Canvas & Blossom

Alright, alright. I’ve always touted myself as a winter bitch, and, in a lot of ways, I always will be. When you have this much hair, you kind of have to be. Same with my affinity for wool hats. They’re not too summer-friendly. Not to mention the HUMIDITY. (Read: frizz.) I enjoy getting into work and not being coated in that unmistakable glisten of SEPTA sweat. My sweat, other people’s sweat, it’s all there. Having said that though, I’m really happy about this warm weather. Don’t let the almost-all-black fool you. I’m living for this sunshine.

Madewell Courier Shirt | Vintage Denim | Blank NYC Vegan Leather Moto Jacket | Helmut Lang Pointed Ankle Boots | Lack of Color Mack (color sold out but it’s still available in grey) | Sticks + Stones/Both Sides Bridal Squash Blossom Necklace c/o | Dior Book Tote | Steven Alan Sunglasses

Because I started my blog in the springtime seven years ago, this time of the year tends to make me very nostalgic. I sort of miss those days before Instagram, when my blog entries were less of a copy-edited article that I’m afraid my boss is going to read someday and more of a dialogue between myself and the pages of my journal. I used to take my camera EVERYWHERE and take photos of the most mundane shit and call it content. And do you know what? I loved it, and it opened to many doors for me. (I even have my career outside of this blog to thank for it.) I still adore it but, somewhere along the line, things changed.

Because our lives are constantly on display, everyone is all about ascending to this level of quasi-authenticity wherein we paint ourselves as perfectly imperfect, but only as long as we’re still cool. Our so-called vulnerabilities barely scratch the surface; our superficial flaws suffice for #content purposes while we continue to repress whatever we don’t like. We’re beholden to our engagement and our sponsors and feign relatability in the hopes of building an audience or procuring that next #ad.

It’s no way to be, honestly.

I’m so over these blogger circle jerks. (Sorry… engagement pods.) I’m tired of the women in my community playing the “women support women” card whilst gleefully tearing others down… and being seemingly celebrated for it. It really seems that we’re so concerned about getting our content in front of others that we focus more on that than building something we’re really proud of. Talk about putting the cart before the horse, no? It discouraged me from posting for a while because I felt like, “is the reason no one reads blogs anymore because they can’t really use them to promote themselves?” (Aside from that old game we all tried of leaving our blog URL in the body of a generic statement in the comment section on A Beautiful Mess.)

I’m not exactly sure why I decided the middle of an outfit post was a good time to rant about the state of blogging these days but, nonetheless, it happened. Here’s this outfit I guess? It looks like most of the other things I wear. I have no additional navel-gazing soliloquy to add.

xo, e.m.