Dressing My Best for Blogger Breton Stripes Day

This week a couple of us are participating in Academichic's Dress Your Best Week, along with many other style bloggers. If you haven't checked this out, you really should.  So many men and women have body confidence issues, and the idea of dressing to emphasize what you actually like about your body instead of dressing to minimize what you perceive as its flaws is a wonderfully empowering way of flipping a fashion rules paradigm on its head.

Five of my favorite things about my body are:
1. my eyes
2. my hair
3. my hour-glass shape
4. my ass
5. my shoulders/upper back

In this post I'll be celebrating my hour-glass shape and my derriere.

Today is all about intertextuality, as I'm also participating in What I Wore's Blogger Breton Stripes Day.  The outfit that I'm posting is one that I wore a few days ago that I built around this Breton striped top and around emphasizing my body's natural curves, including my small waist and curvy hips and butt.¹ In order to draw attention to my hour glass shape, I used two different patterns that met at my waist to create a point of contrast. I also tucked in my shirt into my skirt and belted the two pieces together. 

 1. Shirt - ??? (Filene's and remixed)

Skirt - H&M (remixed)

Scarf - ??? (thrifted and remixed)

Wedges - diba (DSW in 2005 maybe)

Sunnies - Esprit (thrifted)

Belt - from another dress (remixed)

Honestly, I loved how this outfit came together.  I loved it so much that I insisted that M. and I go out to dinner when I got home from campus that day because I didn't want to change out of it.  I felt polished and sassy, which is a combination that I don't always feel that I'm able to pull off very well.  And in this outfit I definitely felt unapologetically body confident -- like I had dressed my best....

Have you been wearing Breton striped items this season? If you want to see some fabulous looks featuring Breton stripes head over to What I Wore right now!  How do you dress to maximize your body shape? What's one good thing you've done for your body and for your body image today?

Thanks so much to the ladies over at Academichic for hosting this great blogging event, and also thanks so much to Jessica of What I Wore for putting together Blogger Breton Stripes Day!