Striptember: Subtle Stripes Twofer, And World Hijab Day

Hi, all! So, a couple days ago I said I would be doing something a little different for the 5th. It turned out the 4th of September was actually World Hijab Day, but because I am a bit of a dodo, I thought it was yesterday. Oops! But even after realizing my mistake, I figured I would wear a headscarf to show my support nonetheless. World Hijab Day is important because it shows solidarity for Muslim women in places like France who must fight against laws that seek to bar them from wearing hijab as an expression of their faith. As someone who is very much in favor of people being able to wear what they want, and observe their religions (or lack thereof) how they choose to with no governmental interference, I'm very much in support of this.
World Hijab Day also gives women who have never worn hijab the chance to share the experience of Muslim women in wearing the hijab every day. From pins to slippage to funny looks and comments, it is a choice of attire that sets you apart from the mainstream-and I think that we in subcultures that express ourselves through clothing choice can certainly relate to all the attendant costs and benefits that come with it!
Because I am not Muslim myself I didn't feel comfortable donning full hijab (as it is a personal choice strongly linked with expression of Muslim faith) but I thought that a headscarf similar to those that more conservative Orthodox Christians wear would be an acceptable substitute. And of course, being the anal-retentive color matching person that I am, I had to coordinate it to my outfit!

Green dragon print scarf-Arc

Black cami-Ross

Black lace blouse-Arc

Multi-colored gypsy wrap skirt-Hippie store
Black cloth Mary Janes-Ross

See! The skirt has stripes in it. I AM SO CLEVER. I wish I could remember the store where I got it, but honestly all I remember was that they had bongs in the front for sale, and because I was in 10th grade and very naive, I thought they were just pretty blown glass and asked my mom if she could get me one. She almost died laughing.
And on-topic, wearing the scarf definitely gave me just a tiny bit of perspective into the difficulties of wearing hijab. It was very heavy and kept sliding off my hair, despite being put in place with hairpins. I was fiddling with and resetting it all day! I am in awe of the many women I see on my campus every day wearing hijab who look flawless and completely put together. If anyone's interested in reading more about hijab, my friend Larissa has an amazing blog called The Adventures of A Hijabi Waitress where she discusses it in a far more eloquent and informed manner than I could. And on a shallow note, her hijab coordinates are amazing. :) 

 And now for today's outfit, which was just subtle and stripey and not really religious or political at all. BUT FUN, I hope!

Black lace shrug-Love Culture
Black cami-Wal-Mart

Black pinstriped underbust corset-Punk69

Red miniskirt-Arc

Black leggings-Cosmic

Black ballet flats-Recycle Boutique

This was a fun outfit. The skirt actually has stripes too, though you can't see them in the picture that well because they're tone-on-tone. It's a cute skirt but I don't wear it that often on account of EXTREME SHORTNESS. But the leggings solved that problem-yay for butt coverage! One more day of subtle stripes, then it's on to...well, not necessarily BETTER, but definitely BRIGHTER things. ARE YOU EXCITED OR WHAT? 

30-Day Goth Challenge, Day 1

So, I just looked at the calendar and realized that, in one month, I leave for New Zealand. It's crazy to think about, and it is going to be even crazier getting ready for, but I am determined to do it-and to be a better blogger along the way! In order to motivate myself to blog more regularly (and I'm not even going to offer excuses for my pitiful posting so far this year; I've just been lazy, and that's all there is to it!) I am going to try the 30 Day Goth Challenge from the lovely Juliet's Lace. Today, Day 1 of the challenge, poses what would seem to be a simple question: How did you come across the subculture?

Well, for me, that simple question...isn't so simple. Ok, it actually isn't so VERY complicated either, but I like to make myself sound more mysterious than I actually am. :) In retrospect, a lot of the traits that would grow up to be Goth in me manifested themselves very young. I watched The Addams Family movies quite a bit as a kid, and enjoyed old Munsters re-runs. I was obsessed with vampires and ghost stories, and I always loved Victorian children's literature. I also frequently displayed a strongly independent, if not entirely tasteful, fashion sense. I was obsessed with prairie dresses and penny loafers in second and third grade. I may be the only fourth grader in history to wear a black velvet catsuit with a long red scarf looped around the waist to school, followed the next year by an entirely leopard-print outfit (leopard-print pajama pants, matching old maternity top of my mom's-no, I'm not kidding about that-and hairbow in a completely different kind of leopard print). Thankfully, no pictures of these sartorial abominations exist to haunt me, but trust me, they were bad.

So what does all that have to do with Goth? Well, I'm getting there. In 7th and 8th grade, I went through what I like to refer to as my "conventional" phase; the bullying about my out-there outfits had finally gotten to be too much, and I wanted to fit in, so the farthest I would go was a wild top with a pair of jeans. I was 13, and when you're 13, you make such things way more important than they are. Instead of wearing the skirts and dresses I so desperately wanted to wear, I would read the Dress A Day  blog and fantasize about the day when I could wear a scrabble-print dress or alphabet-print skirt. One day, Erin posted about a Goth lady, Jillian Venters of the Gothic Charm School, who was seeking pink and black striped fabrics. Intrigued (one of my friends had recently started going the whole Hot Topic route), I clicked on the link-and found myself in an amazing, absolutely fascinating world. Here, finally, were people who looked at life in the same odd, quirky way I did! Here were people who loved beautiful clothes, and Tim Burton movies, and vampire books! I was hooked, but only in the mental sense. I had seen how my friend, and several other kids at school who identified themselves as variations of Goth and punk, were treated, and I just wasn't ready for that.

So for the next two years, through my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I bided my time. I rebelled against the jeans-and-t-shirt dresscode of my peers in small ways; I wore tailored black and grey pants with a cheerful Eyore t, or donned a black lace tank with jeans that laced up the sides. On days when the tennis team played, I joyfully wore my skirts and dresses, secure in the knowledge that no one could make snide comments about me being *shock, horror* "overdressed", when everyone knew we were required to dress nicely for matches! Finally, after I left school to go online for my last two years, I was able to get the requisite mental distance to realize that I shouldn't care what people at that school thought, and I should wear what makes me happy, snide and sniggering idiots be damned. I threw out all but one pair of jeans (a girl has to do things like hike and paint some times!), bought a bunch of stripey tights and lacy skirts, and I've never looked back. It's been a long, and sometimes bumpy road-but I can safely say that I am today an unashamed, unreserved, and exceptionally happy Goth. So, thank you to the random Google search that led me to Erin's amazing blog, which led me to Jillian's amazing blog, which led me into Goth and all the amazing people, places, and things I have discovered in this subculture. I love you guys! 

Monthly Homework Assignment: Naked Faces

To be honest, Professor, I wasn't too enthused about this homework assignment-but I decided to do it anyway, because I'm a good student like that! Here's the thing-you will almost NEVER see me in real life without makeup. Now, the casual viewer might find this puzzling, as I don lipstick perhaps two or three times a month (if I remember), am a disaster with eyeshadow, and I can't even really do eyeliner. However, I am an A-1 level expert in foundation and powder. I do concealer and coverup like nobody's business. And I still feel like people are secretly grossed out by me. Why? Well, here's my naked face:

This is me, right out of the shower. The picture doesn't show it near as much as it does in real life, but I have pretty awful skin. Just my luck-the one time I want to actually show what my skin looks like, and the light/camera Photoshops me without my consent. My pores are huge, I constantly have zits, and even on the very rare occasions when I don't have two or more actively growing pimples, it's guaranteed that I will have scabs healing over from the last ones. I have moderate scarring one my cheeks and chin, and just generally feel awful about how my skin looks when I don't have the friendly help of NYC and Neutrogena. I've had acne literally for as long as I can remember-my mom says I first started getting pimples when I was five or six, and I've never stopped.

I've had many wars with myself over my skin, especially as I've gotten older. As I have become more fervently feminist, I've tried to talk myself out of wearing makeup all the time; after all, very few women actually have perfect skin, and it's just another in a vast, overwhelming set of  impossible patriarchal beauty standards. I've told friends who also have acne that they are beautiful, and meant it entirely. After all, why should a measly thing like a couple of zits stop someone from being pretty? But saying it to others and believing it about myself are two entirely different things.

It's kind of sad, actually how much my skin dominates my thoughts and my life. I know that I feel truly comfortable with someone when I can be around them not wearing makeup and not feel self-conscious. When I'm all dressed up in a pretty dress and corset, with my hair done nice and full-blown lipstick and eyeshadow (with the eye makeup preferably done by someone else!), I will look in the mirror and think: Wow, I could almost look pretty-if it wasn't for my skin. I kinda want to punch commercials that say things like "Love the skin you're in" and then use models with flawless (or flawlessly airbrushed) skin-of COURSE it's easy to love your skin when it's perfect! I carry a powder compact with me everywhere and ruthlessly blot at any sign of shininess or oiliness-in addition to my acne, I of course have a daily oil production that rivals the output of the entire Middle East.

Sometimes it seems as though I've always been at war with my own skin-a neverending battle in which it trounces my self-esteem, my confidence, and my faith in myself. There's a little, niggling voice in the back of my head that always whispers at me because of my skin-it says things like "See that guy over there? He might talk to you, if you weren't covered in zits." Or "Are you just wearing those outrageous outfits so no one notices the person underneath the clothes?" I know this voice is silly, that it's stupid and wrong and that no one else actually thinks that way; that doesn't make it affect me any less. However, every exercise like this; every time I see other beautiful, brilliant bloggers who aren't Photoshop perfect but are nonetheless lovely; every time I go out in public without makeup, as I did today, and no one screams or snickers or flees in terror, I feel like I gain a little bit of ground. And maybe those little bits will add up into a lot, and I will feel comfortable in my own skin. Until then, I'll keep trying; I'll put on my primer, my foundation, and my powder, and I'll pretend that makes me feel pretty and perfectly confident. Maybe, if I keep pretending hard enough, someday it'll stop being pretending and start being real.