by Grace Helbig
It’s been ten years since I first acknowledged to myself that my patterns of thought might possibly be f*cked up. And only recently, thanks a lot in part to the Internet, have I been able to feel most comfortable in my own skin. That’s all skin is—just a sock puppet for our personality (a quote from a journal of mine in 2008).
And with that I’ll wrap up my ED exposition portion of this book. Don’t fear, this book isn’t and was never meant to be an autobiography of my body issues. Nor is this an actual style guide. Oops. Sorry if you thought so. You got pranked so hard! What broke a lot of my unhealthy behavior was reading tough doses of reality mixed with the therapy of comedy and making light of my own darkness. And I know body and beauty issues are something so many of us struggle with, so hopefully this was helpful.
Now that the reality part is out of the way, let’s dive into what I’ve come to acknowledge as one of the most hilarious subject matters in our society: beauty and style.
Over the years I’ve tried to turn my personal struggle into perspective, and now I really believe that beauty is completely comical. It’s goddamn ridiculous. Fabrics and textiles can define us? The convex and concave shapes that make up our bodies can devalue us? The amount of skin you have on one of your eyelids can determine a career? So dumb!
Let’s dive into what I’ve come to acknowledge as one of the most hilarious subject matters in our society: beauty and style.
So, friend/stranger/semi-familiar associate/AI robot, welcome to a style book unlike any you may have read before. Obviously, I don’t know the “correct” way to do style, but I’ve discovered my way to try. And I’d like to share that with you. I hope you’re willing. Please enjoy my stupid thoughts on the things I’ve learned along with some nonsensical analyses of glamour, fashion, and fads.
And hey, by the way, your eyelids look fantastic.
This might sound so dumb, but I have to tell you that I decided to write about my ED after going to a tarot-card reader. She’s shockingly good and was so spot-on about a lot of things in my life that toward the end of my reading I asked her to pull a card for my book. I can’t remember exactly which card she pulled, but she explained, with no knowledge of what kind of book I was writing, that I was going to have to pull back a curtain and reveal more of myself before my creative juices could flow and I could produce the kind of book I’d really want others to read. Welp, I feel like I just tore the curtains straight off the window. Sorry, curtains. But I gotta say, the sunshine coming through the window feels pretty great.
a few of my favorite things
Before we dive into my ideas and feelings about fashion, I thought it might be helpful to share some of my favorite things. Not only does this feed my narcissism, it also gives you a solid base of personal information to form judgments about me.
1. Favorite Color: stripes
2. Favorite Shoes: Uggs (I’ll never be president, I GeT IT.)
3. Favorite Long-Term Piece of Clothing Owned: a way-too-small seventies tennis sweatshirt and a green T-shirt I got in fifth grade that says “I’m a Terrific Kid”
4. Favorite Kind of Night Out: me + my couch + my sweatpants + my subtle sadness + my recently cleared to-do list + my stockpile of unwatched episodes of Dance Moms and Real Housewives
5. Favorite Bag: a navy-blue pleather backpack from ASOS
6. Favorite Hairstyle: messy, beachy waves that take way too long to look effortless
7. Favorite City: I love London and New York in medium doses
8. Favorite Lip Product: the grease left over from breakfast meats
9. Favorite Season: five o’clock
10. Favorite Hair Accessory: dry shampoo
11. Favorite Emoji: that calm, pleasant-old-man face
12. Favorite Store: any store where the employees are too uninterested/hungover to ask me if I need help or to judge me for walking in circles when I get too overwhelmed by options
13. Favorite Celebrity Style: Emma Stone, the Hamburglar, Where’s Waldo?, and russet potato bags
14. Favorite Disney Character Style: Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid (he had a classic look that I love: a chic white button-up and fitted jeans)
15. Favorite Accessory: a smile, sIKe; I like small, unexpected silly pieces (e.g., a French-bulldog ring, shoes with French fries on them, etc.)
16. Favorite Style Moment: Recently my friend Mamrie Hart and I performed a handful of live comedy shows dressed in spandex suits that were made to make us look like professional male wrestlers. Neither one of us has ever looked so toned.
17. Favorite Mantra: We’re all going to die someday!
18. Favorite Social Media Platform: currently I’m big into Snapchat; it’s silly and sloppy and unedited, a lot like my personal style
19. Favorite Holiday: I love New Year’s Eve. I’m someone who subscribes to “fresh starts,” “optimism,” and “bullsh*t resolutions.” And it’s a bonus that you get to dress up as much or as little as you want for the night; NYE has a uniquely broad tolerance of fashion and f*ckery that I can’t help but love.
20. Favorite Thing to Hear You Say After Reading This Book: “It wasn’t the worst!”
vintage grace
SHOPPING LESSONS FROM MY FATHER
When I was in sixth grade, the Limited Too was the shopping mecca.
Girls were made and betrayed by that innocent, bubble-letter font with the flower in the logo. If you shopped at Limited Too, you were hot sh*t. And probably too young to use the phrase “hot sh*t” colloquially.
For those of you unfamiliar, Limited Too was the teen/tween branch of the women’s clothing store The Limited. It had all of the most colorful, trendsetting clothes an upper-middle-class suburban girl could dream of.
Growing up I could never afford to shop at the Limited Too. Instead, I was limited to Ross Dress for Less, Kohl’s, and JCPenney. All very respectable, but they were the Taylor Swift circa 2011 to the Limited Too’s Taylor Swift circa now. I watched all the popular girls (who all happened to play soccer) dominate off the field with their sweet sparkle-trimmed cardigans and perfectly plaid miniskirts. And that was just a regular school day; don’t even get me started on what they wore to dances. When I went to middle-school dances I danced like no one was watching, because no one was—my outfits weren’t as cute as the other girls’ and didn’t merit the attention. I tried to compete with my ill-fitting Calvin Klein button-up shirts that I got at Ross and my imitation mini-ish skirts I got from the DEB. If you’re not familiar with DEB, it’s like the trashy stepsister of Forever 21 that takes F21 out for her twenty-first birthday, pumps her full of Jell-O shots, and convinces her to get a bald-eagle tattoo. It’s probably just a South Jersey thing, but you’re probably familiar with DEB’s boyfriend, Spencer’s Gifts, or equally trashy BFF, 5-7-9? If you’re not, I’m sure your mom is very proud of you.
From fifth through ninth grade, Limited Too was the unspoken divider between the middle-school spoiled royals and the rest of us regulars. You were either a girl who shopped there or you were a girl who shopped the six-for-the-price-of-one earrings at the Claire’s across the way spying on the girls in LT hoping they might drop a $75 sweater-vest on their way out. Sidenote: Even though I desperately wanted to be a girl who shopped at LT, I still couldn’t understand paying those prices. I’d spent too many years watching my mom use every kind of coupon/special credit card/frequent-buyer scratch-off card/random-discount lifeline to know those prices were stupid. I still believe that a store that doesn’t allow you to scratch off a lottery ticket at the checkout for a chance at extra savings is an example of modern-day communism. Shout-out to my scratch-off dealer, Kohl’s! And maybe that was part of the allure of LT. It didn’t have to offer silly sales or money-saving gimmicks to sell clothes. You either bought their stupidly expensive clothes or you didn’t. And I didn’t.
unTIL mY TweLFTH BIrTHDaY.
My dad has always been hilariously forgetful and unprepared when it comes to giving gifts. He waits until the very l
ast minute and is never sure what to buy, so you can usually expect a slightly weird but well-intentioned present. One year he got my stepmom a framed picture of a rain forest for her birthday. She’s never been to a rain forest. But she does wear a lot of animal-print clothing.
For my twelfth birthday (I was in seventh grade) my dad took me to the mall and told me I could spend $50 anywhere I wanted. In hindsight, this was probably a test to see if I’d choose the science store since he’d taken my younger brother and me there so frequently. But all I could think in that moment was, How am I ever going to decide between the prep-school-inspired sweater-vests with sewn-in collared shirts or the pink plastic crop jackets? LImITeD TOO, IT’s YOu anD me . . . and my dad. (In reality my dad has a son with a master’s from MIT, so at least someone in our family benefited from the science store.)
So my pops and I set off for my popular-making paradise. When we walked in, my ears were blessed with the hypnotic sounds of one Britney Spears and my nose was slapped with the scent of artificial vanilla. At that moment I realized IT’s VerY awKwarD sHOPPInG wITH YOur FaTHer. Did I forget to mention this was our first one-on-one shopping experience while I was in my quiet, awkward, I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-my-body-and-my-personality phase? My poor dad. The only other fashion experience we’d had together was when he tried to do my hair (pretty terribly) for Christmas when I was six and he was a single dad. My father did not understand the stylistic and social importance of the Limited Too. This was mY OLYmPIcs. And conversely I did not understand how to shop with my dad. This was about to be an educational experience for both of us.
It began at an awkward pace. I, overwhelmed by being inside LT with acTuaL intentions of purchasing something mixed with the unfamiliarity of how to shop with my dad, wandered around the store paralyzed by choices but touching everything. Sidenote: Why do we always TOucH everything when we shop? Even if I’m in a store and I know it’s too expensive and I don’t plan on buying anything, I’ll still touch a bunch of stuff thinking that equals “shopping.” Imagine seventh-grade Grace touching everything while my dad touches nothing so as not to commit himself to needing help from a sales rep and/or looking like a childless pervert. Meanwhile, I’m wrapped up in my fantasy life trying to appear to the other girls shopping there that I know what I’m doing and I clearly shop here all the time and I definitely am nOT eVen considering the pathetic-looking sales rack tucked in the very back of the store where I could spread my wealth among more than one item, allowing me to show my peers that I own THInGs from Limited Too. Things. Plural.
I would never have this opportunity again, so I had to make this purchase count.
Pssshhhh. Yeah, right. Not even considering it. I’ll be over here touching a ton of pleather jackets. To put it lightly, I was FreaKInG THe F*cK OuT. There were too many options! I would never have this opportunity again, so I had to make this purchase count. I scrambled my brain considering every unique feather-trimmed tank and bedazzled sweatsuit they offered. Touch touch touch touch. Velour sweatshirt? Touch. Maybe a denim skort. Touch. Touch. I could practically feel OCD developing.
Until my dad appeared. In an equally exhausted and overwhelmed state, he ushered me over to the front of the store to show me what he thought I should buy: jeans.
Jeans?!
I was in a store that was about to make me Cher from Clueless and he wanted me to buy Jeans?! That’s like going to Old Country Buffet and getting a small salad and some water. My dad went on to explain to me, in his usual practical and articulate way, that he believed the jeans had a longer shelf life than any of the other items in the store. He also told me that even though the jeans were $54 he would cover the extra cost. Extra cost?! Jeans?! Looking back on it now, I think my dad felt strongly about the jeans because they were the only item in the store he could recognize and identify as “clothing.”
I was so confused. Was my dad trying to sabotage my future rise to preteen middle-school queen? I didn’t care how long the jeans lasted; I wanted to be popular nOw! And no one ogled the soccer girls’ jeans. Jeans didn’t stand out. Jeans didn’t overcompensate. They didn’t say “I’m interesting” the way the floral bodysuits did! I was so overwhelmed and tired and embarrassed that I finally just agreed and bought a pair of classic-fit straight-leg jeans for $54 plus tax. On the way home I felt so defeated. I had an opportunity to reach greatness and I settled for jeans. I blew it.
Cut to four years later, my dad Knew it. For about four years I wore those classic-fit straight-leg jeans once a week, making my T.J. Maxx T-shirts look good and possibly tricking people into thinking I owned more than one pair. And they were the most comfortable pair of jeans I ever owned as an awkward, lanky, puberty-cursed teenager. Those jeans truly were a classic. They lasted for the long haul and stayed in style, until those damn bell-bottoms came back and dominated.
It also turned out that I was never going to be popular in high school. So thinking that some trendy pleather skirt was going to change everything was delusional. If there’s one thing my dad knows how to do, it’s procrastinate and stick to the basics. He’s a simple man who doesn’t need frills. Literally. Never once did he suggest investing in frilly lace shorts. My dad taught me the value of a classic. Clothes are like friends and fake plants: invest in the ones that will last. Thanks, Dad—your natural fight-or-flight instincts in a preteen clothing store accidentally taught me a core fashion lesson. Turns out, I’m not limited to trends. I’m so sorry.
basics
WORK IT
I know the Ring Pop on the cover may have
fooled you into thinking this is an informative style guide, but it’s not. There are thousands of magazine articles, television shows, and books out there that can tell you the appropriate things to wear in the workplace, so we’re going to skip all of that. Instead, I’d like to explore the things you shouldn’t wear in the workplace. Because no one tells us that. And it’s important. So important that I’ve compiled an extremely thorough list.
However! If you were really hoping to read actual advice about workplace staples, here’s a quick overview: do not wear actual staples. Also, take these suggestions with a grain of salt; they’re coming from a girl who is technically in her “workplace” right now, shoeless and wearing a lime-green T-shirt with giant ironed-on letters spelling out “GraCe.” I am FaSHIOn.
HERE’S THE BORING LIST OF THINGS EVERYONE TELLS YOU TO WEAR TO WORK:
Comfortable, classic shoes
Pants/trousers
Pencil skirts
Modest dresses
Blouses, shirts, and blazers
HERE ARE MY WORKPLACE GO-TOS
If you’re at all curious, here are the real things I wear to work. I work in a variety of settings. I work from home, I work on sets, I work from hotel rooms, I take meetings in coffee shops, offices, etc., etc., etc. My “professional” wardrobe varies depending on the work environment, but I usually opt for one of three looks:
Clean pants (jeans or otherwise), a (hopefully) stain-free top (T-shirt or button-down), maybe a statement necklace, some heels or ballet flats, and usually a leather bag
A shift dress or loose tunic with sneakers, ballet flats, or heels, and a leather backpack or clutch (only if I’m feeling wildly secure and not like I need to bring everything I own with me in case every emergency happens at once. I don’t carry clutches often.)
Sweatpants, whatever shirt I slept in last night, and chip crumbs
Enough about me! Let’s talk about things you shouldn’t put on your person in the workplace (most obvious: your boss).
WHAT NOT TO WEAR TO WORK
A cardboard box: Yes, boxy can be fashionable, but a cardboard box isn’t the best way to go. From personal experience I can tell you it’s uncomfortable and can bruise the armpits and neck areas. Turns out people don’t like it if you use the handicapped stall when you’re not disabled. The color isn’t flattering on most skin tones. And if you happen to spill any liquids on it, the smell of wet cardboard i
sn’t helpful in a work environment. Leave the cardboard boxes at home, people!
Tinfoil: Modern/futuristic shapes and textures are fun to play with, but tinfoil will spoil the fun. It doesn’t breathe, the edges are sharp, and don’t even TRY to get near a microwave with it on. Eesh.
Chain mail: Unless you work at Medieval Times, chain mail isn’t great for the office. It’s loud, it’s heavy, and it’s really outdated. Stick to email. HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!
Toilet paper: Wearing toilet paper in the workplace is something no one tells you not to do, but you definitely shouldn’t do it. In certain kinds of lighting it can be unexpectedly see-through (yikes!) and the durability factor is pretty low. It’s not flattering to most body types and can end up giving you a bulkier shape than you actually have. Major fashion faux pas!
Candle wax: Yes, Ricky Martin has made candle wax a cool thing to put on your body, and yes, candle wax is cheap in bulk, but that still doesn’t mean it’s a good fit for the office. The potency of the scent can be difficult to regulate throughout the day, and if anyone happens to spill hot coffee on you, the wax will melt and it’s game over. You won’t look like a scene from a Ricky Martin music video. You’ll look like a failed performance-art piece. And it’s hard to negotiate a raise from your boss like that.
Live snakes: Live snakes, though extremely sexy for Britney Spears, are not appropriate for the workplace. They can be offensive, they molt, they’re distracting, they’re poisonous, Samuel L. Jackson hates them, you get it. Save the snakes for the weekend.
Fruit: Miss Chiquita Banana, the first lady of fruit, looks excellent in a fruit-filled headdress. But the rest of us, sadly, do not. A headpiece like that can give you neck cramps, it can attract bugs (and not just Phil from legal—nailed it!), and it can also be offensive and uncomfortable for anyone in the office with a pineapple allergy.