Fierce Friday: The Fascinator and Climate Change Protesting

Let's talk about fascinators.

Princess Beatrice in her now-infamous royal wedding pretzel fascinator.

Ok, Princess Beatrice's ridiculous fascinator aside, I think fascinators are great! They're incredibly versatile and they add an interesting finishing touch to an outfit. Sadly, they appear to be a women-only thing. Except for me! And these guys:

They're not wearing their fascinators in a particularly inspiring way, however. Here are a couple of classy fascinator examples:

Side note: Apparently the "sexy fascinator picture" look involves being shirtless and looking over your left shoulder? Good to know.

While traditional fascinators are lovely, my tastes lean more towards the avant-garde. By which I mean, I like bizarre and outrageous fascinators. And at least a couple of celebrities agree with me:

I also found some really great non-celebrity fascinator inspiration:

Despite loving weird fascinators, I opted to go fairly basic with my own outfit. I had to go to school to take a test and I figured that just wearing a fascinator was edgy enough. I went with a blue fascinator that coordinated with my blue shirt, blue checkered vest, blue multi-strand necklace, and bluejeans.

Me with my head tilted so you can see the fascinator.

Normal selfie of me.

The other thing I did today was attend a climate change protest. I grabbed my old Ursula costume out of the closet and made a sign that said "It's getting hotter under the water" and off I went.

Me at the protest all dressed up as Ursula and holding my sign. That weird tint to my skin is purple makeup not sunburn!

Protest band.

Crowd shot of the sit-in.

Here's a link to a WCVB Article about the protest. And here's an aerial view of the bridge we blocked off:

Snagged from WHDH.com. The caption to the photo says "Climate change protesters block bridge in Boston."

Fierce Friday: Bringin' Back the Tiny Hat

Cartoon cowboy with tiny hat.

In a complete shift from last week's hat I present to you: the tiny hat. Whimsical and ridiculous, but oddly compelling when done right. When I think of tiny hats, I think of three things:

Thing 1: Goths

Goth woman in a tiny black tophat.

Thing 2: Wedding Outfits

Woman in a wedding dress and tiny white hat.

Thing 3: "Men on Film," the comedy sketch from In Living Color

Men on Film - and wearing a tiny hat. 

I find tiny hats hilarious and fun. But I've never worn one. Clearly this needs to change. After looking online at many examples of tiny hat wearing, I decided on this outfit:

Selfie of me in my tiny hat outfit.

It's a glittery purple tiny hat, pink and purple mardi gras beads, a white short sleeved crop top that says "Glitter Queen" and has silver sequins on the sleeves, and a tutu skirt that I really should have included in the picture but didn't. I'm not sure I pulled it off but at least I amused myself. 

That said, I'm fairly sure I look less ridiculous than Lady Gaga in her tiny Kermit hat:

Lady Gaga wearing an outfit made of Kermit dolls and a hat made out of a Kermit head.

Unrelatedly, did I mention that today was Love Bug's school picture day? He was dressed all nicely in a button down with no hat because he has gorgeous curly hair. Let's just hope they took the school pictures in the morning before he started playing so his outfit wasn't too messed up.

Anyway. This ends my post for the day. Silly? Yes. But maybe I've inspired someone else out there to bust out of their own tiny hat closet. I will leave you with this image of an adorable dog in a tiny hat:

Adorable large dog in a tiny plaid tophat.

Fierce Friday: Gigantic Hats, Church Ladies, and The Royal Ascot

Fashion designer Isabell Kristensen in the most ginormous flower-shaped hat ever.

Let's talk for a minute about gigantic hats. I absolutely ADORE them. When you think of giant hats, what do you think of? I tend to think of two things: church ladies (especially black church ladies) and the women at the British Royal Ascot (aka the most bizarrely glamorous event in horse racing).

My family dressed nicely for church every week but we REALLY got decked out on Easter, Christmas, Mother's day, Father's day, and the like. That's when the church hats (and gloves, and frilly dresses, and suits and ties) came out. This is the moment when I'd dig up awkward family photos to share, but the internet doesn't need to see that level of embarrassment.

On the subject of black women in church lady hats: I just read an interesting article by Nicole Kidder called The Fascinating History Behind Black Women's Church Hat Cultural Tradition. It's worth a read if you want to learn a bit about how black church ladies got their "hattitude."

Another thing that's worth seeing the gospel musical Crowns, written by Regina Taylor. It's based on the book Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry. Both the book and the musical are wonderful.

A black woman in a red and white outfit with an amazing gigantic red and white church hat.

The Royal Ascot is also a sight of wondrous hats. For whatever reason, British royalty seem very fond of hats. The Royal Ascot has a dress code that dictates wearing a hat for both women and men who want to visit the royal enclosure, so pictures of the event are the perfect place to see some amazing (and occasionally ridiculous) hats.

Ok, enough about everyone else's hats. Here's my gigantic hat outfit:

Me in my giant hat.

I'm wearing a giant black and white striped floppy hat, a yellow shirt, a steampunk bee necklace, black pants, and black shoes. You can't see the pants and the shoes in this selfie, though.

You might have guessed from the lockers in the back of my selfie that today was my first day back at school. The break seemed too short to me, but the sooner I'm back the sooner I can graduate! I had class in the morning and after class I went to visit Love Bug.

My Clothes Don't Fit

Well, I'm supposed to hang out with a friend tonight and I'm running into one big problem - I have nothing to wear! But I've committed to going out so I WILL figure something out. Stay tuned...

Photograph of Kermit the Frog looking out a house window to the outside.
The text says "Sorry I can't come all my clothes look stupid on me. Staying in tonight, sorry."

Update:

Ok. Here's what I've got. Comfy sweater, white nail polish, and blue lipstick because that's about all the effort I can manage at the moment.

Me in a white and blue sweater with blue lipstick and white nail polish.

Fierce Friday and The End of Skirt Week

Today was the last day of Skirt Week. Thank goodness, since I've run out of skirts!

Daria and Jane.

I decided to use the end of skirt week as an excuse to debut a thrift store find I'm really excited about. It's a long stretchy black and white striped skirt (thin stripes) with black lace bands in several places. I absolutely love it! I decided to goth it up a bit with black nail polish, black t-shirt, black and white striped tie, screw earrings, and my black combat boots. I felt like a stompy booted fem made of awesome and I think that Jane Lane and Daria would be friends with me if they met me in this getup.

Whole body picture.

Torso picture.

Skirt and boots!

I haven't chosen fake names for these friends. I went to their house and hung out. Then we went out to Indian food, played scrabble, and went looking for pokémon.

International Skirt Day and Eddie Izzard

Today is International Skirt Day! I've decided to do an entire skirt week starting today. And to make things more exciting, today's Fierce Friday is dedicated to Eddie Izzard because he's amazing and he's my skirt-wearing role model. 

Let me illustrate why with my favorite Eddie Izzard quote ever. Someone asked Eddie Izzard why he wore women's clothes. His reply? "They're not women's clothes. They're my clothes. I bought them." Right on!

My other favorite Eddie Izzard quote, for the record, is this one:

"I'm an action transvestite really, so it's running, jumping, climbing trees,
putting on make-up when you're up there!" - Eddie Izzard

Anyway, today I've decided to take a page straight out of Eddie Izzard's book. Brace yourselves, because today I'm dressing like an executive transvestite. 

What is an executive transvestite? According to the internet, an executive transvestite is a man who enjoys dressing in woman's clothing when the mood strikes but who dresses more conservatively than other transvestites. In my mind, this is something akin to "transvestite in a woman's business suit."

For my executive transvestite look I'm wearing a maroon shirt, maroon combat boots, and maroon nail polish with a black skirt, black and silver pinstriped hat, black scarf with silver sparkles, fake diamond earrings, and sparkly silver flower bracelet. I think the look worked ok.

Me as an executive transvestite.

Body shot.

Whole body shot.

Today after work I went candlepin bowling with Fancy and some friends. I like bowling so I had fun even though I'm a terrible bowler. And because I feel like it, here's a picture showing you what my new neighborhood looks like this evening:

This is my new neighborhood. Pretty, right?

Sick Fierce Friday

Well, I thought I was over my cold but it turns out I wasn't. Womp womp. So I present to you my sick Fierce Friday look. Me, unshaven, wearing my pajamas and a blue mermaid blanket.

Me making a sad face.

My legs wrapped in my mermaid blanket with Rosie the dog visible in the picture.