I am a style blogger. I have had a passion for the fashion industry for as long as I can remember. I didn’t grow up in the ever-trendy Los Angeles, and my experience in the high fashion heart of NYC is more than limited. I don’t spend many of my days in stilettos, strutting through city streets of skyscraper opportunities and I most certainly do not spend my days surrounded by people with the same passion that I have. Mind you, I do not condemn those who have and do all of the things I listed above. In fact, some days I envy them, but I have learned that my day-to-day life differences from your typical style blogger make me unique. Unique is interesting. However, up until today, my quote “differences” have been largely a secret. This is not because I wanted the to be, nor is it because I am ashamed of it. In this day and age, social media and the internet can be deceiving. I am going to try and explain myself without sounding like a cranky grandma who doesn’t understand what “wee-fee” (more commonly known as wifi) is. As my loyal, amazing, supportive, kick-ass followers, I feel that I have cheated you in the fact that you essentially know very little about where I come from. Which, now that I am realizing it, is rather sad because I am pretty proud of my humble roots. Anyhow, I want y’all to get to know me better. That is my intention here and I hope that you can somehow relate and get something out of this. That would make my day.
So, in case you have severe short term memory loss, let me reiterate something. I am a style blogger and I love the fashion industry just as much as any NYC native, my background is just significantly different to say the least. Allow me to explain.
I noted that I don’t spend all of my days in stilettos. There are a few reasons for that.
- Stilettos sink in the mud.
- Tractors are hard to drive in such shoes.
- Stilettos are not the ideal choice of foot protection when baling hay.
- It would be really hard to walk out into the field to hand-feed my baby cows in a pair of heels. And that would make us both very sad.
Would you like me to explain further or are you getting the hint?
If you have the inference skills of at least a piece of tree bark, I’m sure you have pieced together that I come from a very different lifestyle than the vast majority of this industry. Where I come from, people live simple lives and love every minute of it. Unless you’ve grown up in this kind of environment, you may never understand the absolute blessing it is to be surrounded by genuine people like that. I grew up barefoot with dirty hands, swinging on rope swings, climbing trees, riding four-wheelers, and playing with my cousins in the corn crib of our old family barn. I was raised in a community where one singular stoplight is responsible for controlling traffic (which is minimal), everyone knows everyone, and being an athlete in high school gets you celebrity-status amounts of attention. We have sale barns and flea markets on Saturday mornings, we park trucks around bean field bonfires on Saturday nights, and we see the same people in church on Sunday morning. I often get comments about my “southern accent” which I don’t think exists but everyone else seems to. I spend a lot of my summer days helping my dad at our family farm in the hay fields when I’m not blogging (quite a contrast there, huh?) and it’s one of my favorite places to be. Farming for a living outlines the vast majority of occupations in our area and there is a “drive your tractor to school” day every single year. And speaking of driving, just like the popular country song says, we really do just drive around ’cause we ain’t got sh*t to do. And speaking of country songs, my little town basically just is a country song. Any scenario you’ve heard in a country song, I have probably seen unfold in real life. That’s the best way I can describe it.
So, now that you know about where I come from, do you want to hear the best part?
I. Freaking. Love it.
To give you a little background about why I was inspired to share this with y’all (yes I use that word often and it seems fitting for this post), I was recently contacted by a company called Be Bona Fide (@bebonafide). Basically, their mission is to encourage genuine and honest living in order to make social media a more realistic representation of our lives. After speaking with them, I immediately realized that I was totally victim to this too! Like I said, social media can be so deceiving sometimes and we so often try to make our lives look “perfect” to everyone that happens to scroll through our feeds. Be Bona Fide wants to inspire people to post more genuine moments on their social media rather than just what we think people want to see.
I was super compelled to join this movement because in a way, I have been participating here and there without knowing it. Something I love doing is sharing little snippets of what is going on behind the scenes of my photos- cue the time I got stuck in the suede dress that was too small or when I stepped in a nest of yellow jackets trying to get that infamous waterfall shot. Yeah well, sh*t happens. I love being able to share those moments with you guys because I want you all to know what actually happened before the “perfect shot”. However, after speaking with the women behind this awesome company, I knew that I needed to take it a little farther and that’s why I decided to share a little bit about my “real” life with you guys. Because, let’s be real, I know you have never seen a picture of me and my cows on my Instagram feed have you? Well, not until now that is! 🙂
Anyhow, if there is anything I want you to take away from this post it is this.
- Be proud of where you come from. No matter where it is, it shaped who you are. Look ahead to where you want to go but never, ever forget where you came from.
- GET REAL. Our lives aren’t perfect, we aren’t perfect, and that’s freakin’ awesome. Don’t be afraid to share that with people.
I love you guys to the moon and back. Thank you for your constant support and kind words. You keep me so young. xo
Candidly Chan
Joan D Connell says
Love this & the pics, Chan! Just think I was born there 81 1/2 yrs. ago on the corner of the street the School is on & I think it was moore St.
Don’t want to take away from your blog, but life was easy & fun. I used to love to ride the bus to my Grandma DeVore’s to spend the night because we had to light the lamps!!!!
Michelle Davis says
This is an absolutely blog sis! great job and keep posting!!!
Jacy says
LOVE these photos and learning more about you! I don’t have a typical fashion background either since I come from a middle class family with zero knowledge of designer bags, etc., and now live in a small town in Missouri (where people regularly look at me like an alien for shooting blog photos). That’s one of the great things about blogging, social media, and online shopping though – you can share your love of fashion no matter where you are! And I totally agree that we are easily not real on social media most commonly for the fact that we like posting pretty pictures, but I love the idea of this brand and campaign. You’ve shown in this post that you can be real while also having amazing photos anyways 😉
Jacy
http://www.lovelenore.com
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Lauren Tippin-Crowl says
Wow Chandler! I just found your blog while looking up women’s fashion on Pinterest. So awesome that you are doing something that you enjoy with your life. Keep chasing those dreams and maybe one day I’ll see you in the real world doing something big!