Style + Beauty

Of course I pick the dress with the zipper up the back.

I thought I knew everything I needed to know about personal style and fashion until I started teaching elementary school. I had more fashion lessons this year than a makeover-show contestant, courtesy of 6-year-old girls.

“Those are the tightest jeans I’ve ever seen on a man,” my then roommate Josh told me one day in our kitchen circa 2008. Far from an insult, I was pleased by his assessment.

Clean eating is so passe, you guys. It’s time to get on board the newest trend: dirty eating!

Practically speaking, if you want to try a fashion trend that you’re not initially comfortable with, approach it the same way you would an awkward convo with your mom or a spontaneous skinny dip in a freezing lake: ease in.

Yet, there is life beyond just t-shirt and jeans. There is more to an ensemble than denim and scarves.

The thing is, we soak in these body-judging lessons from a very young age, before we even know how damaging they are. Some of the messages are implicit, like when we see a fat girl getting made fun of on the playground (or, for many of us, when we are the fat girl getting made fun of on the playground) and learn that being fat is not just wrong, it’s a punishable offense.

The female flexing of physical dominance—usually manifested through fashion—is just one facet of intra-sexual competition.