Tuesday, February 23, 2010

An Introduction

Hello Cohabitating Closet readers!  I'm Susan's friend and (finally) co-contributor, Anne.  Before I get to the fashion blogging, I wanted to introduce myself.  Where to start, where to start. I'm a cohabitator in Chicago, but I'm very lucky to not have to share my closet.  It's not that I wouldn't, but my boyfriend's old apartment didn't have a closet, so he bought himself a fancy IKEA wardrobe.  The wardrobe moved in with us, leaving me with my very own closet.
I guess I dress nice most of the time, but I wouldn't consider myself all that fashionable or trendy. Until I started reading the Cohabitating Closet, I had never even heard of such a thing as a fashion blog.  Anything I might know about fashion comes from watching things like What Not to Wear flipping through the occasional fashion magazine (I really like Marie Claire's recent addition of Big Girl in the Skinny World) and lots and lots of people-watching here in Chicago.  Rather than budget constraints, my biggest fashion challenge is finding ways to translate fashions into something that looks good on my somewhat plus-size frame.  I'm attempting to lose it, but that's slow-going the older I get, and I've realized that I need to really embrace the way I look and dress how I want now, rather than totally giving up until I get to be my ideal size.  I know a lot of women in my position tend to cover up and even think they can't be fashionable unless they drop like 20 pounds, but we can.  I think this is a lot of why I started really getting into clothes and shopping.  I mean sure, style is a way to express myself, but, if done right, it's also a way to camouflage the things I don't like about my body while accentuating the things that I do like.
this is probably my most stylish

I've been wanting to post for a little while now, but it feels silly to draw attention to what I'm wearing, much less dissect and discuss it, so I'm getting used to that idea.  Also, I only work in my office a few days a week, so the rest of the time I'm in sweats or pajamas.  My office has a pretty lax dress code - it's "casual," so most people wear jeans all the time.  Personally, I still like to dress up for work.  I've got a work wardrobe down, but I'm not so good with casual stuff.  So maybe this is a good opportunity for me to figure that out.

Clothes aside, I love accessories!  I guess because they always fit, but they're also just so much fun! :)
I'm loving long necklaces, even though I got on board with them a few years too late

It's important to match your surroundings (okay, not really, I just love this scarf)

I love some big earrings

8 comments:

  1. You're one of the most beautiful and stylish people I know. Welcome to blog and I look forward to your contributions! And please teach me how to accessorize. Your closet is way more bright and cheerful.

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  2. Thank you both for the compliments :)

    I didn't want to point out the obvious difference in our closets but I guess it's pretty noticeable when you put them next to each other like that :) I had a hard time writing this one - I had all these great ideas running through my head while I was cooking dinner last night, but once I sat down to write they all just vanished! I'm sure it gets easier.

    Also, check out the dress hanging on my closet door - you'll be seeing that with some black patent pumps 2 weeks from Saturday! Now, to accessorize...

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  3. Augh, my closet looks like the it belongs to one of those pig nosed civil servants in "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
    And that dress is gor-geous!

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  4. We'll work on it! Color takes a while -- I used to wear a ton of black because I thought it was "slimming," but really because it was a good way to blend in. I'm no longer content to blend in, I guess.

    The dress is by Suzi Chin and I found it on Overstock for $25! I'm so excited to finally wear it :)

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  5. Ooh, must check out Overstock.

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  6. It's kind of hit or miss. This is the first piece of clothing that I've actually bought from there - but I don't peruse it as often as other sites, so that could be why.

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