A photo of our group of picnickers under the shade of a tree.
While it’s nice living down the Gold Coast, being close to the beach and generally living a slower paced life, I miss Brisbane and my friends a lot. We went up for a picnic at New Farm Park on Sunday in absolutely scorching heat, but you know the best thing about being around friends in hot weather is that they don’t seem to mind if you’re dripping with sweat. (Unless they do, do you friends?! AWKWARD!)
A photo of Nick holding little baby Olivia.
A photo of Viv standing and looking engrossed in her phone with tree branches and foliage dramatically silhouetted behind her.
A super close up of Sonya's face, which wears amazing pink rimmed sunglasses.
A photo of Pete, Mem and Heather being zany and friendly in an iStock photo kind of way.
A photo of piles and piles of Sweet Valley High books being perused.
A photo of Pete's hand against his polka dot denim shorts. He wears a big blue ring with some kind of significance that I'm not aware of.
A photo of Mem with an arm around Pete, who is looking off to the left.
A photo of Miffy wearing Sonya's pink sunglasses looking like the Best and Most Cool Dog ever.
I love seeing casual outfits on bloggers. I don’t mean “oh I just slipped on these really expensive wedges and woops everything coordinates perfectly and how convenient it is that I have a full face of make up and perfect hair” kind of outfits. That’s not casual for me. My brand of casual is an outfit you can roll around on the floor with your pet in, an outfit you put on to answer the door when the postie comes, or something you wear while washing the dishes.
A photo of Miffy and I standing on a groyne at the beach. I'm wearing a black singlet under a cream crochet top with denim shorts and I'm holding an orange bag.
Even as I write this, I’m thinking this outfit is a little TOO dressed up because I’m wearing that crochet top, shoes and a bra. It goes to show that even though I really really want to show realism, there are little extra lengths I will go to when going outside and/ or posting photos to this blog. Do I show you photos of me wearing a daggy dress with no bra? Nope! Why? I guess because, for me personally, I already feel disadvantaged by not being a conventionally attractive blogger type so what I post is really just the cream skimmed off the surface in my sartorial life. That might be true even for the conventionally attractive blogger types too!
One day, I promise to show you what I really wear on a day to day basis. A singlet and a skirt, bed hair, no bra and no make up. There’s this belief that fashion is aspirational, that is, that the types of people excluded from participating in fashion and being represented in magazines, on tv, through blogs, etc, aren’t the type of people most people want to look like. And the only thing that sells clothes is the idea that maybe, just maybe, we could look just like the type of person we aren’t. However, I know just through blogging that even us purportedly unaspirational fat people can get units shifted; that is, I know plus size bloggers are called upon by retailers more than ever to wear their clothes on their blogs so that readers will buy more clothes.
So what if I want to know where to buy casual clothes, nighties, undies and what not? And what if I want to see people like me who don’t have a load of money to spend on glamorous pseudo-casual clothes (and don’t get the “giftage” from retailers!) These are totally unfleshed out thoughts, but I’m sure somewhere in here is a middle finger aimed in the general direction of the fashion industry, popular blogging practices, the beauty ideal and capitalism. So just pretend I wrote something very smart and concise along those lines, and enjoy these photos of our day at the beach.
A photo of Miffy standing on a big rock with her tongue hanging out and licking her nose.
A photo of Nick holding Miffy as the wind sweeps her ears back.
A photo of me looking down, the crochet top I'm wearing is clearer in this photo than the first one and it has a big crochet flower on the front of it.
A photo of Miffy sniffing the ground with my legs walking behind her.
Singlet: Yours Clothing
Crochet top: Yours Clothing
Shorts: Best & Less
Shoes: Grasshoppers
Necklace: Made by me
Bag: Made by my neighbour
I’ve been quiet recently, focusing on little projects and trying to look after myself and the other day I rewatched one of my favourite movies and took a whole buttload of screencaps because I thought I’d do the internet a favour. Strictly Ballroom came out when I was about 12 years old but I don’t think I saw it until I was 14 or thereabouts. It was so influential for me at that impressionable time because I felt like Fran was basically playing out my fantasy life story, transforming from an acned outsider to a confident performer. Not only that, the writing and art direction really spoke to my soul. My sisters and I quoted lines like “Show me your paso doble!” over and over while trying to stomp our feet with authority, mimicking the dance. I dreamed of a life filled with every colour in this movie, Catherine Martin’s overblown yet symbolic art direction became aspirational to me; and even though I knew nothing about ballroom dancing I hadn’t ever seen a movie capture Australian humour and satire quite like this one.
Screencaps from Strictly Ballroom: Shirley Hastings having a breakdown in a purple tiedie outfit, Scott's sister cheering for him in pink and yellow light, Scott's father dancing beside a record player, Scott and Fran dancing on the roof of the dance studio in front of a glittering Coca Cola sign.
Screencaps from Strictly Ballroom: Scott, Fran, Rico and Ya Ya dancing, flashback scene where Doug dances with a line of women, Liz Holt pleading for Scott to dance with him at the Pan Pacifics Grand Prix, Scott on the dancefloor in a gold bolero kneeling in front of Fran who wears a red flamenco dress.
The styling in the movie is dated but it was so obnoxiously of it’s time that it was parodying the huge fringes and eyeshadow up to the brows while we were all still trying to look like that. I remember I used to rub my fringe with the palm of my hand, hoping it’d knot up and get more body before I pulled it up in a fan-like array and doused it in hairspray. After watching the movie again for the first time in years I still would love to live in the Strictly Ballroom world, but without the ridiculous fringe. So here’s a completely overworked and ostentatious collage inspired by Strictly Ballroom, sourced only from retailers of today on the internet. It actually took me hours to weed through all the boring, unfancy fashions to find the good stuff, being a stylist is hard!
A collage of Strictly Ballroom inspired amazingness, including caps from the movie, Fran's nightie/ socks/ heels outfit and a glam purple, gold and green outfit.
Yours Clothing Floral nighty; Evans purple leggings; Evans grey and pink socks; Isola heels from Shoebuy; 80s Purple sunglasses.
Evans Praslin purple tulip hem dress; ASOS open torque tassel necklace; ASOS emerald glass earrings; Cynthia Rowley gold cage heels with gold leaf socks; Illamasqua Body Electrics make up.
So, it should be no surprise that I completely object to participating or being submitted to any kind of diet or weight loss talk. The way I see it, 99.9999999% of the world around me is a space where diet talk is not only normal but an insidious disease festering inside the relationships between women folk that masquerades as bonding.
In an effort to make it even more clear that I do not want this kind of self esteem eroding, multimillion dollar marketing scam bullshit infecting my life and this blog I’ve been working on a graphic for websites and blogs to use to proudly declare NO DIET TALK! This is a way for those of us who are made uncomfortable and triggered in conversations that centre around diet and weight loss to feel a bit safer, and I’m hoping that the graphic is spread far and wide.
Right click and save to your computer friends, then upload to your website!
These are all transparent png files for optimal stencilesque radness and to fit in with a wide variety of site designs. The white graphic has a black background added in with CSS, it will look great on most dark backgrounds.
I’m releasing this graphic in a few different colour variations under a Creative Commons Non Commercial No Derivatives license which means you can share the image and post it where ever you want on the internet, but you can’t modify or use it for commercial means.
I’m going to be making up brooches with this design too, so stay tuned!
Here’s some further reading on diet talk and why it sucks:
The anti diet-talk mantra by Sonya at Lip Mag
FAT: The Dirty Word by Mary at A Merry Life
Trimming the fat from “fat talk” on The-F-Word
Dear Dieters; A Letter to People at Work by Marianne at The Rotund
I have been besotted with Cambridge Satchels for a long time and what’s funny is that I don’t know if it really has been a long time or if time just slows down when I’m drooling over them. Since their fluoro satchels have been spotted on trendy people they’ve become something of a desirable item and it really kills me that I don’t have one. Even if I could buy one (something I’m thinking about very solemnly for my birthday!) I have no idea what colour I’d pick out. It’s the kind of bag that I could only ever buy once, because even though it’s a reasonable price for a Super Fashunable Thing, it’s still a fairly expensive thing. I’ve never spent over $50 on a hand bag in my life!
A collage of lots of outfit photos of me with a green, red and pink Cambridge Satchel pasted over every outfit.
I’m so drawn to the colourful satchels and in the best possible universe scenario I’d buy a bright green one. I was thinking about this with such intensity that I decided to superimpose a little green bag over different outfit photos to see if it’d fit in to my style (this is where outfit photos are super handy!) I found that the green stuck out too much for my liking. Even though that’s what I really liked about it! Then I added a red satchel and found it fit better, but because I do tend to wear blocks of red I didn’t want to appear too matchy matchy. So I added the light pink satchel… and I think I like it best!
If you have never had the opportunity to gaze upon the perfection of a Cambridge Satchel, avail yourself right now of the website. And then tell me which colours you are obsessed with so we can all sit around weeping with desire together.
And if you don’t want to be tempted by beautiful bags, come read my interview with Lesley for xojane.com.
A photo of fat necklaces in white, red, silver mirror, green and blue.
I was sorting the pile of new fat pendants into a box with compartments to divide each colour when my mother-in-law came in with her friend and I showed them how many necklaces I was preparing to sell. They took a closer look, marveling at all the colours and how shiny the mirror one was.
“Does it say something? What does it say?”
“It says FAT!”
“Oh!”
Ordinarily I would jump in to explain defensively, just why I had the audacity to sell necklaces with THAT WORD cut out of pretty colours in fancy letters; however I just smiled and nodded. I’m a bit tired of feeling sheepish about fat and that’s why I made these necklaces, but I realise how awkward I still feel about the F word outside my community. It’s just a word, right? No it’s not just a word. It’s an identity. It’s my body. It’s a rebellion. It’s my attitude. I don’t want to feel defensive about this part of me but it’s hard when I’ve been taught that this word, this embodiment, is so taboo.
It’s a reminder that fat acceptance, or self acceptance, isn’t a destination. It’s lots of little steps, it’s sitting down for a while to reflect on how far I’ve come, and it’s the chub rub between my thighs from making it to this point.
To buy a fat necklace pop over to Fancy Lady Industries.
A collage of three versions of the Coffee Date dress, a sleeveless dress with A-line skirt and neck ruffles.
Remember a long time ago when I was really determined to grade up that Coffee Date Dress to a multi size pattern for all the fats in the land? Yeah, it kind of died in the arse when I realised my grading method didn’t work. I put the project away and then subsequently deleted all my pattern grading files for Illustrator in a fit of rage.
Since I’ve been on this recent sewing kick I’ve been hungrily consuming any kind of pdf “print at home” sewing pattern I can find, at first going to sewingpatterns.com and being hugely disappointed in their consistently atrocious Print Sew back end, and then going back to BurdaStyle only to find that you can’t buy patterns from the site at the moment and there’s no word when functionality will be restored. Free BurdaStyle patterns can still be downloaded, so as I browsed through the pitiful collection of plus size patterns on the site I came across the Coffee Date Dress again and thought I’d give it another go.
A graphic of the main pattern pieces of the Coffee Date Dress, split apart and spread to make the pattern my size.
After reading Fit for Real People recently I decided to use the cut and spread method to make this dress bigger. The book is kind of helpful but not very detailed, so I really winged the whole process. I vaguely remember doing cut and spread pattern grading in high school Home Economics but that was nearly 15 years ago! I found a bunch of green cotton in my stash and went ahead and sewed up a muslin of the bodice just to see how far off my pattern grading was, and you know what? It wasn’t that far off! I had to cut the arm holes deeper but other than that, things were looking hopeful. The skirt pieces were a little too narrow, but that was an easy fix as I hadn’t yet cut the fabric and simply added width to the centre seam.
After more BurdaStyle browsing I came upon this cute-as-hell circle collar on the Candy Sundress and decided if I was going to go forward with a wearable muslin then I’d put my whole arse into it and make a fancy collar. The original dress has a lower back neckline so I lowered mine too; I’m glad I did because it really makes the whole neckline as well as show off my tattoo!
CAVEAT: Some of these photos are pretty shocking because I couldn’t wait for Nick to get home and take photos so I set up the tripod and self timer… with wonky results. Also, despite much ironing this fabric insists on creasing whenever I move!
An outfit photo of me wearing my short sleeveless green dress with circle collar made out of a patterned green cotton.
Another photo of me wearing the dress, this time on the balcony.
A photo of the back of my dress, with a low neckline that shows most of my falling fairy tattoo.
I’m a bit worried about the back crinkling, maybe it was because I was turning around to check the camera every 10 seconds?
A photo of my face and the circle collar close up.
There are small flaws in my construction alas: the bodice lining is a bit of a schemozzle as I forgot to cut it at the same time as I cut the outer fabric, some of the collar circles overlap the wrong way or are unevenly spaced, and I could probably take the whole thing in a few inches at all seams but I probably won’t because I like how it swings! Despite the flaws, I’m proud I finally made this dress in my size. I realise now that making a multi-size pattern isn’t as easy as I thought it’d be, and ultimately might not even work on most people because we’re all shaped differently.
A photo of Pete and Mem sitting at a table with their thoughtful faces on, pondering their shared platter.
When my friends Pete and Mem came down for the weekend and asked where we should eat for lunch, the only cafe that sprung to my mind in my furious Gold Coast cafe review splurge was Elk Espresso at Broadbeach. There are lots of cafes down here, especially at Broadbeach, but finding one with a bit of character and charm has proven difficult. The report on Elk was that it was “hip” (I cringe to use the word, being decidedly unhip myself) with good coffee and tasty cakes. We would be the judge of that, ho ho!
Unknowingly Pete and Mem had been to Vintage Espresso, Elk’s sibling cafe, that morning and had already instagrammed their amazing eats and drinks. Including a creme brulee milkshake. What a delicious surprise… until we found out that Elk had run out of ice cream. CURSES. So Nick had a milkshake with espresso and a can of condensed milk and was challenged by a staff member to finish it all, which of course he did. It was quite rich but it tasted like a Kopiko! I was a little disappointed at the lack of vegetarian options on the menu, being left with a vegetarian tart of the day which was thankfully very nice.
A sharing platter from Elk with bread, dried figs, goat's cheese, prosciutto, salmon and other things on it.
A photo of Mem holding up a bread stick with food wrapped around it.
Obviously lots of fun was had with the sharing platter, a very good option if you like playing with your food!
A photo of my vegetable tart and salad with my organic ginger beer behind.
My tart and salad were great except for the huge amounts of capsicum infecting everything, plus the pastry was a pretty tough, as if it’d been frozen. I don’t get the deal with organic soft drinks, but it was very nice until a fly landed in it.
A photo of Nick drinking his shake with a burger and fries in front of him.
Nick’s Michelin Man t-shirt is the best, is it not?
A photo of a huge slab of carrot cake with cream cheese icing.
After hearing so much about the cakes, we had to try some! My carrot cake slice was so huge I had to take half home. It was full of rum or whisky, delish. Unfortunately I didn’t have a cup of coffee to cast my judgement on, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be going back.
A photo of a distressed plaster wall with a table of native plants, bottles of water and cups.
A photo of the interior of Elk Expresso, a wood panelled wall divides the space and the counter stands against the wall.
An outfit photo of me, fat and pale skinned, wearing a short dress with a large retro stylised flower pattern in teal, purple and yellow, with teal leggings and brown wedge sandals. I'm standing in the backyard in front of the Hills Hoist.
Mum and I went to this new-to-us fabric store near her last week and I bought this fabulously obnoxious 70s style cotton lycra as well as some other pretty fabrics. I made it up into a version of the Burda Style Fatina Plus the other day, ordinarily a very simple pattern but my machine throws hissy fits every time I bring a stretch knit fabric near it so it took all day! I shortened the pattern and lengthened the shoulders to make some self-sleeves and now I have the best, most obnoxious, little t-shirt dress for summer.
A full length photo of me with my hands on my hips.
A full length side view photo of my outfit.
A photo of my legs and feet wearing teal leggings and brown wedge sandals.
A photo of me holding Miffy and making her little paw wave.
A collage of four black and white photos of me in various silly poses with my dress, cheeks and lips in colour.
Dress: Made by me
Teggings: Re/Dress
Shoes: New Look
The way I edited these photos reminds me of the Happy Litte Vegemites ad and with the Hills Hoist in the backyard, this post is chock full of Australiana. You ripper Rita?
Fat Babes Illustrated is a personal project I’ve been working on recently, inspired by the complete dearth of marginalised bodies represented in illustration, and by the awesome babes who share photos of themselves on the internet. I’ve always said that representation and visibility are the main reasons why I blog, but when I looked at my own art practice I could identify a huge glaring omission of people of colour. I’m largely a self taught person, but the formalised visual art education I have undertaken has ignored people of colour as subjects. I’ve been taught to carry on a tradition of only deeming white, slim, cisgendered and able bodied people as suitable subjects, and I have been becoming increasingly pissed off with that as I talk to more people with marginalised bodies.
In recent years social media websites have emerged that enable users to curate huge collections of images, and it’s been through sites like Tumblr and Pinterest that I’ve noticed this lack of marginalised embodiment. The optimist in me who thought that social media and the internet would allow for better access and representation has been proven incorrect, it’s never been more obvious that our western media’s normalised body (remember: thin, white, slim, young, cisgendered and able bodied) is so imprinted on our brains that we only see subjects in art and images with that body as beautiful or aspirational. So the art and illustration on Tumblr that is most reblogged and liked is basically the same kind of image seen in the mainstream media.
My POC, disabled, queer, and fat friends say, “but where am I?” Is the problem that image makers aren’t producing images with a diverse range of people as subjects? Does that mean that I as an image maker am part of the problem? I think I might be, for all the image of fat people that I create, I definitely know that I do not make many images of POC; this is my white privilege in action. I could be trying harder. So in order to improve my creative practice I asked my Tumblr friends to submit outfit photos of themselves for me to draw.
This project is probably going to be a very long-term one, because my objective is to improve my technical skills and portray a huge diversity of embodiment.
Image - illustration of afrotitty, a fat brown skinned babe, wearing an animal print sweater and a short black skirt with black fishnet tights and flat shoes, carrying a bright red bag.
Image - a digital illustration of ashrussell, a fat pale skinned babe making a joyful face, bunching up the skirt of a black dress with a blue cardigan and green tights.
Image - a digital illustration of Tiffany, a fat brown skinned tattooed babe, wearing a pink t-shirt, black pleated skirt with floral tights and black sandals, holding a large brown envelope bag.
Image - a digital illustration of nudiemuse, who is fat and dark skinned, wearing a black jacket and dress which she holds up to show off purple and black striped tights and the most badass lace up boots.
Image - a digital illustration of Heidi, who is fat, tattooed and pale skinned with pink and purple hair, wearing a khaki sleeveless dress and navy slip on sandshoes.
At the moment I have quite a huge collection of self-submitted images that I am working from, and I’m also going to offer custom illustrations for people to commission in my shop. Submissions for my Fat Babes Illustrated project are welcome, primarily if you are fat, a person of colour, disabled or queer. The difference between the two is that if you submit your photo to my reference collection it may or may not be used in my project; and if you purchase a commissioned illustration I will definitely complete your portrait, and you will get a high resolution file to print for yourself.
Fashion
Body Image
Art
Life
