reality the name wasn't meant to degrade native Americans, but this issue is came up as if the team just loved to belittle Native Americans which was far from reality. So basically the only result to fixing that would just be a smile on a small group of peoples' faces, but would it stop the Native Americans from getting physically abused or maybe even stop Americans from holding them captive? The result of fixing that issue would definitely not do any of that considering we never had that issue to begin with. To people looking in from other countries it seems like Americans are desperate to have important matters happening to gain,what Matt Walsh called, the "hero" position.

     Because Americans are so desperate to have relevancy, they are creating microaggressions, and in result they are just making the American soceity look weak as a whole. In the video by Andrew Klavan, provided as support in Walsh's blog, Klavan read out loud real responses, from people around the world who've had to deal with real aggressions, to microaggressions. In those letters each response had a tone as if they were being patient while explaining something to a child. Each writer also implied that they had it way worse, but still managed to keep the tone. By this repetitive tone, it's apparent that the people from other countries think American "issues" are petty compared to theirs. If this is the case Americans should just stop making the microaggressions all together because people from other countries would gladly trade their problems in for american ones even though Americans claim to face the same problems. Therefor it makes Americans look weak because Americans can't even handle something as simple as a non life-threatening insult while the lives of others are being threatened for the "same" issue. Redemption is never too late, so Americans should hop on the one way flight straight for it.

       In order to this, the termination of microaggressions is a necessitity. By doing this, when real danger comes around Americans will have preserved their energy for the right moment instead of wasting it on petty microagressions, Americans will finally be on the path to a developing society once again, and Americans can finally wave the flag of United States flag proudly with strength without being looked down upon by other countries.

http://badgerherald.com/news/2014/03/27/uw-madison/#.VC0uNX48KrU

"Sorry, but it's your fault you're offended all the time" by Matt Walsh

http://themattwalshblog.com/2014/09/16/sorry-but-its-your-fault-if-your-offended-all-the-time/

Old Timers Now Trending

Constantly nagging me about what I pick from the store, "That looks so grandma...", my mom says with a look of disgust and then proceeds to add "...Ew" just for emphasis on her point. This is due to my fashion looking very similar to what her mother used to wear. Is it possible to imagine wearing the same clothes as our grandparents once did? Believe it or not, fashion has a tendency of repeating itself, so if we aren't wearing items that made it's first debut a decade or more before-hand then we are out of trend.

 Many of the clothing items we see on the street are a variation of something that has previously been trending sometime in the past. Great examples of these reoccurring trends are crop tops, high-waist bottoms, and shawls. These grab and go pieces are amazing ways to look well coordinated and fashionable without even trying. Although, we've all seen these pieces in some way or another, they are the buzz in the world of fashion because WE ALL LOVE THEM...well at least most people do, including myself. The article  How to Dress Grunge: 15 Steps (with pictures) makes apparent that "The grunge look first appeared in Seattle in the late 80s and early 90s when bands like Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam were just beginning (and making a big splash in the music world)." Today this edgy "I don't care" look is coming back with dissemination and the people wearing it get a whirl wind of compliments by just putting on plaid shirt with plain jeans. It's definitely safe to say we can never fail wearing these revamped older trends.


Some people think fashion comes out of the wood works, and while there are fads that do that, we never hear of a long lasting trend getting started like that. Fads are typically new to the fashion world and are the cool thing to wear for only a few months. Also the other downside to fads is, not everyone is on the bandwagon. Unlike fads, reoccurring fashion really has enough time to go through all the dislikes without being more criticized, and it's a lot easier to wear, therefore more people are likely to wear it. Fashion is really like that one person who has been to prison before, so the second time back is a lot easier to make it through.

As a a person who loves everything relating to fashion I am more likely to accept fads and understand why they are liked for the moment by some people, but I'm only one person. Most people would feel a person wearing a fad has made a really wrong turn in their wardrobe, so for the safest way to look trendy, we should put on our older style clothes with a modern flare. BUT WAIT, we should do this ONLY if we are willing to receive compliments for years on our very trendy outfit. c;

The television show "Saved by the Bell" aired in the 80's and early 90's. (The image above is not my own)

 

This is an example of today's trending look. This outfit is very similar to the outfits of the characters from "Saved by the Bell."(The image above is not my own)

Are Fashion Advertisements Going too Far?

Going to all the important social events from the VMAs to high-end fashion shows during New York Fashion Week, Rihanna isn't failing to surprise us with her unique bold outfits. Much like Rihanna's exotic wardrobe, fashion advertisements, now so more than ever, are bold, over the top, and may even offend people. Believe it or not, risky images are a necessity to captivating the attention of a fashion magazine reader.

The consumers purchasing these magazines are people who are used to seeing eccentric designs live on the runway, so in a fashion magazine they are going to be looking for that same rush. Hmmm but how is it even possible to get the same rush from a still picture?

WALK ON THE THIN LINE.  Many fashion magazines put a whole 360 degrees on the way their designs are perceived by doing this they put images like the one described in "Why do grotesque fashion ads lure readers?" where Jimmy Choo decided to have a woman who accidentally caught a man with her fishing hook while attempting to fish for a purse. Therefor the image is boldly saying "with Jimmy Choo purses you'll hook a man." Advertisements like the above aren't meant to offend anyone, but just to make a statement clear. There is no denying that images like that will definitely get the job done.

If you were to see a fashion advertisement you felt crossed the line way too far, would you be upset? Would throw a fit? Maybe even call them out on twitter?

Well if you do so, even then the advertisement did it's job by capturing your attention and being all you could talk about.

For those who aren't offended, the advertisement will actually work miracles for stimulating the brain and getting those gears grinding. The advertisements are actually quite similar to what you'd see on an AP test because they have a picture clearly giving you a message but leaves it to you to interpret what that message is. In the process it may cause you to think like authors used as examples in " Why do grotesque fashion ads lure consumers?" Thinking "'"...women [are] transported into the story world set in motion by the ad's pictures, asking themselves, 'What is happening here?' and 'What will happen next?'" or if you're more into the aesthetics of the ad focus on  "'...[immersing yourself] in the images, examining its lighting, colors, lines, composition, and creativity'"

http://www.tastemakermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/rihanna-fashion-20124efbaa6c27d34.jpg

Tim Burten Advertisement:

 http://rottenfields.blogspot.com/2013/10/halloween-special-tim-burton-magical.html: