Miss America Serves

Yesterday was Miss America Serves day; a day where all contestants, titleholders, and anyone involved in the Miss America Organization volunteered their time to help out our community. The Miss America Organization values service and as a queen for local, state, or even our nation, your duty is to serve your people by volunteering and helping out as much as possible.

As Miss Metro’s Outstanding Teen, I volunteered my time in Des Moines helping out at the Adam C Medina Banquet with my fellow sister queens. I started out my day by driving down to Des Moines to begin prepping for Miss Iowa by doing mock interviews, practicing my walk for fitness and evening wear, and getting all my paperwork done. I then headed down with my sister queens (Miss Metro Kelly Koch, Miss Greater Des Moines Serica Rowley, and Miss Greater Des Moines Outstanding Teen Sophia Agguire) to the Natural History Museum to volunteer at the Addam C Medina Foundation Benefit to honor Addam Media who passed away from a drunk driving accident. This foundation was created to let others know the danger of driving under the influence, but also proote youths to reach and achieve their dreams. We helped out at the each activity area, like hula hooping, making cranes, and even face painting! This event was not only a great volunteer experience; I also had a lot of fun at each activity.

Everyone involved in the Miss America Organization did something similar to my experience yesterday to celebrate the importance of serving others. Whether it is cleaning up litter from a park, volunteering at a non-profit organization, or just donating items to the Salvation Army, volunteerism was happening all around the nation. If you #missamericaserves on any social media website, you will see so many pictures, posts, and videos of Miss America girls volunteering at different events.

It still boggles my mind that people still stereotype pageant girls as catty, dramatic, and act like the girls from toddlers and tiaras when there’s a day the Miss America Organization dedicated to serving others. The Miss America system is known as a pageant, yet I believe it’s a way for women to grow and become well-rounded, successful people in our community. As a Miss America contestant we are learning how to connect with others, be skilled in something we are passionate about, be poised and confident onstage, and learn the importance of volunteering. I am so grateful to be a part of an organization that teaches me such important life skills. Happy Miss America Serves everyone!

Love Your Style

On this blog, I continually talk about the different trends that are in style this season, what to wear and what not to wear, and what kinds of clothing items looks best on what body type. But while it’s great to receive fashion advice from others, the most important thing I’ve learned about fashion and beauty, is to wear something you love and you feel confident in. It’s great to follow the fashion norms of society, but what makes you unique as an individual is what style of clothing you love to wear.

I, personally, am a victim of not wearing something I like to wear because I think other people will think it’s weird or not stylish. I sometimes think I should buy something that everyone else has just because everyone else has it. For example, everyone these days are buying Birk sandals, but for me personally, I think they look like Jesus shoes. But since everyone is buying them, I’m slowly feeling the need to buy them even though I don’t think they look that cute, especially not on my feet. If I ever want to wear something out of the box, I always get nervous because I’m afraid of what others will think of my outfit so I revert back to an outfit I know everyone will approve of.

But as I grew older and learned more about my fashion style, I slowly realized that I can buy and wear whatever I want to wear because I love it. My fashion style should represent who I am as a person and not what society approves of. While I like to keep up with the trends, I don’t follow all of them because I have my own fashion trends I like to follow. If I want to wear a crazy patterned shirt with crazy pattern pants, then I’ll wear it because I feel confident and beautiful. As long as I feel fashionable in my outfit, then my outfit is already in style.

Fashion shouldn’t be a set of rules that everyone must follow. Fashion is creativity. There should never be a limit on how unique or crazy an outfit should be. So I urge all my fashionistas, buy those quirky shoes, put on that bright neon dress, and dress by your standards, not society’s. It’s okay to follow fashion trends and its okay to not follow fashion trends. How you dress and how confident you are in your outfit should be the most important part.

2015 Spring Trends

Its finally spring! The grass is getting greener, the weather is getting nicer, and you can finally walk outside without wearing a coat. This means you should be storing those sweaters away and bringing in those cute crop tops and skirts! This spring season there have been a lot of new trends that have popped up and I hope to share with you some of my favorite trends.

Midi skirts are all the craze on runways and red carpets, and slowly they are appearing in our stores as well. I love the look of midi skirts because the give that 50’s vibe and yet still looks modern since it is a skirt instead of the 50’s dresses. I would pair a midi skirt with a crop top to make it seem more fashion forward. I think if you pair it with a normal shirt and tuck it in, it can look more on the 50’s side, but of course if you want that look then go for it! For shoes, midi skirts look great with T-strap heels to give that simple, sophisticated look.

Black and white aren’t usually colors for spring, but more and more people have been wearing monochrome colors this season. I think black and white looks extremely modern and can definitely work into a spring outfit. The most important part to making a black and white outfit into the spring season is to make sure the cut and style of the outfit is fun and not heavy looking. By wearing black and white into a spring outfit, you will look both fun and modern!

Kimono cardigans are the perfect staple for that bohemian look for the spring. These lightweight cardigans are the perfect transition from winter into spring. Kimonos also come in a multitude of different patterns and textures that you can pair with anything. These cardigans are also great to wear to a festival or concert to get that hip, bohemian look for this spring and summer.

High necklines are become more prevalent in shirts. I think this cut looks great on everyone because it makes your torso seem longer and if you pair it with some high waisted jeans, it can make your legs look longer too. I think high necklines also look great on crop tops because it makes the crop top not as short on the torso but elongate your neck and torso.

These styles not only work for our spring season, but also great trends for the summer. I know I’ll definitely be shopping soon!

Fashion Review: Kids Choice Awards

 It’s time for another fashion review! The Kids Choice Awards 2015 showed off some fun, flirty pieces that for sure will set a trend for this spring season. Some celebrities really stood out from the others will their bold fashion choices and they clearly worked the runway.

Debby Ryan WORKED that runway with her new purple cut and her cute fit and flare midi dress. She went completely out of the box and I loved it. The hair was the perfect shade because it didn’t over power her face and yet we could still tell it was purple. The dress was such a simple fit and cut, but the pattern and the mesh really made it stand out. I loved how she paired color coordinating shoes and wedges with the dress. All around cute and quirky outfit!

Kaley Cuoco from “The Big Bang Theory” looked sophisticated and quirky all in one. Her mix of patterns in her crop top and her skirt made the outfit look interesting and fun. Sometimes different patterns can confuse the eye and over power the otfit, but her pattern choices were perfect! The black and white colors of her outfit made the outfit look sophisticated and modern. She complemented her outfit by slicking her hair back into a bun to not overpower her outfit and her makeup was simple and light. Kaley also stayed fashion forward by wearing crop top and midi skirt, a fashion trend that is dominating our runways and stores.

Iggy Azalea also looked gorgeous in her crop top gown at the Kids Choice Awards. Her skirt was a complete showstopper and the pattern and texture of the skirt made it look classy and expensive. I loved how she paired it with a white spaghetti strap crop top to keep the top simple with the dramatic skirt on the bottom. She also pulled her hair back into a ponytail and kept the make up light. I would honestly wear this outfit to prom if I could!

Jennifer Hudson looked stunning in her simple black jumpsuit and blue strappy heels. Even though her jumpsuit was plain and simple, the texture of it made it look classy and the fit made her body look amazing. The fit wasn’t too body clinging and hit all of the right spots. Her shoes and lips brought out a pop of color to her outfit and made it look more fun. She paired some gold jewelry to the outfit without overpowering it. A classy look for a classy girl!

The KCA’s really brought out some great spring looks for this season. There were a wide variety of modern looks, flirty looks, and quirky looks. A great show, and a great fashion moment!

American Apparel Controversy

American Apparel has been known for having advertisements that are sexually explicit, using tactics like nudity to sell their lingerie, spandex, and leotards. Many times you see girls who are topless or pant less on their website selling different clothing items. Clearly, American Apparel focuses on sex appeal to lure in more customers. But the question is, does this form of marketing objectify women?

Absolutely.

Never should a woman feel the need to buy a piece of clothing for sex appeal for a man. The way American Apparel is marketing their clothes is as if the only reason why customers should buy their clothing items is because you will look “sexy” to attract the opposite gender. Women looking through their website will believe that looking like the model and acting like the model will be the only way to feel beautiful. If models look half naked, what does that say about our perspective on beauty? That the only way to look beautiful is to flaunt your body? Not only are women believing that being beautiful is to be paper thin and 6 feet tall, but to also wear almost nothing? Our society needs to erase both concepts.

This not only is falsifying what beautiful means to society, its completely degrading to women. If you compare the pictures of males modeling American Apparel clothes and women modeling American Apparel clothes, you can see that they are vastly different. Males modeling their clothes stand straight and you just see the clothes they are wearing. The women modeling their clothes are posing in some provocative way and usually just wear that clothing item.

I’m not saying American Apparel is a bad store and sells ugly clothing items; I actually love some of their pieces. But the problem is that they aren’t selling it the right way. Never should an advertisement degrade women into sex objects. Never should an advertisement tell women that being provocative is the only way to be beautiful. The clothes should sell themselves without the sex appeal with it.  

Prom Prep: Makeup and Hair

For my last Prom Prep series, I will be talking about the hair and makeup. Not only is finding a great dress important, but making sure your hair and makeup complement the dress is equally as important! Different style and cuts of dresses will need different hairstyles so the dress doesn’t overpower your face and vice versa.

If you have a low cut dress or a strapless dress, I recommend leaving your hair down, whether it is curly, wavy, or straight. This way you can still see the details on the dress but also have voluminous hair to complement it so there isn’t a lot of bare space showing. If you have a high collar or a dress with a lot of details, I would recommend putting your hair up or just pushing it all to the back. If the hair is down on a high collared dress, it covers the detailing on the dress and we want to see all the beauty of the dress! If your dress is one shoulder, I recommend either putting it all up or pushing it all to one side that doesn’t have the strap.

Quite often, many girls schedule someone to do their hair for prom. If you like doing your hair and feel pretty confident you can do it well, I recommend just doing your own air for prom! That way you can be sure you have the hairstyle you want, plus you can save money! If you do decide to do your own hair for prom, like I am, be sure to practice beforehand so you know exactly what to do on your special night.

For how you want to do your makeup, that is truly up to you. If you want to go all out and be dramatic or go simple and sweet, the world is oyster! But to make sure your makeup looks perfect all night, here are some makeup products I recommend using:

1)   Any kind of primer will be your best friend. Primer can allow your makeup to stay on night, especially after all that sweaty dancing. I swear by all of the Urban Decay Primers, whether it be the Stay All Night Spray or the Primer Potions, all of their products act like a glue to your face

2)   False eyelashes are something I always use for special occasions because it can really open your eyes (especially for pictures!), but since it is only prom, try finding more natural looking lashes so it just looks like you used great mascara. I recommend any of the Ardell natural false lashes because they are extremely lightweight so you don’t feel like you’re wearing any!

3)   Be sure to bring powder with you! You don’t want to have any oil face all night! With the bright lights from taking pictures and the dancing, you will be sweaty and gross. So to freshen up, make sure you bring some powder to matte your face up again.

Hope you enjoyed my prom prep series, I hope your special night is one you never forget!