A commenter on my last post suggested the following:
[Write about] [h]ow the outfits relate to you! I love your little blurbs about why you like specific articles or what they say about you, last weeks was especially great.
So today I’m going vintage. Not in my usual manner, but true vintage: these are all pictures of how I used to look. I don’t find any of them particularly embarrassing, but I can definitely see what I’d do differently now. (I’m not putting them in any kind of order, just to mess with y’all. And I’m not cropping or toying with the light, because I like ’em exactly as they are.)
High-school graduation. I insisted on wearing ripped tights and leather boots with my sundress, which is exactly what I’d do now, so props to past me. What floors me is the hair. I had a truly unfortunate combination of dyes going on in late high school/early college. You’ll see it in greater detail soon. Monochromatic is the way to go.
I still own this dress, and I like it a lot, but it doesn’t lend itself well to many situations. I’ll try to blog it at some point. (The black design on the skirt is flowers.)
Aaaaand here we go. Look at that. Somehow I thought alternating stripes of red and platinum,layered atop my natural brown, was a good look. This is from my first or second week of college, vamping on the couch in the dorm lobby while waiting to leave for some party. (My mom commented on the Facebook picture: “Did you lose your shirt in a card game?” At that point in my life, I owned a sparkly bra, and it was my pride and joy. [I still own it, but it barely fits. Yay for D cups, boo for having to give up sparkly things.])
I saw sense shortly after the above picture was taken, and about a month into my freshman year, my hair looked like this. I was really into half-pictures at the time, so there aren’t any better ones. If I weren’t so into monochrome right now, I actually wouldn’t hesitate to do this again. I liked the marbling.
Christmas break, senior year of high school. A girlfriend and I were having a dress-up day. This is notable because MY NATURAL HAIR. Even though I still think of myself as a brunette, to see actual evidence of it gives me cognitive dissonance. My hair was long and brown for ~17 years of my life. The length varied, but it was almost never above my shoulders (except for that brief unfortunate period in sixth grade. We don’t talk about that.).
What I find really funny about this picture is that I’m clearly wearing that outfit as a costume, even though that’s pretty much how I dress, completely unironically, now.
My senior picture. (I still own this shirt.) My quote was “the opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation“. You know that one girl in every high school (some schools have several) who’s a little too obsessed with Wicked and RENT? Yeah. I was that girl.
One of my Halloween costumes from senior year. I think I was supposed to be a Renaissance bard, but so many people had called me the Mad Hatter by the end of the day that I just gave up and adopted the title myself.
(I made that hideous mask on the left when I was about six. My mother insists on not only keeping it but displaying it.)
Summer before junior year of high school. I’m on my way to a medieval fair. I still own this dress; I blogged it once. This is noteworthy mostly because I’m still very good friends with both the people in this picture. The guy (Lisle) and I ended up matriculating at the same university, and I see him almost every day.
I have no idea what I’m doing with my hands in this picture.
My fifteenth birthday party. My kitchen was being renovated at the time. That dress again; I wore it exhaustively around ages 15 and 16. I’m still actively close with four of these people, and on decent terms with the rest. I had really fantastic friends in high school.
Almost 13, having successfully badgered my parents into taking me to Salem. I’ve previously mentioned my abiding love for all things supernatural. Salem was my wet dream when I was 13. Still is, frankly. I wouldn’t mind living there one day. (On my forehead is the admissions sticker from the museum.)
I have the beginnings of fashion sense here. Tank top and jeans isn’t the worst combination. That nautical-print sweatshirt tied around my waist was one of my favorite articles of clothing for a long time. My bag’s cute for a seventh-grader. But I still had a long way to go.
I said I wouldn’t edit anything? I lied. I don’t particularly feel like tracking down my high-school boyfriend and asking permission to post his photo on the internet. He was a senior when I was a junior, and I accompanied him to his senior prom. I did love that dress. It was my first major Old Gold purchase. It doesn’t really fit anymore, but I console myself with the knowledge that I have much better t&a now. I’d rather not have my skinny sixteen-year-old body forever anyway.
(In keeping with feminine tradition, I refused to let my boyfriend see my dress before prom. He called me two nights before: “At least tell me what color it is so I can get a corsage.” “It’s…a lot of colors.”)
End of junior year, actually only a week or two before prom. I’m slamming a poem. This was actually my first-ever Facebook profile picture. I still wear and love this dress, and I’m planning to blog it soon.
I remember this day very well. Early in the second semester of my senior year. I had bone surgery that winter, and this was the first day I could walk again. You can sort of make out the walking cast on my right calf. This is at the house of the friend with whom I’d had the aforementioned dress-up day.
I really, really like this picture. I don’t think I even knew it was being taken, and I was feeling achy and tired and so very sick of my misshapen bones. Something about the light, though, or my pose, or my face – it’s not unthinkable that I would become a model.
My Kingdom for a Hat 