Tag: Zara

Is It Crushing Us All?

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OKAY ANDIE | Is It Crushing Us All?OKAY ANDIE | Is It Crushing Us All?Or is it just me?

Hi guys!!! Long time no talk or post or whatever. I am still alive and well. I feel slightly out of practise with this blog…like what do I even write about anymore? That’s probably the reason I haven’t been posting as much…I just don’t have much to say, and if I do, I post it in real time on Instagram. Are blogs dying? What do you guys think? Do we like YouTube more? Is Instagram just more accessible and the speed at which we take in information? Are we just too busy to sit down and read, or really write something? How can I be a blogger when I don’t even take the time to read blogs anymore? These are questions I wonder…stupid questions, really, because in the grand scheme of the world, they don’t even matter. But, in the grand scheme of my life, I am deeply a part of this world. I am supposed to care about what is new or what social medium is the best. I am supposed to be battling my way to the top, to have the most followers and the most success. And honestly, I do care and I do battle, but then I also dislike myself for caring too much and battling too much. Social media seems like it is crushing us all, and we all feel it, but we don’t really try wriggle our way out, and we struggle to see how it truly benefits our lives, but we also love it because it validates a lot of us and it gives us purpose and it influences us and inspires us…but it’s still crushing us and we still don’t really know how it benefits us.

Nobody starts a blog to just do it anymore. Everyone wants to make money from it. Everyone wants to find the quick and easy route to the top. But for a lot of us, we’ve been at it a long time and it’s almost more about luck than anything. I am not at all saying it’s bad to want or make money from social media, afterall, I do, but blogging has become this idealized job that anyone thinks they can do if they have a camera and a computer. It’s not an easy job though. It takes talent and it takes real effort and constant work. It’s a tiring one, that takes away from your real life and the people in your real life.

I am not sure how all of this reading right now? It’s not mean’t to be bitter or misanthropic. I’m more writing this for myself than anything. To just get it out. I love social media, but then I also dislike it. I daydream about disappearing from it some days, but then I also wonder who I would be without it, and that is fucking sad and scary.

Would love to hear all of your thoughts in the comments below. This post is not mean’t to call anyone out or read like I am giving up. I guess I just wanted to start a discussion. To see how we all feel. This space has always been about wanting to connect, so that I don’t feel alone and so you don’t either. To let us all know a lot of our feelings are universal, regardless of all the things that seem to set us apart.

– WHAT I WORE –
Sweater: vintage via CS (similar; found it in blue!) | Jeans: vintage Levi’s (similar) | Boots: Zara via CS (similar)OKAY ANDIE | Is It Crushing Us All?OKAY ANDIE | Is It Crushing Us All?OKAY ANDIE | Is It Crushing Us All?OKAY ANDIE | Is It Crushing Us All?

*photos by Zach

A Year In The Life

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OKAY ANDIE | A Year In The LifeHappy New Year M’Loves

I’m not really one for New Year’s resolutions, so you won’t be getting any lists like that here. But when a new year comes, how ever man made it is, you can’t really help but feel like it’s a fresh start, a marker of sorts, for acknowledging the past and looking to the future. This year for me has certainly been up and down, as all years are for everyone, really. I went through depression that felt like it would be the end of me. I had days of complete elation where I felt incredibly lucky to be alive. I learned from a dear friend that to be in a lasting relationship you must choose that person everyday and that sometimes is easy to forget. I met some of the most kind and beautiful people on this planet. I’ve learned new skills that I am proud to have and that I am much too hard on myself. I’ve had moments of feeling like the luckiest person in the world, surrounded by love and moments of hating myself so deeply I wasn’t sure if anyone in this world genuinely liked me. I’ve talked about my feelings and bottled them up. I’ve laid in bed all day watching netflix and got painfully sunburnt swimming in the warm and salty sea. I’ve yelled until it hurt. I’ve laughed until it hurt. I’ve lived the only way I know how. As I do, everyday, of every year.

There are big markers, good and bad, for every year. But years are also made up of small moments and details that weave in and out of the big ones that make up most of our lives. They say you can’t see the forest for the trees, but sometimes acknowledging those trees can help to see the forest for what it is. We are mean’t to do things with our life, but just existing and living is doing something too. It’s okay not to be the best or the worst and it’s okay to have no real plan at all. There is a system and societal structure to this life that can make us feel inadequate and exhausted, but realizing that a slow pace is still a pace, afterall, can be a relief like no other.

As always, thank you guys for being here. I didn’t post near as much as I did in previous years. I’ve written and deleted countless posts for the reason why, but in the end, it probably needs no explanation. I am here now, and that’s all that matters.

I love you all and you enrich my life by just stopping by here. I hope my words and images do the same for you.

-WHAT I WORE-
pant suit: Zara via CS | Blouse: Anne Klein via CS | Jacket: Topshop | Socks c/o Tabbisocks | Shoes: Seychelles
OKAY ANDIE | A Year In The LifeOKAY ANDIE | A Year In The Life

photos by Zach

 

All Things

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OKAY ANDIE | All ThingsOKAY ANDIE | All Thingscome full circle

I really don’t wear skirts and dresses as much as I used to. I have become a full fledged pants and trouser lover which is something I thought I would never say again. I have this theory, I guess you could call it,  that we always revert back to our former selves when it comes to fashion and aesthetics, like a circle of style, if you will. That something you once loved as a kid will be something you begin to love again one day. As a young child I really loved skirts, dresses, all things feminine and the colour pink (I named all of my stuffed animals “Pinky”…), as I got a bit older I shed those things for tomboy looks and then black eventually became my colour of choice in my teens (goth lyyyyyfe). If you know anything about me from visiting this space over the last several years, my girlish self was in full force – cutesy looks, the colour pink, again, as my favourite. But within this year I’ve become more accustomed to masculine looks and styles, the less frilly, and clearly I am no enemy to black. I guess it’s not so far off from styles of decades past recycling themselves in current fashion trends. There are little cycles within littles cycles, within littler cycles going on all the time in life, and that goes beyond fashion and exist witinh ethics and even societal issues. “History repeats itself” has always felt like one of the truest statements, to me. I have always wondered why that is. Does nostalgia drive us more than we think it does? I often feel nostalgic for times I didn’t even exist in, which seems absolutely absurd, but it’s a feeling I know doesn’t just exist for me. Who knows why these things happen, who knows why I have what seems like two different people that exist inside me, one trumping the other at certain times in my life. It’s something I have come to learn and love about myself, though, and it’s something that has become of great interest to me.

Do you guys notice these things about yourself as well? It’s a topic I’ve never really discussed with anyone. Let me know in the comments below.

-WHAT I WORE-
Jacket: Ruby Leather via CS | Dress: Vintage | Shirt & Bag: Zara | Shoes: Dr. Martens
OKAY ANDIE | All ThingsOKAY ANDIE | All ThingsOKAY ANDIE | All ThingsOKAY ANDIE | All ThingsOKAY ANDIE | All ThingsOKAY ANDIE | All ThingsOKAY ANDIE | All Things

I’ve Got It All

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Larkspur Vintage | I've Got It AllLarkspur Vintage | I've Got It AllTogether…sometimes…but usually not.

The weekends when I am able to fit in work and fun are the type of weekends I come away from feeling truly whole. When you work a full time job (I recently became a buyer for a second hand/sometimes vintage shop), maintain a blog and other social media platforms all by yourself, own a dog, teach dance, help your partner with work, occasionally style and model for shoots, try to attend blogging/insta events, sometimes sell clothes…it’s hard to feel like you are on top of everything. To be honest, it’s fucking impossible to be on top of all of that. The thing that usually gets pushed to the wayside for me is friendships. It’s hard to maintain friendships (I’m mostly talking about surface friendships here) when you are an introvert, but also someone who feels literal guilt when you should be getting work done and instead are spending time with someone. And as I read that sentence, it sounds kind of awful. The thing is, I love my friends, the ones that don’t feel like work and get that I am kind of busy and will often say no to something because I have work to do. But on the flip side, I’ve had to work with the feeling of guilt I get when I am hanging out and not working by actually pushing work to the side and allowing myself to have fun without “consequence”. It’s been strange acknowledging that feeling and trying to work with it…I often feel like I never get it quite right. But this weekend felt truly balanced, and I woke up this morning with a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of wholeness. I realize it won’t always be like this. I won’t always feel like I’ve got it all together, and that’s really okay. As long as I am able to appreciate and recognize the moments where it does all fall so perfectly together, then I couldn’t really want or ask for anything else. We are all just trying to get by in the ways that make us feel good or make us feel bad, sometimes. It’s those things that drive us forward, but sometimes make us stuck. As long as we can see ourselves in all the ways we are or are not driven, well I think that’s all we can really do. In my little understanding of psychology and self-understanding, it’s just being able to see the way we work that makes us able to start changing for the better.

Can you relate? Do you have the opposite issue? Let me know in the comments below.

-WHAT I WORE-
Dress: Zara via Common Sort | Jacket: old H&M | Shoes: Sylvie and Shimmy | Choker: handmade | Comb clip c/o Levero (can’t seem to find this particular one, but they have loads of cute stuff
Larkspur Vintage | I've Got It AllLarkspur Vintage | I've Got It AllLarkspur Vintage | I've Got It AllLarkspur Vintage | I've Got It AllLarkspur Vintage | I've Got It AllLarkspur Vintage | I've Got It AllLarkspur Vintage | I've Got It All

Home is where the heart is

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Processed with VSCOcam with a3 presetIf you follow me on instagram, than you already know I was in Ottawa for the weekend. Since I couldn’t make it home to be with my family for Christmas this year, my father and I secretly planned to have me fly to Ottawa after the new year to surprise my mom…and did we ever! The surprise was better than I could have ever hoped for – she started to cry, and then I started to cry – it was really just a beautiful moment. I have always known how much my mother loves me, I’ve been very lucky in that respect, but it’s moments like those where you really understand how much a child means to a parent. I’ve got two really amazing parents, that’s for sure.

The outfit I’m wearing in these photos is kind of my new favourite. When packing my bag for Ottawa I wanted to bring as little as possible, especially since I was only going to be there from Friday evening to Sunday evening. I’m normally an over packer because I am terrible at planning outfits in advance, but this time was different. I had just received this adorable school girl-esque skirt from Miss Patina, so I knew that would come along, and when I did my outfit recap last week on the blog I was reminded of my blue and white pinstripe dress I had hanging in my closet that hadn’t been worn since the summer. I thought they would go so absolutely perfect together and the dress could double as it’s own outfit on another day…done! Two pieces of clothing, two outfits. I like when things come together simply like that.

How was your weekend? Do you have any cool surprise stories that made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? I’d love to hear about them.
Processed with VSCOcam with a3 presetProcessed with VSCOcam with a3 presetProcessed with VSCOcam with n3 presetProcessed with VSCOcam with a3 presetProcessed with VSCOcam with n3 presetProcessed with VSCOcam with a3 presetProcessed with VSCOcam with n3 presetProcessed with VSCOcam with n3 presetDress worn as blouse: thrifted Zara
Skirt: Miss Patina
Tights: Walmart
Boots: Samantha Pleet x Wolverine