Love, Lydia - Notes from a geeky, plus sized artist.: ethical fashion
Showing posts with label ethical fashion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethical fashion. Show all posts

Friday, November 20, 2015

Cooler Coverings - Fall Fashions

Hello Friends!

This week has continued to be yet another crazy one.  I've been to doctor's visits and getting things done with Bryan while he's around.  And hopefully I'll be able to schedule a follow up for some of the tests next week too.  In any case I've been having trouble with my keyboard that's led me to several house of troubleshooting and very complicated systems of trying to work around it as I've written posts and anything else typed online.  I finally found that a separate keyboard fixes the problem, even though it's super awkward since I don't own a Mac keyboard.  My computer is apparently warped enough that the keyboard is having severe problems, and the trackpad is starting to as well.  At this point my laptop is over 6 years old, so it's done well to get this far, but another fix is probably too costly since it's almost to the point of being outdated technology.  (I had to stop updating my OS a couple years ago since if I moved to the next version I wouldn't be able to use Photoshop.  Of course now it's harder to do all the beautiful things I'd like to do with the tools I can find for Photoshop because they're all meant to use with newer editions, and I'm still running Creative Suite 3.)  But on to more fun subjects.

Poshmark

On another note I am loving selling on Poshmark!  I started selling most of my clothes that didn't make the cut for my capsules there.  I haven't even finished listing everything yet and have already had 7 sales totaling around $90.  If you haven't tried it yet go for it, and have a $10 off coupon on me by using my code to sign up - PYIHF at www.Poshmark.com and then just download the app.  You can buy on the site using any device, but selling and the $10 for signing up is only available by downloading the app.

Fall Fashions

Transitioning to Cooler Coverings

Fall is here in full force and North Carolina is finally nice and cool most days.  I woke up this past Sunday morning to frost covered grass and chickadees pecking at our backyard feeder.  I'm finally having to break out my jacket a couple times a week and we tested out our new home's heater too.  In terms of fashions I'm experimenting more to make the summery portions of my fall capsule wardrobe keep me warmer.  Here are some examples:


With this outfit I decided it was time to start pairing some of my fun tees with skirts.  this outfit is comprised of my Switchfoot shirt, bag from Target, skirt from Torrid, leggings from Target, and boots from Hushpuppies/Trendsetter.

 

For Halloween I wore this Doctor Who, 9th doctor inspired outfit.  Dress from Her Universe, bag from Amazon◊, leggings from ModCloth◊, boots from Hushpuppies/Trendsetter.


I'm really excited to get to reading our picks from Fight or Flight's Halloween sale.  And Miles Morales Spiderman is a new one for me, which so far I'm enjoying a lot!


I know I don't show my makeup looks often, because I don't wear as much.  But I have fun playing around with it and a couple weeks ago I donned a bit to go on a double date night with Bryan's parents.  I used Boe eyeshadow in Fun House, Face Stolkholm's Jeanann eyeliner, Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes mascara, and Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick in Venizia.


This date night outfit is the Paige dress from Cherry Velvet, leggings from Target, and boots from Hushpuppies/Trendsetter.


Another thing I've been experimenting with is styling my dresses.  In this shot I paired my LuLaRoe "Nicole" dress (I'm hosting a LuLaRoe online party for the next 24 hours if any of you readers want to catch a sale with me! You can find it on Facebook here.) with my sweater from Target, plus leggings from Target, and flats from Payless/American Eagle.


I also threw in some Julep nail polish by using the color "Darby" with this outfit, well technically I'd been wearing it for 6 days before this picture was taken.  It just lasts so well!  As always you can try a free box from my affiliates at Julep by checking them out here:

Jingle Bells Welcome Box


I've been breaking out my jacket from Maurice's, and wore it with a top from Old Navy, skinny jeans from Torrid, and flats from Torrid.


And finally my last outfit I'll be sharing from my fall capsule includes the jacket from Maurice's, top from Target, zip ankle jeans from Torrid, and flats from Torrid.

This fall capsule has gone well, better than I thought it would when I was panicking that first week about how to style things.  Now I'm thinking ahead to winter and the next capsule.  However I'm going to be doing a mini capsule for December as I adjust when my seasons change.  I've found that grouping the months of October-December would have been a better choice with less need for both summer and winter items.  So next year my capsules will run from January-March, April-June, July-September, and October-December.  I'll tall you more about what I'm planning for December in my next fashion post around December 4th.  I'll be taking a break from writing next Friday for the holiday and so I can focus on filling orders from my Etsy art shop at http://LydiasDesigns.etsy.com where you can find art like that in this picture below:


I'll see you all Monday!

Love,
Lydia

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Store Directories and Giveaway Winner

Hello folks,

Giveaway Winner

Thanks so much for participating in my Julep giveaway!  Rachel M. is our winner, and her prize will be sent out in the next 48 hours.  I'm sure there will be another giveaway in future, sign up for updates via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Bloglovin (links to all on the right toolbar) to hear about them first!


And if you're still interested in trying out Julep's nail and makeup products you can get a free introductory box.

Metallics Welcome Box Offer

Store Directory

I know I've had a list of places you can find ethical plus sized clothing, and I've loved putting it together.  And for a while I've been working on compiling a new list of places I currently shop, for both clothes and other items, so if you're looking for new places to try you'll have a list at your fingertips.  Hopefully it'll also be a place you can come if you'd like to work on holiday shopping or finding your style.  If you want geeky shirts in plus sizes it's also got a good variety, as does my next list.

I'll also have a list of places I'd like to try with an area where you can suggest places you think I'd like.  There are several great shops with geeky designs that have plus sized options available that I'm itching to try.

Between these lists you'll be able to find all my different affiliates, so if you want to support my blog as you shop you'll find it as easy as possible.  I'll be updating all the lists regularly, so if you've visited before you may find new treasures the next time you look.  You'll find the lists in the top bar as well as in this post:

Ethical Plus Size Fashion 

Places I Shop

Stores I Want To Try

I'm sorry I don't have more of a real post today, but I've had an awful cold and can't concentrate nearly as well as usual.  This was much was a struggle honestly, but I can't wait to see you all Wednesday!

Love,
Lydia


Friday, October 16, 2015

Thred Up VS Poshmark + A Julep Giveaway!

Hi friends!

Today I'm finally getting to my comparison review of Poshmark and Thred Up.  Both are excellent sites to sell your new and gently used clothing, shoes, and on Poshmark accessories and makeup too.  So, let's take a look!


Thred Up

Buying from Thred up

Pros: 

  1. Good sized inventory for most sizes
  2. Quick turnover, especially in plus sizes
  3. Pretty fast delivery since your order comes straight from their warehouse
  4. Items have little or no signs of use (supposedly, for what it's worth I bought a dress that had a rip in it which got past their inspectors)
  5. Free returns within 2 weeks of receiving your order
  6. You can get $20 in credit (no strings attached! You receive it in your account as soon as your friend makes their first order of any amount.) for each person you refer, and they get $20 too.  Here is my link - http://www.thredup.com/r/A6CEKT

Cons:

  1. Very little plus size selection over a size 18, there are typically 200 or less items in my size (20-24)
  2. Some fantastic brands are not accepted by their site - City Chic, Aeropostale, American Apparel, many department store brands from stores like Belk, JC Penney, Kohls, etc, and other less known or foreign brands.
  3. People can hoard items by putting items in their cart for 24 hours, and repeating before time is up (I've found leaving a browser window with the first page of your size open and hitting reload every 10-15 minutes in the evening will show new items often)
  4. Items may be missing belts or other accessories, always noted.
  5. It can take 3 weeks or more to process a return
  6. They're desperate enough for plus sizes they tend to have a good number of items that aren't on trend from brands targeted to more mature women simply because they're nice quality. (example below, hello dated seasonal applique!)
  7. The site has sales on items only when they've been in their stock longer than they'd like, which I have never seen happen with any plus size items because the demand is so great.

My buying experience:

I bought 4 items between the credit I had from a friend, the $5 payout and spend $11 out of pocket for the remaining amount.  Of the 4 items two were too big, one was surprisingly too small, and one item fit beautifully, but had a rip at the waist.  I loved the ripped item enough to keep and repair, though I was surprised that it got past their inspections.  The other items were pristine though!  I think in most cases you will not run into this issue, so I will be buying from them again.

This is what I ordered, the green dress was the item kept, the boots were too small in the calf, but gave no measurement so I was ordering blind and assuming Lane Bryant would have reasonably wide calf boots.  The tiny flaws listed on two of the items were marks that would come out in the wash or very light signs of wear.


Selling on Thred Up

Pros:


  1. They do the work for you - you get a postage paid bag sent to you, which you fill and send back.
  2. It takes very little time.
  3. You can get cash (through Paypal) or credit for your items.
  4. You can clean out your closet in the least intimidating way possible.

Cons:

  1. They typically accept under half of most bags sent to them.
  2. You have to be very critical of what items you send in regards to condition.
  3. The don't accept certain brands and are overstocked on others, check their site for details.
  4. You get 1/4 of whatever they think any item is worth, which may not be very much.

My selling experience:

I sent a bag with a total of 17 accepted items (out of about 28, so a good ratio for those selling plus size).  I got a total if $18.06 for those items, and paid $12.99 to have the remaining items shipped back to me.  I'm glad I did because I didn't realize until after mailing things to them that they wouldn't accept items from City Chic (an Australian brand I love which is sold in Nordstrom and a growing number of their own US stores, which are so far all in California.)  So I made a whopping $5 in profit.  I was not impressed, and quickly knew I wouldn't be selling with them again.  However, depending on the stores you prefer you may do much better than I did.  I don't think their service is bad, just not right for me.  I'd rather put in the work and see greater profits because of it.


Which brings me to Poshmark

Buying from Poshmark

Pros:

  1. You usually see the exact condition of the item you're getting
  2. You can ask the seller questions
  3. The site will have sales that give you free shipping or other discounts pretty regularly.
  4. You can make a lower offer on an item you like.
  5. Shipping is usually pretty fast because sellers want to please their buyers.
  6. There is a huge amount of plus sized items!
  7. There is more variety in brands, and items since they also allow you to sell jewelry and makeup.
  8. You can earn $5 when a friend uses your code on their first purchase.  It also gets them $5 off their purchase, win-win!  You can use my code PYIHF for $5 off at http://www.Poshmark.com

Cons:

  1. There is a chance you could get an item that doesn't match up with the pictures or condition it was reported to be in, but you can dispute that and get a refund.
  2. There are more well used items to sift through.
  3. Photos of items may be less than ideal.
  4. There are people who make careers selling here, which you may or may not want to deal with.
  5. You can't return items, though you can certainly resell them.

My buying experience: 

I haven't bought from Poshmark yet, but having made a sale I can see pretty well how it works from a buyer's standpoint.  You'll be a little nervous the first time or two, but mostly have great luck with honest people like you who want to sell their clothing for fair prices.  I have my eye on several pairs of purple converse sneakers and there's much less rush to purchase items.  You have a much better chance to compare items without the pressure to buy while it's available as Thred Up would be.  Here's a shot of their search interface for desktop, it just keeps scrolling and has hundreds of items for what I searched:


Selling on Poshmark

Pros:


  1. It's easy for anyone who's tried eBay or Etsy.
  2. You mostly fill in blanks and pick the category your item is in.
  3. You print a prepaid shipping label and drop your item in the mail if your item sells.
  4. You can get cash or credit from Poshmark.
  5. You can bundle items (and add a slight discount on bundles), which make buyers more likely to purchase from you.
  6. You get a better cut of your sales.
  7. You can always go back and edit your item listings, and even lower an item's price, which will send an email to anyone who saved it if you changed the price by 15% or more.

Cons:

  1. You have to follow site rules, not too tough.
  2. You get better results if you use your own photos, so you have to be able to take reasonably good photos.  
  3. You have to post all sales through their app, not on a desktop site.
  4. You have to make your item as accurate as possible and be very honest about any flaws it may have, which can take work to sounds good.
  5. You have to remember buyers are also paying $5 for shipping.

My selling experience:

I listed my first items on October 4th and added a couple more a few days later.  One of the items listed later (October 12th!), sold on October 14th.  And I've found the process very easy to handle.  I listed the item at $15 (originally $25, it was still in new condition), a person made me an offer for $12, which I accepted, and I earned $9 off the sale. You only need 1-3 sentences about your item, a good description and a couple photos.  Pictures of the item on you or another person who's not a model tend to do well, but my first item only had a shot of it on a hanger as the main picture and a picture of the model wearing it as a secondary photo.  I love the site, and I think the only thing I don't like is that I can't list on my computer.

Thred Up

Use this Thred Up link for $20 off!     

Poshmark

My Poshmark Closet (use code PYIHF for $5 off)


If you've got more tips are trick for either site let me know in the comments.  Thanks so much for reading and please look below for my first ever giveaway!

Love,
Lydia

Julep Giveaway!


One lucky reader will get a set of 4 Julep nail colors and a set of holographic decals.  Julep makes amazing nail polish which last up to a week without chipping, and they even have a subscription box!  You can sign up here via my affiliate link and read more about my last unboxing here to find out more.  This giveaway will last just over a week, so hurry and enter while you can!  The colors included are as follows: 
  1. Lydia - a Stardust textured finish in a pyrite color that shows as gold to green
  2. Lee - a red creme finish (these first two being my first and middle names!)
  3. Florence - a lovely nude creme shade
  4. Sandi - an eggplant creme color



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Friday, September 18, 2015

All About Color

Hi friends,

Today I have a couple of outfits to share, plus I wanted to talk a bit about color.

Pantone's Fall 2015 Colors


Pantone, a design company whose work revolves around color releases apparel color trend reports for each season.  And I wanted to show you all the one they created for fall.  They call it Fall 2015's "An Evolving Color Landscape"  They basically try to predict what colors will be popular in a given season, and honestly at this point they are some of the people who are setting the color trends because they're so widely viewed.  Over the last few seasons Pantone has noted a trend for men's and women's clothing to use the same color palette, meaning that sometimes colors don't have to feel feminine or masculine because they're using more muted colors overall.

I think it's interesting to look at what they choose and compare it to the colors I wear and also look at it in light of various skintones.  For example, I'm a cool skin tone, my skin has a lot of pinks and blue shades in it so I tend to wear cool or neutral colored clothing.  Those with warmer skin tones have yellow, tan and rich brown shades, some folks are more in the middle with no obvious yellow or blue tones, but they might have olive or green undertones and they can wear many colors well with their base being in neutrals most often.  You can check by looking at the veins on your wrist what you skin tone might be, and you can find out more about this on Pinterest too by searching cool, warm or neutral tone clothing colors.


Personally I can't wear all the colors on this wheel, and maybe you can't either, it depends on skintone as we discussed above.  My personal favorites are 3 Amethyst Orchid and 6 Biscay Bay.  However the ones I definitely can't wear are 9 Oak Buff and 10 Cadmium Orange.  They're very warm and are shades it's hard to influence with surrounding colors to look cool.  Because yes, you can surround one color with another and the lesser color will seem to change in appearance because of what it's next to.  In fact, 7 Desert Sage is the perfect example of this.  Let's take a look:


Reflecting Pond makes Desert sage look nice and cool as it we were preparing for a storm, now let's make it look warm.


Well look at that, now that Desert Sage resembles nice warm sand when it's put beside Cadmium Orange.  Color is magical you guys!  Want to have your mind blown again?  Scroll back up to the color palette.  The text describing each word looks like it's the same color shown in the big circles right?  Nope, it's actually the color shown in the smaller circle, a darkened version of the real color that I made because the white background changes how we perceive small amounts of color on a mainly white background.  The text color works the same way as the small squares of the Desert Sage do.  Because you're only seeing a small amount of color it's influenced by the main color taking up so much more space.  So if you want to make a neutral look warmer or cooler just pair it off with A brighter color, B a greater amount of that bright color, and C if you can place the neutral in the middle of the brighter color rather than at the edge of it.  All of these will help change your neutrals into colors that you can make look just a bit different when you need a "new" look from old clothes.

Hopefully you all enjoyed this, and if you'd like to learn more about how to manipulate and pair colors let me know in the comments and I may come back to this subject again soon.  I really love talking about color, and when I went to art school we spent a year in one class completed devoted to learning to use color in ways like this.  I'd love to share more with you all.

And Now the Outfits!


Tunic - Isabel+Alice/Gwynnie Bee, Necklace - The Rafiki Foundation, Leggings - Target, Flats - Torrid


 The Rafiki Foundation is a Christian organization that works in Africa providing homes, medical  and educational services to orphans, training to teachers, and helps widows in the community learn various crafts to support themselves.  Their end goal is training communities for a better standard of living that's sustainable and entirely run by the community members themselves.  The widows there make jewelry, bags, clothing, baskets, and home items and then teach others what they've learned.  I heard of them through the church my family went to when I was growing up and love how passionate they are for the work they are doing.

Tunic - Isabel+Alice/Gwynnie Bee, Necklace - The Rafiki Foundation, Jeans - Lane Bryant, Boots - Trendsetter/Hushpuppies 
I'm reading one of the selections for Fight or Flight Comics (My local comic book store! Raleigh, NC) "Word Balloons" discussion group.  Bryan snapped this shot of me last week when we stopped by the store, and tomorrow we'll me up for the discussion group.  I'll tell you all about what I think of the 3 books we're reading by reviewing them next week!
Finally a nice cool day with perfect coffee drinking, flannel wearing weather!  Mug - Mesa Verde National Park, Flannel Shirt - Walmart, Doctor Who/Harry Potter Tee - Once Upon a Tee, Jeans - Lane Bryant, Flats - Torrid
I really love that mug, I got it when my friend Holly and I were on a road trip and visited Mesa Verde National Park.  The designs are from Mimbres tribal designs that originate from the cliff dwellers that used to live at the Mesa Verde site.  You can get a better look at it here◊, I have the one with the quail design, but they're all really lovely!  I had just been studying Mimbres and other Native American pottery the semester before our trip, so I was thrilled to find a keepsake with one of the designs on it.

Top - Forever 21, Necklace - Forever 21, Shorts, Levis/Amazon, Flats - Torrid



9th Doctor Dress - Her Universe, Leggings Target, Boots Trendstter
And lastly here's a peek into my bedroom.  My husband was sweet enough to let me get this big shoe rack so I could store my shoes more easily.  I love having them all visible and it allowed my to go through them all one final time and everything else is going to be donated or sold!  I'm so glad, I was hanging on to shoes I had from 15 years ago, and shoes that didn't even fit me well.  Speaking of things selling my Thred Up order was processed and if you'd like to see the items they accepted (about 1/2-2/3 of what I sent) you can have a peek here and maybe even catch a sale if you like what you see.  (Thred Up is an online consignment shop to buy and sell clothes from, you can get $20 off your first purchase from this link if you want to check them out)  I found that the good stuff goes fast, and you can hold items in your cart for up to a day (thought admins may remove them in some cases).  So you can put some things in your cart that you like, do something in another window, and reload the first page of new items and find new things every 10-15 minutes.  This works especially well if you shop in the evening.  And since I had some credit I did buy a couple of things!  I'm nervous to see how they work out, but will let you know.  Let me know what you think.



Let me know what you think of this batch of Pantone colors in the comments.  Anyhow, that's all for today ladies and gentlemen, thanks for stopping by, and I will see you next week!

Love,
Lydia