Style Evolution

Hey guys! You're in for a special treat today... ugly old pictures of me. Ha.

I saw this cool feature on someone's blog. Here's a retrospective of my changing fashion sense as I grew up! Don't judge me.

 Kingergarden Rachel: I gotta say, my Mom is really the one who was dressing me at this time. I was born in 92, and I guess I was a product of the time. Lots of clashing prints and overalls and kitchy dresses. Sounds familiar, right? Check out that last picture. A windbreaker+printed leggings+hiking boots?

 Elementary School Rachel: Honestly, I dressed boring as hell in elementary school. I was dressing myself and it appears I was playing it safe. I remember wearing that purple shirt a LOT though.

 Middle School Rachel: Ok this is where it gets really embarrassing. Middle school is always the frumpy era, right? I seem to remember there being some pretty skinny girls in the 7th grade, but obvi I was not one of them! I wore the baggiest most unflattering stuff. Peasant skirts and hoodies all the way! Also Emma I am sorry this picture of you is now on the internet.

 Highschool Rachel: I wore a lot of blue jeans that I wrote on and converses. Mixing prints was my thing, and I layered everything up all the time. I used to get lots of compliments on my style in highschool, which I now think is weird.

College Rachel: Well, you know this stuff! I really held on to the whole mixing kitchy prints thing, but I like to think I look way classier now.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Profesh

 AGH why do my photos by the railroad tracks always turn out like poop?

I'll tell ya why. It's because I get hella sweaty trekking out there. And also because I'm not a good photographer haha.

I borrowed this dress from Erica, and I wore it for a Marketing presentation on a fake product called "Ab Wax Surf Wax." It's short for "Abstinence Wax" because one of our main competitors was "Sex Wax" which is real and I am not making it up. Here's the logo I designed for it LOL.

 Anyway, this dress is awesome, and the most awesome part of it is the full, twirly skirt! I would've loved to wear this out dancing, yknow, if I ever went out dancing.

 dress: Erica's

shoes, necklace: Modcloth

socks: Walmart

blazer: Goodwill (coolest find, amirite?)

bag: Fred Flare

Peace Out, Girl Scouts.

Over Whats

 Well well well it looks like I'm wearing overalls again! But they're shorts. does that make them overhalfs?

 My incredible cleverness aside, I really do love them (even if they give me a kangaroo pouch). I turned them into cut-offs this weekend and attempted to distress the ends with a cheese grater. I wasn't too successful, and I just ended up cheese grating my thumb. Yeah.
I wore this outfit to Walmart and the checkout lady was like "Oh what are you all dressed up for?" This is the second time I've gotten a comment on me being dressed up in freaking overalls! I don't know what's up with South Carolina.

 Check out all that green! Spring has sprung in the South for sure. We had about a week of my favorite weather (that's 65 and partly cloudy) before summer weather hit, but this day was nice and cool. The sweater was actually for warmth as opposed to decoration.

HAAY

dress (worn under the overalls): shopruche

overalls, sandals, sweater, hat: Goodwill

necklace: f21

bracelet: Modcloth

To finish this off, I want to thank you guys for all your words of encouragement on my last post. I really appreciate it. I feel so lucky to be part of such a nice community here.

P.S. I just found out that "thank you" is two words. I have been writing "thankyou" my whole damn life and I am praying I'm not the only person who didn't know this.

Freedom

 I love driving. Some of my favorite moments have been in the front seat with the windows down and the music blaring. I was driving home this weekend in the gorgeous it's-basically-summer weather and just loving how green the grass looked. "I want to pull over and feel that grass on my toes," I thought. So I did!
You shoulda seen me, running through some random field in front of my tripod with no shoes on. I felt completely free.

 On the topic of freedom and running around happy in the grass, I thought I'd share some personal stuff with you guys. I've been dealing with anxiety disorder for about 2 years now. (GASP) No really, I've seen like 5 fashion bloggers come clean about this recently, and well, now I am too. Anxiety (along with depression) is one of the most commonly diagnosed disorders. I've heard it called the "common cold" of the brain.

My anxiety began fall semester of sophomore year (that's 2011) when I had to prepare for SPR. That's a big portfolio review design majors have to go through at my school, and basically everyone and their brother was stressed about it. I got to where I would obsess over the possibility of failure constantly, and I was miserable. The real problem, though, was that my anxiety lasted long after I passed the test. I spent a lot of my time nervous for seemingly no reason, afraid to socialize with people, angry at everyone (including myself), and had a variety of other icky symptoms like diarrhea, panic attacks, sleep paralysis, and some bouts with depression.

Over the course of the past year, I've seen a couple therapists, who helped me keep my anxiety under control and taught me some techniques to talk myself down. And I've really been doing so, so much better! I still get the occasional panicky moments, but I handle them a lot better now, and I'm much more positive of a person.

 I wanted to share this all with you because I'm really proud of my progress. Everyone has issues that they don't like to talk about because they want to be perfect (I know I do), and anxiety is just something I'm going to have to deal with. Days like today are more and more frequent for me, and I'm so excited for myself and my future!

I also read an article recently about how instagram and facebook showcase people's best moments, making it seem like they all have perfect lives, when that's just not true. I like to show off my cute clothes and my art and my fun times with friends, but I omit the darker parts of my life. Everyone has them, and they're nothing to be ashamed of, right? Right.

I made my dress, the sunglasses are from penny's, the spike necklace and shoes are from modcloth, and the unicorn necklace (that is twisted up in all the pictures) is from forever 21.

Creamsicle Shoes

 How cute are these shoes? Yeswalker has been giving shoes out to bloggers as ads, guess what it worked. Because I went and bought some.

 These pictures turned out pretty orange, but that's appropriate, right? I mean half my outfit is orange.

 dress: fiore boutique

shirt: my own design!

shoes: yeswalker

socks: old navy

necklace: modcloth

I'm going to focus on my etsy shop this summer. Is there anything in particular you guys would like to see from me? I've been thinking of adding brooches and some hand printed clothes.

Stuff from Lately

 

I'm also thinking of getting a tattoo! What do you guys think?