Fashion Friday Featuring Kenley Collins

This week’s Fashion Friday will be featuring the incredible Kenley Collins.

Kenley Collins love of fashion started at the young age of 16 when she would reconstruct vintage pieces for herself and her friends to wear. Then after graduating from Florida State University with a marketing degree, Kenley moved on to New York and started working in a sales position at a clothing company. Well less than a year later Kenley was promoted to a position in design where she continued her craft and developed her own fashion niche.

It wasn’t long before the rest of the world to take notice of Kenley’s distinctive vintage inspired pieces and fall in love with her talent. Ms Collins has appeared on Bravo’s Project Runway, Lifetime’s Project Runway Allstars,  Live with Regis and Kelly, The Biography Channel, and E’s Oscar 2011 pre-show. Kenley’s pieces are sold throughout various boutiques, available on her site kenleycollins.com, and can quite often be seen on pop music sensation Ariana Grande. If that isn’t enough to entice you to check her clothes out let the following masses of pictures do so. I was having way too much fun during this shoot 😉

You didn’t very well expect me not to play on the merry-go-round did you?

Flower Clip: Claires

Gentlemen Prefer Dress: Kenley Collins This piece is literally everything I look for in a dress. Beautiful print, versatility of wear, and incredible construction! The royal blue stenciling is absolutely out of this world, believe it or not its even more beautiful in person!The fact that this dress is made out of a slight stretch cotton means its casual enough for everyday wear, but the obvious beauty of it means you won’t have to try hard to dress it up for an elegant evening out, and the construction is positively flawless, there is a bit of boning in the bodice that keep’s the lines of this dress very clean, and the size chart is so spot on! All of the attention to detail make this dress feel custom-made, which is what every woman wants, right? If you’re currently looking for the perfect spring/summer dress I cannot recommend The Gentlemen Prefer Dress highly enough.

Shoes: DSW I wear these shoes so much I think I should invest in different colors 😉

I hope you all enjoyed this post and that you check Kenley Collins out! She is such a true talent, her eye for detail makes her pieces timeless but her playful sense of style makes all of her designs seem new and fresh! Oh and speaking of new be sure to keep tabs on this lady cause her new line drops May 1st, so exciting! I love you guys Happy Friday!

Beauty Bashing!

It has been said “That beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. I honestly find the statement to be quite true…how else would you explain the art scene, music scene, or even people’s taste in partners? But there seems to be something that occurs during every generation. There is the beauty standard of the day. During the 50’s Marilyn Monroe was the beauty icon, full lips, curly hair, bedroom eyes, and serious curves. Then a mere ten years later and “Twiggy” hit the scene… short pixie cut hair, giant bird like eyes, tall, and very thin. A complete turn around from the years before.

We would like to think that nowadays we have it right, after all we are the generation of understanding (more like apathy if you ask me). But I mean do we really have it right? I am going to have to say no.

How many of you have been on facebook, twitter, or some other social media site and have seen something like this. A young woman with the caption of “No makeup, bragging about how secure in herself she is, and how girls who only posts pictures of themselves in makeup are totally fake! and natural beauty is the only beauty”? Well your self righteous attitude is not only annoying, it is seriously unattractive. The belief that just because someone wears makeup, whether its a little, or if it looks like they were mugged by Sephora does not make them fake. If they wore makeup and lied about it that makes them fake, not the fact that they have pigment on their face. Some of us (myself included) were not born with great skin. Or some of us (still included) enjoy makeup and express ourselves through it, just because it isn’t on canvas does not mean that it isn’t art.

Makeup vs. no makeup is not only place we are getting catty and ridiculous. Body shape is still just as prejudice as ever. How many times have you heard “Real women have curves”? Well I have heard it more than I would care to. I myself am quite curvy, but I am no more woman than my thin best friend or thin little sister! We’re women because God made us that way.

One is not more woman than the other. We come in all shapes and sizes, what is a healthy weight for one person may not be healthy for the next. Being crazy thin is not healthy, and neither is being fat. Take care of yourself and love the figure you have whether it’s a healthy curvy, thin, or even muscular.

Guys I don’t want to be preachy and obnoxious, cause let’s face it preachy people are rather tiresome to be around. But I felt compelled to write this post, after seeing so much catty behavior on facebook. I hope you all enjoyed this post, and if you have anything you would like to add feel free. Hearing from you all is a highlight of my day. May you all have a Happy Healthy Thursday.

Why I should’ve grown up in the 50’s!

It is no secret that I adore the 50’s. So I thought I might do a post on why I should’ve been around during that time!

1. The cars!!! Oh my word the cars from the 50’s are art in motion!

2. The music! I for one am more of a Cash fan than a Presley! I mean Elvis is great and all, but no one can touch Johnny Cash!

3. The hairstyles! No lazy ugly hair here! Even when the women would put their hair up in a ponytail it was still gorgeous!

4. The clothes! My goodness why oh why are these styles not the norm anymore?

5. What was considered beautiful for the time! Back when the women who were the icons of beauty actually had normal looking figures! Now I will not say only real women have curves, because there are plenty of girls who are naturally very slim! All I am saying is that the beauty industry and media of today push girls to unrealistic “body ideals”! It is not ok to over eat nor is it ok to starve yourself! Natural is always more beautiful! So accept the body you have and take care of it! Sorry enough preaching 😉

6. The way guys looked! I for one am a total sucker for a retro style on a man!

Oh my goodness I just love Bing Crosby and Bob Hope! Now there are some funny men!

7. Dating! Now I know the dating scene in the 50’s was probably nowhere near as innocent as it has been portrayed, but it was probably a good deal more innocent than today’s dating! The rules of dating were a good deal more clear then too! The guy’s asked the girls out, the guys picked up the check, or they made sure you knew that you were going dutch, and they were good deal more respectful of personal boundaries. Boy things sure were different back then!

I really hope you all enjoyed this post and my rambling 😉 Happy Tuesday! I love you guys!