Origami Girl

Monday 21 January 2013

In which I am not afraid of the 'Fraud Police'



(These photos were taken last week, the morning before I dyed my hair. However, after dying it I was too impatient to celebrate the new hair, so the snowy pictures got put up first. This is why it may appear as though my hair can travel through time.)
 
Sometimes I feel like an impostor in the world of fashion. I love clothes and dressing-up, but the little things make me feel small, like I'm not really a grown-up, like I don't belong:
  • I don't really know how to wear make-up. I sort of guessed at putting on lipstick and am only slowly improving with it. 
  • I only own three pots of eyeshadow. I only wear them to go clubbing.
  • I hardly ever pluck my eyebrows and when I do it hurts and I whine and they never ever look even. I actually have a scar under one eyebrow from an operation I had when I was a kid so I don't think they ever will be even. I don't have the pain-stamina to pluck them into a thin neat line so I just do an approximation of how I think they should look. 
  • I can't walk in heels very well. I wear little heels, never more than 3". I had a friend who always said I was a 'wuss' about heels. In total there are only own 2 pairs of going-out heels in our shoe rack. They are both oxford heels, nothing strappy at all.
When I go clubbing I go in the kind of clothes you see me in on these pages. I wear patterned dresses with my gold brogues and a mini satchel bag and my level 1 of make-up. There are these other girls there who I look at as though they are from another world. They have sexy white dresses and 6" heels and I know that they are probably the same age as me, yet miles apart. They are so tall (and I am so short) that I feel myself wither away into insecurity.

I make myself a little clubbing box where I dance like mad, check out the hot girls and pretend like I am a nearly a normal adult.

There are a lot of new year's resolutions about losing weight or getting fitter. These are great goals for the right person. However, I am victim of a fear of the Fraud Police.

Amanda Palmer has this great commencement speech on the fear that the Fraud Police are going to show up in the night and knock on your day and say,
"We've been watching you. We have evidence that you have absolutely no idea what you are doing and have been accused of making-shit-up-as-you-go-along."
She says that everyone has that: brain surgeons, teachers, psychologists.. They all fear that they have no idea what they are doing, but the Fraud Police don't exist and they won't get you.

All of these insecurities are not really about fashion at all. It's just about me being afraid of failure and not believing in myself.

But I'm really getting better.

So part of my new year's re-set is to like fashion without worrying about not fitting in, or on the flipside worrying whether trying to fit in makes me fail as a feminist; not to worry whether I can put lipstick competently on or whether I look too young without it.
I am going to be confident about myself wearing and doing things exactly the way I want to, exactly the way I am.







Outfit details
This is an outfit I actually wore to work, fulfilling one of my new year's goals. I'm determined to ''glam" up a little this year and to wear more of my wardrobe. I have a casual dress workplace which allows for a lot of creativity that I don't make enough of.

I've worn this dress twice before on this blog. It is one of my 'go-to' pieces as they say. It tends to go with pretty much everything in my wardrobe and I have dressed it up enough to be interview wear and worn it with sandals on the beach before. 
Dress: Camden market, Shoes: Blowfish, Belt: New Look, Jacket: H&M, Beret: present, Necklace: present

10 comments:

  1. I don't wear makeup, pluck my eyebrows, or wear heels :) You look super cute in that dress!

    http://threeinchstitch.blogspot.com

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  2. Sooooo lovely look!!!:)

    ♥ Giveaway - $80 Msdressy Gift Voucher♥ http://vs-style.blogspot.com/2013/01/giveaway-80-msdressy-gift-voucher.html

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  3. I feel like giving you a big hug. I remember feeling like that about fashion and makeup when I was very young too. Let me reassure you that this is the time in your life when you can pretty much wear anything you like, experiment wildly with make up and by virtue of your youth it will more than likely appear pretty, fresh and rebellious on you and be seen as a modern expression of the energy of youth rather than look ridiculous. My advice is have fun with it - this is the time in your life to do so - you'll work out what you really like and what suits you along the way.

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  4. Aw, I love this outfit from head to toe! (It's much prettier and way more original than those 6 inch heels and skimpy sequined dresses those club girls wear.) - I was the same way when it came to this kind of stuff. As for the makeup thing - you don't even need it - I wish I looked half as good without it :-) xo Marisa

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  5. I've never been clubbing. It's a really foreign idea to me. I like to sit and sip my cocktails. And seroiusly - short skirts and heels are overrated. I am wearing an outfit similar to this when I'm in disney - gold dress and brogues - but the color scheme is the same! So of coure I love this outfit - I'd wear it alot

    <3 katherine
    of corgis and cocktails// fawn pendant giveaway

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  6. Heck ya you should feel confident in whatever you're wearing and in whatever situation you're in. Your style is awesome (especially that dress!!) and you're beautiful. Don't worry about weight. Don't worry about makeup. Just be you, because you're rad.

    I'm short. I hate heels and REFUSE to wear them. I dress how I want. I dance how I want. I eat what I want. I do what I want and sure, I get overcome by insecurity sometimes, but I can always drag myself out of it knowing that I'm just being my genuine self.

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  7. I love how open you are with your insecurities! Everybody has them but not everybody is willing to put them out there. I love that dress, I'm a sucker for a cute lace dress. And your wedding sounds pretty amazing! I think in a perfect world I would love to have some elaborately planned wedding, but it this point in my life it just doesn't make sense. Good luck with the planning and I can't wait to read all about it ♥

    xo

    Ashley

    Southern (California) Belle

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  8. I love this idea of the "Fraud Police" and how ridiculous it is we fear this/them. Something about the analogy just clicked...which lead me to think how brave and positive you are to say "screw being worried about them!" That openness is nice.

    Also- I've never really been clubbing (there are no clubs anywhere around). The one time I went to a club was in Prague and there were these pale Czech people dressed in dreadlocks and what I would term as island-clothing and they danced really slowly to techno music. I'm going to assume that isn't the norm either. But, like you they said (in Czech" they didn't care about the Fraud Police. So, good on you for dressing how you like and dancing how you like to go clubbing.

    Especially when your outfits are so cute! Look at that lace at the hem!

    www.withoutastyle.com

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  9. I'm in love with your dress. It's so beautiful and fear not, not every girl was born with a sense of make up/beauty/heel walking abilities. I don't own much eye make up either, but I use it and I've learned my way around it. I let my eyebrows go until they're super wild. I only wear small thick chunky heels to help with the walkin' and you know what? It's okay! The more I blog, the more I get into the beauty aspects and it's all very much so trial and error. If you want to be into it, you'll eventually find your way. If not, natural is AWESOME too. If I go to a bar, I wear what I would usually wear and that's it. Who cares how fake everyone else looks. You gotta do you.

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  10. lovely dress! very nice retro-looking outfit. very nice and romantic vibe of it.

    Lyosha
    Inside and Outside Blog

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