questions

As the end of the year (and the decade) draws to a close, I thought I would round things off by answering some questions I’ve received lately. The end of this year has been one of work, activism and personal-related growth which explains the lack of longer-form content I’ve managed to publish as of late. 2019 has been a big one, so, let’s talk about it…

WHAT I WORE: Faux Fur Coat (Jumble sale – old) // Carhartt Dungarees (Depop) // Ruffle Blouse (Vintage Kilo Sale) // Teddy Jumper (Old) // Butterfly Sneakers (PO-ZU)* // Hat (Hand-me-down)

What are you most proud of this year?

My confidence. At the beginning of the year, I was only just starting to tip my toe into the waters of public speaking, attending events and taking part in direct forms of activism. I remember being extremely nervous to take part in my first demo (which was about protecting the rights of garment workers in Bangladesh), so much so that I lost my appetite on the day.

Since then, I feel so much more at ease when it comes to speaking on panels or putting myself in vulnerable positions for the causes that are close to my heart. I’ve realised that I do know what I’m talking about and that the reason I’m invited to speak and have my voice is heard is that people believe in my work and trust my point of view. 

It’s been a huge lesson in the fact that practice makes (almost) perfect. The more you push yourself to do something, the easier it becomes. Once you’ve pushed past that initial barrier of anxiety and nerves, you won’t have to go through it again.

It’s just been a very big year for me both personally and for my work. I’ve done more than I ever have before and that’s exactly what I wanted out of the year. 

What started your interest in sustainability and climate change?

Although I may not have answered this question directly on my blog before, I’ve answered it a dozen or more times this year in various interviews. The word ‘interest’ has started to baffle me though because shouldn’t we all have an interest in the climate? It’s about all of us, not just certain individuals who seem to have grasped the concept.

But to answer this question in more simple terms, my sustainable journey started in the aftermath of the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse when I watched The True Cost documentary for the first time. It was my lightbulb moment that started the line of questioning which has since led to me realising that we are facing a climate emergency and that big industry and those in power play a huge role in it.

Fashion will always be my main interest but in educating myself about one aspect of life, I have in turn realised the true scope of so many issues that are at play.

What’s inspiring you right now?

As much as I’ve spoken about how we need to move away from relying on youth activists and praising them rather than acting on their words, I have to say that the clear cut, no-nonsense attitudes of people my age and younger is just so incredibly refreshing. We will not take inaction and we will not stand for injustice. 

For as long as I know there are these strong, powerful voices from people who are sticking to their guns and not taking half-hearted commitments from those who can enact real change, I will feel supported and motivated to keep going.

I’ve also been inspired by fellow digital artists who are using their talents to spread information in creative ways, such as the duo from Adapt and collectives such as No Planet No Fun. The #ProtestByDesign hashtag has also been really enjoyable to follow.

  LOCATION: Paris, France 🇫🇷

How did you become an activist and get such a big platform?

I think I became an activist accidentally. I suppose before participating in any form of direct action, I would have described or seen myself as an advocate for certain issues but the activist label never felt right until I was on the streets and actually practising what I was preaching.

It feels like the right term for me, especially as somebody with an online presence because I often get categorised as an influencer and I’ve always been unsure about what that means. I don’t want it to implicate that I’m selling products constantly and that my platforms are like billboards; I want people to know that I’m doing a lot more than just tweeting links to petitions and reposting news articles.

In terms of having a ‘big platform’, I have the past year and a half to thank as I’ve seen the biggest amount of growth in the shortest space of time. I’ve been fortunate enough to have received some incredible features and interviews from various publications and platforms which have enabled many more new people to discover me.

I also think there’s a growing need from social media users to find the types of people who align with their values and who are able to easily educate them on a relatable level and that’s exactly what I’m aiming to do.

Do you have plans for 2020?

I’m officially a rent-paying individual so, I’m expecting a lot of my time will now be focused on generating an income as an artist! But at the same time as that, I want to continue going with the flow and learning as I go along. That’s one huge benefit to being self-employed; I’m not restricted which means I’m able to explore whatever avenues I want to.

I’ve been thinking about how I could start to use my knowledge as an activist to advise others and to ensure that the term ‘climate emergency’ isn’t used loosely and that change genuinely happens, no matter what it might look like. This is thanks to my experience of attending Climate Launch Pad in Amsterdam, which made me realise that my voice could be used in more ways than it already is.

In terms of solid plans? I’ve been confirmed as an ambassador for an upcoming event next summer alongside some other activists who I already love and admire, so, that’s something to look forward to.

If you have any more questions for me, my comments are always open for you to use…

Thank you for your continued support over this past year. Here’s to another which hopefully brings about the radical action we’re looking for…

A while ago, I answered some of your questions about ethical fashion in a simple, almost Agony Aunt style post. It went down well, so I’m back, helping simplify and break down some of your concerns and quandaries based around the idea of ethical and sustainable fashion. Hit it!

WHAT I WORE: Floral Blouse (ASOS Africa – old) // Floral Trousers (ASOS Africa – old) // Keep On Asking Sweatshirt (Lost Shapes x Tolly Dolly Posh) // Sleeveless Denim Jacket (Jumble Sale & DIY) // Sunglasses (Unknown)

How can I find body inclusive, plus-size, ethical fashion on a budget?

Firstly in answer to your question, I want to apologise for the fact that I don’t tend to cover plus-size fashion. This is simply because I’m personally not plus-size so for my own style, it’s not something that I need to focus on. However, I understand how important it is to be inclusive and appreciate all body shapes and sizes.

Admittedly, ethical fashion brands do seem to be rather size exclusive, although they can be far more diverse in other areas compared to fast-fashion or unethically focused brands.

My knowledge of ethical plus-size brands is small so I took a brief moment to do some research and the first brands I came across were all fairly highly priced.

It led me to an article by EcoCult which in the end, also came to the same conclusion, explaining part of the problem to be that due to ethical and sustainable brands usually being on the smaller scale of business, it creates an added cost to produce plus-sizes (new patterns need designing) which in turn puts the price up for customers.

This is ultimately a little unfair – nobody should be paying more for fairly made clothes simply because of their size – so, if you’re struggling to find good examples, don’t be too hard on yourself.

As always, a really good option for finding new (to you) clothes is going second-hand shopping, whether that’s online (eBay, Depop, Oxfam* etc) or offline (charity and thrift shops, garage sales and car boot sales etc).

However, depending on your size, some of my favourite brands like People Tree do go up to sizes like UK 16. I think it’s just the case of spending your time researching and working out what’s best for you.

(I know there are issues surrounding Oxfam right now but I use them as an example as they have a great online charity shop and I appreciate the work they are doing in making second-hand shopping more appealing.)

How do I get into the habit of paying attention to the kinds of clothes I buy?

This is an interesting question because for me, once I became educated about the ethical issues around fast-fashion or the issues around sustainability when it comes to our clothes, I started to watch out for what I was buying almost instantaneously. The fact that you’re even asking the question makes me believe you’re on the right path already.

You can almost go at it by using the rules of writing (the 5 W’s and 1 H). Ask yourself 6 simple questions…

• Who made it?
• What’s it made of? (Try and stick to natural fabrics like cotton, if you can)
• Where was it made? (Can you find information about the supplier? ‘Made in’ labels don’t mean much)
• When will you wear it? (Can you see yourself wearing it 30 times or more?)
• Why are you buying it? (Is it an impulse purchase?)
• How could you find an alternative? (Is it something you know would be readily available second-hand?)

You might only ask yourself one or two of these questions at a time, and some of them might never apply but having them in the back of your mind, especially when shopping on the high-street or from a brand which has an unclear ethical stance, can help you make much more considered choices. Remember, it will always be about shopping less when you can’t shop better.

What are some independent ethical brands?

Have you taken a look at my ethical directory, yet? It’s full of them! Some of my favourite true indie brands are Lucy & Yak (they do wonderful corduroy dungarees), Lost Shapes (did you know I designed the sweatshirt in this post for them?), Vintage Style Me (all handmade in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire) and What Daisy Did (they use scrap post-production leather to make their dreamy handbags).

Is sustainable living, a matter of privilege? 

This is a topic which has been floating around the sustainable-sphere rather a lot lately, mainly due to some recent controversy around a statement made by a well known, waste-free brand.

I’m going to lay out my current thoughts plain and simple. They’re open to evolution, criticism and hopefully mutual-understanding. For me, I don’t see thinking sustainably as being a privilege but the physical action of, for example, using and buying less single-use plastic or supporting ethical fashion brands, as yes, a privilege that not everyone has the ability of participating in.

I’m being very selective in my choice of wording here as I don’t want to imply that thinking sustainably isn’t a privilege for everyone. If I were to say everyone, I would really be suggesting the target-audience of my blog and anyone who stumbles across my share of the web in the future.

So, to explain my thoughts more accurately, let’s use you and me as an example. Just you and me, the singular person reading this text. I believe you are capable of thinking sustainably.

Whether you are like me, a teen, with very little money in the bank or whether you are a mother of two young children, I know that you have the capability of changing your mindset (at this point really, my blog may as well be renamed Tolly Dolly Mindset for the number of times I come back to that word).

Here, I am not implying that you physically have the capability of adapting your life to this mindset – I can’t know whether that is true or not, there are far too many variables -, simply, I believe you have the good-heart of somebody who knows the world needs to make significant changes to become a healthier and better place.

With that good-heart comes the ability to walk down a supermarket aisle and understand where we’re – humans; the system – going wrong. With this new found (or hopefully, years old) mindset, you’ll see plastic as something to be wary of and perhaps you’ll take time to really treasure whatever new dress you next buy.

That, I cannot see as a privilege. Perhaps time and education have to come beforehand and maybe that’s where my conclusion fails at the wayside; I’m again, happy to be proven wrong.

Anyone who jumps to the idea and exclaims that there is nothing getting in the way of anyone implementing sustainable and ethical practices is simply well, ignorant. As I recently tweeted, it’s vital to never assume that everyone has the ability to take actions and to understand that really, there are much bigger issues at hand.

As much as I hate to admit it, individual change and consumerism are only a minuscule part of the problem. 

Do you have any questions for me to answer next time? Leave them in a comment below or click here to fill out the Q&A form.

I’ve spoken about this topic before in this blog post about ‘sticking out like a sore thumb’, but I’m always happy to revisit the topic, especially if you guys are asking specifically, which you did… back in this blog post! If you’re interested in knowing how I’ve personally combated feeling judged and self-conscious and how you can too, then carry on reading…

I’m going to start out by saying that I’m definitely not in the worst position for being judged or for being self-conscious. There are so many variables that go into making you feel more insecure, some of which include your family and support group, your friends, your school or your work place.

I’m very lucky; I have a family that is truly supportive of me and I have parents that have never pressured me into being a specific type of person. I’m not trying to be judgey, but I know that so many people out there that do feel pressured or haven’t had the same sense of support, so I really do try not to take it for granted.

I’m also currently home schooled which means I don’t have the usual pressures that come with having peers around, although that doesn’t mean I haven’t experienced that sort of thing (I have, and I’ve written about that before too).

But, (like pressure at school), that doesn’t mean I haven’t experienced feeling judged or pressured or most importantly, self-conscicous. We all have, at some point in our lives so far, because every human judges, no matter how hard we try not to. Our brain scans things over when we meet new people, and when we see new faces in the street. It may be subconscious, but we all do it, so it’s rather hard to avoid, and that’s a crucial fact to remember.

For me personally, I’m most self-conscious about my exterior personality, although I’m at a place now that I’m, for the most part, whole heartedly happy with things. I’m happy in myself and how I come across as a person, but when it comes to how I appear, I think that’s where I hit a stumbling block. I met someone new a while back, and whilst I was getting ready on the day, the first thought that came into my head was – “Perhaps I should wear something a little more ordinary”. So, as you can see, I still expect and worry about being judged, no matter how confident I actually feel as a whole.

So, the question is – how do we get past things like that? How do we skip out those thoughts that make us pressured? How do we stop ourselves from shrinking back down into that mold of ‘being normal’ or ‘being perfect?’. Well, I’ve thought about it, and I know you’re no doubt going to think I sound crazy but… I like to think about the size of the world and the universe. Yup, you read me right… I’m getting deep.

Seriously though, sometimes it’s just great to put things into perspective. I know this won’t work for everyone, and it could quite possibly be just my teenage brain making me think about these sorts of things (my sister said she used to the same when she was my age), but honestly, when you realise how small and pointless these insecurities and fears are… you start to feel a whole lot better about yourself, and you start to look at other people around you in a whole new light.

~ YOUR PERSPECTIVE TO DO LIST ~

So, to do this, I’m going to throw in some facts about the universe. It would take 100,000 years to travel across the Milky Way. In the observable universe, there is estimated to be one hundred billion galaxies… so (according to physics.org) if you hold a grain of sand up to the sky, the tiny patch of sky that it covers, contains ten thousand of those galaxies. There’s a lot more to it than that as we all know, but those facts alone are enough to make you feel dizzy.

Nevertheless, I hope you can understand what I mean. Looking at everything in this perspective just makes me think – why should I care about that person across the road looking at me oddly for wearing something a little ‘different’ (what even is different, after all?) when there are so many bigger things to be worried about?

I also mentioned that this makes you look at other people in a whole new light, and it really does. I’ve started to just appreciate a smile, no matter who the person is wearing it. I don’t judge them or comment on the rest of them, I just appreciate what’s there and the beauty of it. Because honestly, once we’re happy in ourselves, we can start to appreciate everyone and everything else around us and we can start to make those people who felt the same way as us, get that little bit closer to being happy too.

  LOCATION: Sirolo, IT  🇮🇹

What you have to realise though, is that every single one of us goes through judgement and feelings of self-consciousness, so there’s no real way to ever combat it (like I mentioned in my sore thumb post). You just have to suck it up and start blurring things out because honestly, it’s always going to be there, no matter who you are… and in a way, that’s kind of the fun of it all.

When you do have those moments of confidence and when you finally do feel happy with how everything is… you’ll be able to look back and compare things with that perspective lens and realise there really was no point in worrying.

Did this blog post help you? Do you have any further questions about confidence? Leave a comment or fill out the form above!

Also… if you’d like to see a full outfit post for what I’m wearing here, do let me know! I’ve also just added a sneaky little feature to my blog in the form of Konami code. Have fun with that! Oh and just FYI, my next blog post is a good one! Watch out!

As I mentioned in this post, I want to start really talking with you guys about different topics especially on the line of being yourself and confidence. I asked you guys whether you had any questions (not necessarily directly about being yourself) and an interesting one I received was about ‘ART & Film’. Seeing as these sorts of things can be a huge influence on personal style and fashion in general, I definitely had to give a go at answering it! I’m mainly going to focus on film in this one, but if you’d like to see me delve more into ART, let me know! (Images via Tumblr)

❓ How do you incorporate ART & film into what you wear? ❓

~ THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS ~

(1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6)

Films and fashion go together in a really funny way, because it’s not all about the clothes. If it was all simply about the clothes, catwalk shows would simply just be a selection of models walking down a runway with no make-up, no specifically tousled hair and no music to keep in time with their footsteps.

Fashion is all about the whole feel and mood of everything, from step one (of waking up in the morning) to step one hundred (taking your shoes off at the door)… there’s so much in between that adds up to our personal style each day, and films are a great way to look at it all like that.

I hate to say the word because it’s probably rather over-used nowadays but certain films come with a certain aesthetic which set the tone for the costumes, make-up and hair and overall the fashion. 

So of course, a great place to start is the wonderful array of Wes Anderson films we have to watch. My personal favourite (out of the ones I’ve so far managed to watch) is The Royal Tenenbaums because of Gwyneth Paltrow’s character.

My sister says that Margot reminds her of me (?!) but in one way that’s kind of cool because of her awesome outfit choices. Margot’s me when I’m moody. She wears simple pieces but she has to top it off with something extra, usually in the form of a fur coat.

So you’re probably wondering? How do I actually incorporate the vibes and general tone of The Royal Tenenbaums and it all comes with? By taking certain elements subconsciously and channeling them into my outfits… like collars and muted tones; faux fur and flat shoes. I don’t necessarily have to seek out to end up looking exactly like Margot Tenenbaum… it just sort of happens organically whenever a picture shows up or I end up re-watching the film.

~ GOD HELP THE GIRL ~

(1&2 // 3 // 4 // 5&6)

However, there are times when I do purposely seek out to recreate a character. The thing with fashion and dressing is the fact that you can transform into whoever you want to be, and sometimes I just really feel like channeling the ways of Eve from God Help The Girl. I mean, that leopard print and stripe combination? It has me written all over it.

There’s actually a really nice clip in this movie of the character, Cassie, doing her make-up in the style of Aladdin Sane (David Bowie), but then she ends up scrubbing it all off, and I think that’s a nice way of summing up how it’s okay to recreate styles and personalities from what we see on TV/social media, but it’s also okay to try and do your own thing, even if that person truly inspires you.

So although I have sometimes felt like being Eve, there’s always that Tolly touch to things and I don’t think that will ever go away. After all, the question I received was about how I incorporate art and film into my outfits… and I guess that’s exactly what I do.

~ THIS IS IT ~

On the other end of things, there’s also fashion films which are specifically created to add depth to a collection or brand. It’s usually a short video that revolves around a couple of characters at most, with items of clothing on full show, but a strong sense of plot still there.

I’m not going to lie, the main reason I included this specific fashion film is because it includes Alison Brie (from the show Community – my favourite TV show ever… I’ll take any chance I can to promote it (#andamovie!)) but I do genuinely like it.

It’s not necessarily in keeping with my current personal style, but the dreamy lighting and general idea of it really pulls me in and for some reason any ART film that includes roller blades seems to attract people’s attention. It’s actually for the designer jewellery brand Irene Neuwrith and I think it’s a pretty awesomely put together piece.

How do you incorporate ART & film into what you wear? Let me know in the comments!

Other than fashion, another thing that I am wholly passionate about is… self-expression and just being yourself. I don’t really know where it came from, but it’s just always been there within me. The idea of everyone being themselves and embracing the fact that no one person is the same has just always been such an interesting and exciting concept to me…

~ (A LITTLE SNIPPET OF ME) ~

…and I want to share that. I know I’ve spoken a couple of times about the topic on here before (like with my “How To Soothe A Sore Thumb” or “Fat vs Thin” posts) but I really want to try and infuse it into Tolly Dolly Posh Fashion this year. It’s great too because being yourself ties into fashion really well. I mean, what’s the main way we all express ourselves? Through our clothes.

It’s one thing you can’t skip out one each day, so what you put on always channels some form of message. Seriously, you’re feeling a bit fed up and lazy? Putting on comfy clothes literally expresses that (we all do it – even though being yourself certainly isn’t all about fashion).

But the question is… how? I’m all about writing lengthy posts about my own experiences but I think this is one of those topics where we have to talk to each other about it. Does anyone remember when I did “The Ultimate Guide To Being A Teenager“? Well, that was a great example of me taking your questions and queries and creating content from them and I’m hoping it helped.

~ BEING YOURSELF ISN’T ALL ABOUT FASHION ~

Although I loved that yearly series and I’d be happy to bring it back, I’d also love to move forward and do something more regularly, whether that’s in the form of videos (yes I know, I’ve kind of gone off YouTube again haven’t I?) or Q&As, I don’t know, so that’s why I’m writing this post.

Let’s have a bit of a chat! I’m leaving a little submission form below for those of you don’t necessarily want to leave a full comment. Just let me know what sorts of topics you’d be interested in me talking about to do with self-expression and being comfortable in your own skin. Leave a single question if you like! Here are some ideas (they don’t even have to be obviously questions about being you… simple lifestyle type ones can be a good start)…