What I wore: A madeover midi skirt

You know when you look in the mirror and think, "Yep, looking good," and then see a photograph and cringe? Yeah, I have that with this outfit. The photo shoot involved a good amount of swearing and tears (mostly on on Thomas's part) and, after about 100 shots, I'm still not happy with how any of them look. But I wanted to use them regardless because I was outside! Wearing summer clothes! This is very very exciting to someone who has been pining for the sun since about January 3rd.

This outfit features my bargain midi skirt (£3 from a charity shop), which is evidence of my long-held belief that you need to ignore size labels, especially when vintage or thrift shopping. The skirt is a Primark size 12, a store in which I usually need a 16 or 18, but I'm pretty well able to size things up by looking at them and I guessed it would just fit. A couple of snips to the elastic waistband when I got home, a quick cut and hem to shorten it, and I have a very cheap and well-fitting midi skirt.

This is also the first glance at my extended tattoo: I had more flowers added so that the whole piece now stretches from my elbow to my shoulder. So pretty!

And because I'm such a brilliant fashion blogger, I only realised when I saw the shots just how badly the sleeve of my t-shirt is stained with suncream from covering up my tattoo last summer. Oops. Off I trot to Zara to stock up on some more...

* Striped tee: Zara * Midi skirt (originally a maxi skirt): Primark via charity shop * 

* Sandals: Dune (old) * Tote bag: Ella Masters Studio * Belt: Peacocks (old) *
* Name necklace: Gift * Turquoise ring: Gift *

Thomas has just told me a really terrible joke, hence my look of pain here.

Good stuff: Links & likes

First of all, I just want to say thanks to everyone who commented or got in touch about Friday's post. I'm honestly fine, but I think we all have days when the crap stuff gets to us and that was one of those days! I was really interested to hear how many of you agree with me about honesty in blogging - people who are open about life not being all unicorns and flowers are generally so much more interesting to me, and it seems to you guys too. Anyway, I was really humbled by how many of you took time to reach out, so thank you.

The Poke's guide to washing machine symbols (above) had me snorting with laughter. "Too many tennis balls" might become my new catch-all phrase for a fuck-up.

Annika is writing some brilliant stuff recently: this, on body policing, is so great - I wish I'd had her confidence in my early twenties - and her open letter to cat-calling men is equally fantastic.

My friend Alice has been writing a series of raw, honest and powerful posts about being in recovery from an eating disorder.

Tattooed senior citizens prove that your ink will still look awesome when you're old. As I've just had the large piece on my arm extended - and wobbled slightly about whether I was making a mistake, while actually in the chair - this made me pretty happy.

I loved Sophie's nine ideas to brighten someone's day.

Yes, yes, yes to this brilliant piece: I'm queer no matter who I'm dating.

Alex is so right, we wouldn't talk to our worst enemy the way we talk to ourselves: Being less of a bitch to myself. 

The magazines I've been reading lately

It's not always easy to find decent print media if you're after more than the diet tips, high end fashion, and articles about botox that seem to proliferate in mainstream women's mags. I do quite like Oh Comely and Frankie but they can be a tad hipster at times, and I've always found their focus on young, skinny white women in their fashion spreads disappointing.

There are, however, alternatives out there if you look hard enough...

When B, E & I visited Laura in Nottingham last month, we popped into Ideas On Paper, which specialises in esoteric mags and journals from around the world. I picked up a copy of Things & Ink, which I hadn't heard of before. A quarterly magazine aimed specifically at women and covering tattoo culture, I loved the interiors shoot (I'm always up for a nosy at other people's houses) and the stunning images of - what else? - tattoos. An article on the current trend for Disney tattoos was thought-provoking and explicitly addressed it from a feminist perspective. At £6.95, Things & Ink isn't cheap, and obviously has a fairly niche audience, but I'll certainly pick up another issue should I see it in future.

I quite understand why someone who doesn't identify as lesbian, bi or queer might not think to pick up a copy of Diva, but I honestly think they're missing out. Diva provides the only truly radical, left wing, feminist voice in mainstream women's publishing. Recent issues have included articles on the Health At Every Size movement, the history of squatting, why more women are freezing their eggs, and a brilliant piece on privilege. If you're interested in critical feminist perspectives or queer politics, it's a must-read.

Bitch began as a Riot Grrrl fanzine back in 1996 and has grown over the years to encompass an entire non-profit organisation running out of Portland, Oregon. The content skews slightly towards more academic writing - it's accessible, yes, but it'll make you think. I especially loved a recent piece on how food trends are a form of gentrification, often taking foodstuffs that poorer minorities have as a staple, making them trendy and thus pushing prices beyond the means of the original buyers. Their book, music and film reviews are always a great starting point when I'm seeking out new media and their frequent subscriber offers make it affordable to have the quarterly issues sent directly to you.

Bust is of a similar generation to Bitch (it started in New York in 1993) and explicitly apes the look and content of a mainstream women's magazine, but from a feminist perspective. When a friend visited us recently, he flicked through it for a while before exclaiming, "Hey! This is a feminist mag not a trashy one!", which is both the strength and weakness of Bust. If, like me, you love traditional print media and want a decent alternative to Glamour or Cosmo, then Bust is great. However, it can sometimes feel just a tad too glossy - being a subscriber to Bitch at the same time offers me the balance of more in-depth analysis along with the pretty photoshoots, travel articles and celeb interviews. Bust is also particularly strong on craft, cooking and fashion (all with an alternative perspective, such as their regular food contributor being vegan chef Isa Chandra Moskowitz).

Good stuff

I have to apologise for my recent tattoo obsession, but I just loved this post: How tattooing my fat body helped me fall in love with it (link is also the image source).  It's so much what I was trying, and probably failing, to articulate in last week's post about my new tattoo.

Practical steps men can take to support feminism.  So good and so important, I'm pressing it onto every man I know.

A guide to the best times to post on social media. 

This rediscovered, previously unpublished Kathleen Hanna interview is awesome

A lovely story about a letter from Tolkein (and I have to agree with him that, "All teaching is exhausting and depressing".  At least, by this time in the academic year it is!)

Good to see genuinely radical and practical activism going on in London.

A brilliant piece about how using analogies to make a political point is damaging (sorta links to the discussion I was having on here about how PETA exploit women's bodies to promote veganism).

21 inspirational body positive tattoos.

An excellent analysis of the remarkable Rebekah Brooks verdict earlier this week.

How a tattoo taught me to love my arms

Disclaimer: I am very much writing about my personal experience here and would never claim that my own experiences with tattooing are representative of a wider community.

There have been some very interesting pieces in the Guardian recently about women and tattoos, culminating in Bidisha, in an article last week, likening her tattoos to "socially legitimised self-harm." Some of what she wrote was kind of eye roll (her apparent surprise that the sleeve she got in her 20s was permanent was disingenuous to say the least) but I certainly related to the idea of tattoos as self-harm.  I had four tattoos in my late teens and early twenties and there was - for me - undeniably a link between my self-harm and my tattooing at that point in my life; the endorphin rush of getting a tattoo being virtually identical to the endorphin rush of cutting myself.

The tattoos I have from this time in my life speak of a need to make my mark on myself and on the world. And although I once imbued them with meaning - attempts to demonstrate my independence or to memorialise loss - now they're just marks on my body.  They are neither beautiful works of art nor pieces that enhance my body but, with the exception of the ugly tribal-style armband that snaked around my upper arm (the dark shadow of which you can see under my new one), I'm fine with their existence and generally forget that they're even there.

It was only as I entered my less turbulent 30's that the idea of returning to tattoos occurred to me, and it was really when I visited Portland, Oregon in 2011, and saw the vast range of beautiful body art on show there, that I was able to start thinking about tattoos not as self-harm but as self-adornment.

I spent a couple of years pinning* images I liked and started to narrow down my ideas to something colourful and floral on my right arm.  For years, I have hated my arms and I wanted desperately to improve my body image in relation to them.  Flabby and lacking tone no matter what I do in the gym; covered in keratosis pilaris (small red dots and bumps); scarred in many ways, not least with the terrible tattoo I'd inadvisedly chosen when I was 19, I've spent my entire adult life hiding them and, even in the hottest summers, wearing only clothes that would cover them.  What better way to make my hated arms something I cherished than by following the principle of self-adornment?

The final result is actually not entirely final - there's still some touching up to do around the shoulder - but I bloody love it.  My relationship with that area of my body, so long hated, has changed almost overnight.  Whereas before I used to spend hot days sweating in a cardigan, now I can't wait to bare my arms.  It seems almost facile to say, but by putting something beautiful on my body I've started to believe that that part of my body is beautiful.

I've enjoyed people's reactions to it, too.  Whilst the vast majority of people love my tattoo as much as I do, any negative comment is related to either the fact of my being almost 36, or my being female, or both.  Whilst there is nothing unusual or revolutionary about tattoos nowadays, something about the combination of my age and my gender has led to some interesting responses, from "Aren't you a bit old for that kind of thing?" and "I'd have hoped you'd grown out of this by now," to, "I like tattoos but they're not very feminine, are they?"

And so, in answer to those questions:
I actually think that, if anything, I'm only now finally old enough for them.
Sorry mum, but although my hard partying days are long behind me, I haven't yet grown out of "that kind of thing".
Fuck feminine.

*Actually, this is a lie.  I've never got to grips with Pinterest, but saying "saving to my favourites folder" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

What I wore: The 'To keep or not to keep?' edition

This dress was a bargain £12 from Dorothy Perkins (seriously, does anyone ever pay full price for their stuff? I constantly have a voucher code or an offer in my inbox) but I'm undecided about it, so who do I turn to? Why, you!

On the plus side, I like the gingham check, which is different to anything else I own but looks ace styled with a headscarf. I also like that, thanks to my new tattoo, I might just be brave enough to take my cardigan off.

On the minus? You can see my bra, which I'm worried looks tacky (but with boobs my size, there's no avoiding the massive over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders), and when I do take my cardi off, my back fat is a wonder to behold, forming a whole new cleavage behind my existing one.  Also, I'm not sure if the whole effect is a little sack-like.

So, dear readers, opinions? Apparently I'm now unable to make a decision without crowdsourcing it.

* Dress: Dorothy Perkins Petite * Cardigan: H&M * Belt: Peacocks *
* Sandals: Marks & Spencer * Headscarf: Vintage * Bra: Bravissimo *

What I wore: Headscarf edition

I can already see that the new tattoo is taking me in a slightly different fashion direction: more plain tops or dresses and fewer patterns, because when you have a flower garden on your arm you don't need one on your dress too.  But I still have a fondness for florals, so when I found this scarf for £3 in a local vintage store, I immediately pounced.  Styled with skinny jeans and sunglasses, I felt like such a badass hard femme. 

Headscarf: Dolly Mix Vintage in Leicester * Sunglasses: New Look * T-shirt: H&M

Jeans: New Look * Ballet pumps: Dorothy Perkins



Good stuff

With the weather this month so nice, and not much interesting on at the cinemas, it looks like for the second months running I won't manage a proper Seen... post.  So I'll use this forum to tell you that you absolutely must try to see We Are The Best.  Set in Stockholm in 1982, this story of 13 year-old wannabe punks Bobo, Karla and Hedvig is just wonderful.  Incredibly funny and heart-warming, I don't think I've ever seen anything that quite so perfectly captures girls friendships and what it's like to be in a gang of outsiders.  I just loved it, to the extent that I almost cried when it was over... purely because it had finished.  After a quick Twitter poll, I think I've also established that every girl spends their life wanting to be a Karla, but feels like a Bobo.

I'm a huge fan of Sarra Manning's YA fiction, so I loved this from her blog (is it bad that - at the age of almost 36 - pretty much every one applies to me, especially numbers 11 & 13?), and also her recent article in defence of teenage girls.

Have you seen the Feminist Frank meme yet? So funny.

Although I tend to eye-roll at anything that begins, "Why women do x" (the answer generally being, for the exact same bloody reason men do x), I really liked this article, by novelist Jenn Ashworth, about women and tattoos.  I particularly loved this:
"When a woman makes her own mark on it, she isn't quite as available to receive whatever fantasies you might want to project on to her. If skin is a screen, and a woman writes on it, she is telling the world (or even just herself) that her own standards of attractiveness are more important to her than the standards of anyone else who might cross her path. She is taking ownership."

This, from The Guardian, about how the pro-choice movement has to accept the mundane reality of many women's abortions.

Finally, this from Ladybird Likes is a must for all Instagram fans: a guide to the best places online to print your photos.

What I Wore: In which I stand awkwardly in front of a wall

I hate having my photograph taken.  I know that doesn't exactly make me unique, but the lengths I will go to to avoid either being caught on camera or (perhaps worse than having it taken in the first place) seeing a photograph of myself are legendary amongst my friends and family.

 

So it's perhaps a little counter-intuitive that one of the things that got me interested in blogging in the first place was the idea of being able to post outfit shots.  As I've said before, reading fatshion blogs and seeing a range of bodies represented was one of the most important things in my journey to body acceptance, and I feel it's important that women of all sizes are represented in all areas of the media, including blogs.  But I've been writing here for three years now and this is the first outfit post I've ever written.

 

So what changed?  Having The Boy on hand to take photographs is the biggest thing; I'm kind of a perfectionist so blurry mirror selfies just weren't going to do it for me (although as you can see from the bottom photo, he still needs some practice in framing a shot without capturing the drainpipe and wilting pot plants!).  It turned out to actually be kind of fun to mess about in front of the camera, even if I need to sharpen up my posing skills a bit.

 

Also, I just really love this outfit.  It breaks so many style 'rules' - chubby girl in stripes, short girl in a midi skirt - but I felt amazing in it.  The skirt, just £3 in a charity shop, is a little too long for my liking, but it fit so well that I couldn't resist it.  And, as the t-shirt was a January sale find that set me back a mere £5, this is possibly the cheapest outfit I own.

As you can see, this post gives the first peek of my new tattoo.  More to come once it's properly healed!

 

T-shirt: Zara * Skirt: Thrifted *

Belt: Peacocks * Sandals: Dune * Satchel: H&M * Sunglasses: New Look