Two months feels both like forever, and a very short time to have said goodbye to you all and closed the Re/Dress NYC boutique in Brooklyn. I miss your smiling faces, sharing that joy of watching you emerge from the dressing rooms in a fantastic outfit and facilitating the commitment to engaging with our bodies in a more positive and liberating way. Re/Dress NYC showed the world that shopping is about more than just finding something cute to wear and that plus size folks can walk the walk when it comes to using fashion as a tool of self expression. I hope Re/Dress was a place where you felt like you could come up to the edges of your comfort zone and take a step beyond. I know that I was inspired on a daily basis by the fierce styling of my shopgrrls and our customers and I hold those images in my mind as I get dressed everyday.

Recently I was in LA to celebrate Marie Denee’s 3rd bloggeversary for The Curvy Fashionista. I saw colleagues and customers and one of our INDIE+ models Alicia Fajardo, rocking a fantastic polka dot bodysuit with puff sleeves that she got at the store (omg we had the wildest stuff!). I thought of you all as I bought for the online store, scouring the wholesale markets for exciting styles that I knew would inspire and delight you. I thought of particular customers as I bought X top or Y dress, knowing it would be something they’d love. I hope that you’ll check out our online store as it continues to grow and evolve with new and vintage fashions. I know that it will never be a replacement for the experience of shopping in Re/Dress Brooklyn. The Re/Dress website is a place where I get to take my knowledge and experience of dressing you for the last 3 years and find just those things that I know you’ll love and will make a positive difference in your lives and wardrobes; TEGGINGS anyone?

The challenge to you is to find ways in your life and community to maintain the other aspects of shopping at Re/Dress Brooklyn that can only be achieved in person.

If you’re local to New York, plan to shop at The Big Fat Flea in May - http://bigfatflea.tumblr.com/ (formerly known as The Fat Girl Fleamarket)
Or if you’re near Boston, attend the Big Thrifty also in May - https://www.facebook.com/TheBigThrifty

Or organize your own body positive clothing swap with your friends, classmates, and neighbors. It doesn’t have to be a large event like The Big Fat Flea to be fun and have an impact on your style and how you feel about yourself.

Seek to create the kind of environment you’d like to have while shopping, so if it means bringing friends with you when you shop, or becoming friendly with the sales associates at your local Lane Bryant, you have more control over the kinds of experiences you have out in the world than you think.

Photo from http://b1design.blogspot.com/

If anything we created at Re/Dress made a positive impact in your life, just know that’s now a permanent part of you. Just because Re/Dress in Brooklyn might not exist any more, that doesn’t mean that you aren’t just as amazing, beautiful and fabulous as you felt there. Resist anything that makes you feel less than gorgeous. Don’t be afraid to take the space you need. The power for revolution rests inside us all.

xox,
Deb