Regarding ratings systems on fashion sites

Trisha from Bits and Bobbins brought up a great topic today. She wanted to know, how do we feel about being rated on sites like "chictopia" and other fashion sites.

Here is my reply to that........

I think the rating thing is pretty lame, myself.

I was watching of all things, Oprah earlier today and they were talking about what is acceptable to say to your friends. As in, “you have something in your teeth” (yes) OR You have too much makeup on (no). It makes sense that these website have popped up, woman are constantly judging each other, is it not true that we are known to dress for each other. I like to dress for myself, in what makes me feel good, but dressing for others is such a stereotype. I believe it is true on some level. Maybe younger ladies are not as confident in their own “styles”.

The internet can be a harsh place, I think that people are really eager to judge and it is so easy to do via the world wide web. I have posted many photos of outfits to sites and gotten many low ratings on outfits that were some of my faves. I think that everything is subject to opinion, so the fact that the people on that site didn’t like my style, is relative. I’m in my 30’s an a lot of these fashionista sites, in my opinion, are full of teens and twenty somethings that are really trendy and don’t have much creativity (outside of following trends) in dressing. However I would never go leave them negative comments about how they dress. Thats just not in my nature. I am a positive person. I think the internet makes it really easy for insecure people to take their insecurities out on others. I can say this hasn’t affected me negatively but I would be lying. Most of the time, I just brush it off, but there have been times that it sort of made me feel bad. Maybe it was PMS, or just human nature.

One time I put a picture up of a dress I had created from scratch on one of these sites, In my opinion the dress was gorgeous. The fabric was vintage, embroidered satin and it was a 20’s style dress, so it was past knee length. Someone left me a comment that if the dress was shorter it would be better. I was pretty offended that someone would leave a comment on a hand made garment that I created with no pattern, all on my own. The funny thing is, now that I look at the dress about a year later, having not really worn it since I created it, I kind of agree with the comment. At the time, I was so proud of the creation, I would not want to think of changing it. I guess It can be constructive as well, even if it takes a year to process.

I do think that what matters is to take the time to dress up in some way to make yourself feel good. The reason we are all here is because, after all, its’ fun to see what other people are wearing, their creativity, it’s inspiring and I love that.