Sally McGraw - Find Your Style: Boost Your Body Image Through Fashion Confidence

Introduction
Clothes Are Tools

I used to wish I could be a brain in a jar. Thats how much I hated my body.

I remember walking down the busy hallways of my high school, shuffling my beat-up Converse on the linoleum, wondering if there was a way to make my physical self disappear. I had so much going for me in the nonbody department: I got straight As, was cast in every play I auditioned for, sang in three choirs, and had a busy social life. And I was proud of my accomplishments and happy with my friendships. My insides were awesome.

But my outsides? Different story. Even though no one had ever said anything negative to me about my body, I still heard all sorts of negative things about it: TV commercials for weight-loss shakes; magazine ads for workout videos; and movies that showed only slim, toned female bodies. All of these things whispered to me of my inadequacies. The girls that everyone agreed were pretty, hot, or beautiful looked nothing like me. They were all tall and skinny, had flat stomachs and noticeable breasts, toned arms, and perfect skin. When I peered into the mirror, I saw a stubbornly jiggly stomach and tiny breasts, flabby arms, and gobs of acne. I looked at those beautiful girls and saw nothing of myself reflected back. I looked at them and decided that my body must be wrong. And that I should fix it.

So I dieted. For AGES. And while I was dieting, I wore nothing but loose, formless clothes that hid everything about my body. My jeans were baggy, and my shirts were stolen from the closet of my burly, 6-foot-tall (1.8-meter) dad. I picked dull colors, clunky shoes, and thick fabrics that hid my non-flat stomach and non-slender legs. I wanted to make my outside as uninteresting as possible and force people to focus on my inside. I figured hiding my body was the best way to do that.

A few years later, my girlfriend Liz mentioned that she had started wearing longer skirts to downplay her hips and something clicked inside my brain: Clothes could do something besides hide my body from view. Clothes could be tools! They could change how my body looked, even though my body was still the same inside them. As a kid, Id worn the same things as my friends, never asking myself if I actually liked the clothes or felt good in them. As a teen, Id dressed for invisibility, never trying anything that fit to my curves or drew attention. But then I saw a new, better option, and I jumped on it. It took a lot of experimenting to figure out which styles and shapes worked best for me, but eventually I found them. I started wearing flared skirts that floated over my hips, fitted tops that showed off my waist, and slim pants that balanced my proportions. My body came out of hiding.

And you know what? I felt better. I hadnt lost a pound, and I actually felt better about my body. In fact, finding clothes that worked with my body instead of against it helped me feel more connected to my physical self. My brain-in-a-jar fantasies finally vanished, and I began to see that there had never been anything wrong with my body in the first place.

Once I figured out that dressing my body well helped me feel better, I wanted to share my discovery with other women. Almost all the girls and women in my life struggled with body image, and almost all of them believed that weight change was the only way to stop that struggle. But I had found another way. It wasnt the perfect way and it certainly wasnt the only way, but it was another way besides diet shakes and weight-loss surgery. I wanted a big, open conversation about these topics. So I started a blog that focused on style as a tool for self-love and self-respect, offered judgment-free advice to all readers, and created a safe space to talk about fashion, figure flattery, and body image.

And the more I wrote and discussed and learned, the stronger my beliefs became. I know for certain that learning to dress your body in ways that feel good can increase your confidence and improve your body image. And thats what this book is all about. Seeing beauty in our bodiesright now, today, just as they areand learning to celebrate our uniqueness by dressing our bodies with love.

Looking good and feeling good are connected. And despite what we may see and hear, there are a million different ways to look good. In fact, there are just as many ways to look good as there are girls in the world, and each of us gets to define our own unique brand of fabulous. You dont have to be tall or short or fat or skinny or pale or dark to look amazing. You just have to accept your body as it is, understand how it is shaped, find clothes that work for your specific curves and angles, and wear them with pride.