A few years ago, I started posting my daily fashion look on Instagram.
Every day, I come up with a name for each look, and post it.
My goal is part fashion fun and part societal awareness.
Friends have told me they get a kick out of the names I make up for my outfits, like “Mocha Latte Fantasy” or “Caribbean Sunset” or “Strawberry Swirl”.
One friend said that when she sees my picture, it makes her feel like, “Hey, I am psyched to get myself put together and get out there!”
My pictures were giving people a feeling of optimism and hope about getting dressed and facing their day. My pictures were giving them a sense of humor and beauty and playfulness and love, at a time when too much of what we hear on the news is about conflict and ugliness and hate.
The underlying message in my pics was getting through: be courageous in the face of despair. Get up and get dressed and put your best face forward. Get out there and be fabulous, no matter what. Be playful and gracious and creative and fun. Share with your friends and family and have faith that they are receiving the message.
Have faith that small efforts, done daily over a long period of time, ARE reaching people and DO make a difference.vmed this outfit “Rainbow sunset delight”.
Little did I know that day by day, I was setting an example. I was encouraging people. I was creating a little package of inspiration and creativity and hope, that others would look forward to receiving.
It was deeply meaningful to hear that from my friends, and it made me realize something:
We all affect each other in ways we don’t realize.
So whatever your light is, don’t be shy. Share it.
Someone else may need your light to read by.Someone else may need YOUR light, to illumin
I hope you will follow my fashion looks on Instagram. You can follow me there, and I hope you do. I've been posting almost daily for several years now, so I have a lot of posts. I've tried fun experiments such as coming up with a whole week of daily rainbow colors, a whole week of corporate looks, and a whole week of bright Mexican-animal style looks inspired by the whimsical "alebrijes" from the movie Coco. I'll be sharing these artistic experiments in the fashion pages of this blog.
My philosophy about the fashion looks is this: we have to get up and get dressed every day, so we might as well get fabulous.
I've never been a fashion icon. Even when I was young, I was short, I was plump, I was busty, I was uncoordinated. I was always too this or too that. I never fit the demanding mold of what is considered beautiful in the culture (which at the time I was growing up, in the late 60's, was epitomized by the long, leggy, graceful, skinny and blond model, Twiggy. Twiggy was, and still is, absolutely fabulous. But she was fabulous in a way that I would never be able to achieve.). And now on top of all that, I'm old, I'm even plumper, and I wear a scarf on my head every day. If there was an antithesis of a fashion icon in today's American society, I would be it.
And yet you know what, darlings? Mother Rebecca is rocking it. Every day I get up, I get dressed, and I get fabulous. Random strangers stop me in the street to say they love my scarf looks. I am out there as an ambassador for cultural understanding, trying to bridge divides that are engulfing the world. Do I sometimes get hostile stares? I do. What happens when I get them? I smile back sweetly, and go out of my way to hold doors for people and wish them a good day. Does it make a difference? I don't know. But it's what there is to do, and I am doing it.
I'm Mother Rebecca. I'm old and I'm beautiful, dammit. And so are you, darling.
I'll post some of my fashion looks below, and on the fashion pages of this blog. Each look has a witty or whimsical name to go with it, so don't miss that... it's like a daily prize in a fresh box of Crackerjacks.
You never know what a new day will bring, darling. So why not turn yourself into a work of art, and get out there, and see? You be you, and you will by definition be fabulous...because there is no one else like you in the whole wide universe. When it comes to being you, you're it! The road is wide open. You have no competition. So go for it 100%.