A Few Changes

Hi! A little change has happened around here today - my url has gone from gwenalmighty (which, if no one caught it, was totally a shameless rip off of the One Direction song Girl Almighty) to my shiny new gweninbetween. Here's why:

tbh if only my life was half as exciting as this show

Okay no, I've not changed my url because I'm obsessed with The Inbetweeners (I do love the show though!). I've been thinking about changing this url for a while, but I've never been 100% committed to and in love with another url - plus, I've always had a soft place in my heart for gwenalmighty and felt kind of guilty leaving it behind. A few weeks ago, though, I was reading an article about in-between models (models who are not straight sized but also not plus sized - generally, the size of the average American woman, but the least represented size in fashion) and something clicked in my mind: I am totally Gwen In-between. 

My passion for body positivity (all aspects of it) and love for plus sized fashion is, I think, something most people know about me. I rant to my friends - my poor, poor best friends Ella and Maddi have to hear me go on about it the most - about it all the time, I tweet about it and Instagram about it, I share articles on Facebook, in general I just try to be as vocal and active about the body positivity movement and plus sized fashion as I possibly can. The thing is, though, I've always had a little bit of dissonance about it because, basically, I don't count as plus sized. 

Of course, not counting as plus sized doesn't mean I can't love and support plus sized fashion and models, and it definitely doesn't mean I can't take part in the body posi movement, because body posi is for all body types. But, for a while, it did make me feel a little bit alienated from the cause because I didn't quite fit in with it - the models I support and the fashion I love isn't really for me. And that's okay. Not everything has to be for me, and I can still love things that aren't. 

Anyway - I had always been fairly familiar with the idea of the in-between model, but I've just recently come to fully identify with being an inbetweener. It is, admittedly, sort of a weird area to me, because in-between models are generally the measurements that most American women fit into, but they are undoubtedly the most under-represented in fashion, modeling, the media, etc. It seems a bit strange to me that women of this size need their own category - but then again it, sometimes, seems a bit strange to me that plus-sized women need that as well*. The point of all this rambling is that I'm an inbetweener, not quite like Will, Simon, Jay, and Neil, but close enough if I'm being honest, and I'm kind of starting to love and embrace that. 

I feel like an inbetweener in every sense of the word - I am an inbetweener when it comes to my size and place in the fashion world, and I am an inbetweener in life as well. I even live in-between Long Island and Saratoga (and Edinburgh, now). As a 20 year old (aaaah!?) heading into her senior year of college (AAAAH!?!?!) I'm totally living in a time of transition right now - my life, my style, my future, and my mindset are changing every single day. My life right now is in-between - not just between two things, but between pretty much everything. Everything is moving. I'm not sure I always like it that way, but that is how it is right now. I think being Gwen In-between is a really great way to describe my life and my mindset right now, plus I think it has a really nice ring to it. So, here we are. A little more direction on this blog and a pretty new url. Hi. I'm Gwen In-between. Let's see where this goes. 

until next time! xx g

*this is a long, complicated situation that I have many thoughts on. I'll potentially talk about my thoughts on it later, but do know that I don't see it as being quite that black and white!