This is my friend, Kelsey. Okay, so maybe she only has about 70 dresses or so, but she’s getting there. :) I asked her if we could get some pictures of a few of her favorites and also ask her a few fashion-y questions, and she was cool with it, so off we go! (Oh, and she also brought along a few things I’d crocheted for her over the years, some that I’d completely forgotten about, so that was sweet and cool.)

Dress: Forever21+, Shoes: Payless Shoe Source, Earrings: Beall’s Outlet, Necklace: gift, GIANT KEY: Beall’s Outlet

1. What was your style like growing up?
My style growing up was whatever my mother forced me to wear, to be honest. So that involved matching everything: Skirts, dresses, shirts, giant flowers in my hair. And, worst of all, overalls. Overalls with Mickey Mouse on them, overalls covered in sunflowers, American pride overalls…all of it.
I didn’t start picking out my own clothing until seventh grade and, well, I went through the goth stage. After that finally fizzled out, I began looking more at stuff that was dressy but also casual. I liked dressing nice to be taken seriously, but I think what really happened is people thought I was a teacher and acted well-behaved in my presence. I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the appropriate names for clothing are, so I guess I mostly wore really nice jeans or (occasionally) a nice, long skirt suitable for an office setting. I remember buying a lot of professional looking blouses from the maternity section because of having a too-large chest for the sizes where my age group shopped.

Dress & Tanktop: Wal*Mart, Shoes: Beall’s Outlet, Earrings: Ouchangel.com, Purity Ring: NOTW.com Necklace: Costa Rica, “Bracelet”: gift

2. You were vehemently against dresses when you were younger, what changed that?
It’s only been since 2010 that I became obsessed with dresses. And honestly, I’m not sure what the change was. As a kid it was just simply because it was the main thing my mother would force me to wear and kids wanna rebel from that instinctually. I know what I do like about dresses is the fact I don’t have to match shirts and skirts and tops and blah. I like that a dress is an outfit on its own (so really I’m just lazy). But even with being “lazy”, you can still look really cute or professional or even casual with almost no effort. What’s most time consuming is just doing hair or make-up. Or, if you have a ton of dresses (-nudge, nudge wink, wink-) then you spend an hour trying them all on.

Dress: Beall’s Outlet, Shoes: Beall’s Outlet, Earrings: Gift, “Bracelet”: gift, Necklace: gifted from me a looong time ago. :P

3. Do you have a favorite dress, and why is it your favorite?
Usually my favorite dress tends to be the newest one I buy! Haha. If I really have to pick, maybe…this really ruffle-y Easter dress I bought last year. I like that it’s long and elegant and is bright without being blindingly so. It’s kind of prissy, actually, which isn’t usually what I want. I got it because it was going to be my birthday that Easter and also because the dress didn’t have sleeves and I was trying to be brave about showing my arms. I got a ton of compliments on it but mostly it was just fun to wear (and even MORE fun to spin in!).

4. What item of attire do you like most, out of clothing, accessories, anything? And why?
I actually really like scarves, but once the weather comes around to wear them I always forget to drag them out of my closet. ): I like all the different ways you can tie and wear them, but of course I never remember how to myself. I also like the variety of them. I feel like I use them more like giant, fluffy necklaces than to actually keep myself warm. I can also wear them as headscarves, though I rarely do.

Dress: Ross: Dress for Less, Shoes: Beall’s Outlet, Earrings: gift, “Bracelet”: gift, Necklace: gifted from me

5. What recent fashion trend do you love? Why?
I really love the sudden appearance of bikinis for curvy girls. Not so excited about them being mostly galaxy print, but other than that I think it’s cool we’re finally getting bikinis in bigger sizes that also help support a larger chest size. For me, even a regular bathing suit isn’t really worth buying just because there’s not enough chest support. Just the fact that companies are now making these sorts of swimwear has been inspiring to bigger girls and made them less ashamed of themselves. Because suddenly it’s “socially acceptable” to be big and wear something like this. I just hope when the media stops caring that girls realize they don’t need society’s approval to be proud of their bodies as is.

6. What recent fashion trend do you hate? Why?
To be honest, I really can’t stand the leggings for pants trend. They’re not meant for that, they’re meant as a just-in-case under a dress or skirt. I don’t care about body size or what-have-you, I just don’t like the idea of it in general. To me it is tacky and inappropriate for anyone to do: tall, short, fat, thin, male, female, etc. I understand the freedom of dressing how you want, but you should also dress respectfully to yourself and to those around you. As a Christian, I have guy friends who find this to be a stumbling block for their faith but they either a) don’t feel like they’re allowed to say anything because it’s such a wide-spread thing or b) they get attacked by feminists or just really strongly feeling women that their opinion is wrong and they’re over sexualizing a woman. With this trend, you’re already over sexualizing yourself. The majority of leggings are see-through. Or they cling to especially private areas. I just would be really glad to see this trend end and I don’t know if I ever can fully convey that in words.

And here are some funsies with both of us. The second one basically describes our friendship in picture form.

On Her: Dress: Ross: Dress for Less, Shoes: The Shoe Dept., Earrings: gift, “Bracelet”: gift, Hairclip: gifted from me a while ago, Necklace: can’t remember

On Me: Top: Old Navy (old), Skirt: Old Navy (old) , Shoes: Faded Glory, Necklace: passed on from friend

Kelsey is one of my closest friends and is pretty much my sister at this point. We’ve been there for each other through so many intense and landmark moments in each others’ lives (my husband even told her about his proposal plan MONTHS before he proposed. Kelsey is great at keeping secrets. lol) She’s one of my favorite people and I’m so blessed to get to call her sister.

Kelsey’s also a crazy fantastic writer, check out some of her stuff on deviantart here.

I hope to do more of these friend features in the future. Hope you all have a beautiful day!