Flatten My Style
A Bold New Direction
Hello Dear Readers,
It’s been six weeks since my double mastectomy and I’ve been on a mission to feel like myself again, stylistically. My body shape is radically altered and shirts that I used to feel comfortable in are now doing the opposite.
There are some resources out there for those of us who have decided to remain flat after surgery, but none that spoke to me. I thought I might share my thought process of changing styles.
How do you come up with a whole new style? I started by developing some requirements. Just like in art, coming up with a new style is easier if you have some rules to follow.
The Rules
The shirts had to be button-ups. I’ve not been a button-up shirt person historically, but I became one because after surgery I couldn’t lift my arms over my head.
The shirts didn’t have darts. For those not familiar, darts are sewn lines that are a way to manipulate woven fabric to have more or less volume in certain areas, most typically the bust and the waist in women’s clothing. I have no bust, I need no darts.
The shirts had to be made of natural fiber; I can’t stand the feel of synthetics. I especially don’t want to have plastic rubbing on my body all day long.
The Search
With those rules in hand I went to a discount clothing store because there was no way I was going to spend a bazillion dollars on something that might not work out. Finding button-ups with no darts and in a natural fiber at a discount store winnowed down the playing field considerably.
Going through the aisles, I realized that the shirts I was most attracted to were the ones with either bold pattern or stripes. This is a complete 180 from my previous style of wearing plain t-shirts with muted colors; a style I assume I was previously attracted to due to years of being bullied in school and wishing to not attract too much attention. However, cancer has not given me some great epiphany where I realize I wanted to be seen all along. No, no, no. It’s more like I feel that I’m paradoxically able to distract the eye from my chest by wearing big bold bright colors all over my chest.
Also, these are the shirts that tend to end up in the heavily discounted area of the discount store. My thrifty self rejoices.
After picking out six shirts for the low price of not-a-bazillion dollars, I noticed a few similarities between them all.
I was most attracted to patterns that were really big and all over rather than small repeats. I liked colorful, bold prints, but the contrast within those prints were low. ie: I would wear a giraffe print, but not a zebra print. The striped shirts I bought also tended to be low contrast.
Also I found that button-up shirts without darts tend to have a beachy vibe. If I were to summarize my new style, I’d say that I now look like, “the person you’d hire to hunt for buried treasure before I double cross you at the end.”
Bonus Tip
Should you also be looking to wear a big bold print, there is something to keep an eye out for. If any part of the pattern has a large circular motif in it, you should absolutely try on the shirt lest you go home and discover that your brand new outfit looks like you have headlights directly on your chest.
A Few Obsessions From This Week
I have been charmed by Róisín Curé’s current comic zine adventure. She is making a 16 page comic a month. She is my kind of crazy. I discovered her a day too late to get the second zine, but I signed up anyways because I’d like her to succeed at this amazing venture.
Along with a new clothing style, I’m feeling the urge to branch out in my artistic style. Normally when I paint, I do not use any pen line. That may be changing some, so I’ve ordered some fountain pens to try out. Inspired by K. Woodman-Maynard’s post about their favorite tools, I ordered a Lamy Safari. I also ordered a 40° Sailor Fude because everyone and their cousin seems to like it. I will report back.
Ready to read more comics? Check out audrywithoutane.com
Interested in what other projects Audry is involved with? Go to audrynicklin.com
Enjoy knitting? Visit Audry’s knitting pattern site at bear-ears.com
Interesting! I need to look around thrift store because I love these choices.
I joined something that you might be interested in - the Art Bundles for Good drawing challenge. It's for the month of June and there's a lot of line drawing and simplified (for me) ways to get at things that I didn't know. It was inexpensive, $37 for a month of short video lessons that are fun and may give you a new.........perspective? Anyway, you can check it out if you're interested.