One girl in high school said I looked like I came out of one of the pages of a fashion magazine and said "How do you have the confidence to actually wear clothes like that?" I found this comment really confusing at the time because I thought everyone figured out how to dress by looking at magazines.

I've received compliments about my body that have made me feel flattered and obsessive at the same time. The comments that people have made about my style have perhaps made me feel restricted, like it was necessary to continue to impress them.

I was once tormented by a female co-worker who commented on everything about me, my skin, my hair, my clothing which she mocked, that I called my husband "darling" on the phone. I mean who studies someone's skin? She liked my smooth skin, but still, it was over the top.
The weird thing is, I don't think she realized that she was being rude. In fact, I think she admired me. But she had no idea that women spend their lives having every inch of their acreage assessed and that I was a feminist who was long past tolerating this.
I am still puzzled by the thoughtless unkindness of other women. Middle-aged women can be terribly cruel to each other. This will change generationally but at the moment it is true. It is a kind of workplace violence, one man said, and he was right.
What attracted me to Women in Clothes was how welcoming and inclusive it was to all kinds of women everywhere. I think the project is glorious.

I think everyone grows up with comments from their family that stick with them, for better or worse. In my family I was known for my “sausage fingers.” There was a family friend I really respected, though, a father of one of my friends. One day in summer when I was reading on the couch, just being an awkward teen and feeling really ugly, he walked through the room and said, “You have the hands of the Madonna.” That was really nice, and it affected me. Since then I’ve realized that we tell ourselves stories about how we think we are. It’s better if it’s a nice story.

I can’t remember anything specific, but when I get comments from people who follow my blog, that say my outfits make them happy, or inspire them, then it makes me feel that I am making the right style choices. This isn’t about looking for outside validation of my personal style, but more that people “get” what I am trying to achieve with my choice of outfits.

I've been told by friends that they admire that I don't care what anyone thinks…and apparently this is something that I exude from my love of clothes. I find this hilarious because I do care about what other people think far too much! I guess hearing feedback like that makes me extremely aware of the discrepancy between our inner self and the 'self' we project when going out into the world.

When I was 16 years old—and I will never forget this, because from ages 13-15 I was a tragic, clueless dork—several people wrote in my yearbook that I was 'the best dresser ever!'

Well, another interestingly worded question. Because people today don’t seem to have a clue about how to dress usually showing up anywhere in jeans and a tee-shirt, and because I do NOT for any reason wear jeans and can’t imagine wearing a tee-shirt out in public, I have people comment all the time about my appearance, usually in a complimentary fashion. There have been times when invited to an event and the host will single me out to say, this is a casual attire event because folks assume I’m always dressing up. But what is casual for me is perhaps over-dressing for them. Even when I attend a black-tie event, folks consider I am more dressed up than they. But their comments in no way make me feel or see myself “differently.” I just assume that folks today have no understanding of “style” and have resorted to just throwing on whatever is convenient; most folks don’t seem to have a reason to assert their own individuality via dress, you know.

that i am a fat potato with eyes... but i had already lost all of my weight so it just felt like the old times.

I do not like when people make nasty comments about the way I dress because they have their own insecurities. I feel great and the people I want in my life support me and that is all that I care about.

I think some nice compliments have helped

I had a male friend who was always panting after women of a body type that is the polar opposite to mine. Even though I wasn’t interested in him romantically, his range (or lack of it) kind of pissed me off. I thought he watched too much porn and was too hard on women. But then one day he said to me, “I love looking at you.” And I said, “No you don’t.” And he said, “Yes, I do! I love the way you look.” So, I guess I learned that I’d been measuring how appealing I was by whether or not someone wanted to shag me. It made me wonder why I over-valued the confidence I got from sexual-confidence.