Cape-able

Hey young world,
I have a confession... I'm trying my absolute hardest not to over-do or over indulge in the Cape Blazer trend.  Right now I have 2 and one of the way.  That's going to be it for me this season... I promise... I hope...
This cape blazer has been featured a few times on different plus size fashion blogs.  My first time seeing it was on the lovely Marie of The Curvy Fashionista when she wore it to the Thiq Boutique's Fashion Showcase.  I was soooo obsessed with it I had to have it.  You know something is meant for your closet when you can think of at least 10 different ways to wear it.
So far this is my second time wearing it (I couldn't get pictures from the first time I wore it :-( ).  I wore it to my cousin's wedding.

Black Friday Deals: Plus Size Fashion

Hey young world,

Sooooo I'm sure you're either cooking or getting your shopping strategy together in preparation for Black Friday.  Or you could be an extremely talented multi-tasker and you're doing both.  Either way I'm here to help you out! I've been in my emails all day checking to see what deals my favorite fashion retailers have going on.  These are a few of the ones I found:

Too Legit

Hey young world,

A while ago, a good friend referred me to a guy that was starting his own online magazine.  He was looking for someone to write a plus size fashion column in the magazine.  This was during the time I was on a hiatus from blogging but I decided to link up with him to see if he would allow me to be part of his online magazine.  Well, long story short, he accepted me and I've worked with him a few times.
Recently, I did my first video interview with him.  I kept my outfit simple with a few fall fashion trends that I'm excited about: the Cape Blazer and thigh high boots.

Faux the Love of Fur

Hello young world,
Fabulous fur everywhere! And you don't have to worry about some innocent animal losing its life over your need to be chic. Along with suede and leather, fur is a fall fashion staple.  Several plus size retailers are offering great faux fur pieces.  Now personally, in the past, fur was not something that I really cared for.  I used to feel like it was too fancy for me.  Well, lately, the fur styles that I have been seeing are pretty darn cool.  I noticed they can styled with jeans and a tshirt or with an evening dress.  I'm more of a no fuss t-shirt and jeans kind of girl so seeing these options really excited me.  Here are a few of my favorite pieces:

Gotta Have It! Cape Blazers

Hello young world,

Fall is here... Live and in full effect.  It hasn't quite set in for real in Atlanta, though.  One day the highest temperature is 55 degrees then two days later the high is 80 degrees.  That's that good ol' bipolar Georgia weather for you.
For fashion Fall is the probably the most exciting time of the year.  Although I hate the weather, I must admit I absolutely love the fashion options.  One particular trend that I'm really loving is the cape blazer.  I first saw the cape blazer in one of Chasity's outfit posts.  At the time of her post, there weren't many options for cape blazers in plus size.  As it got closer to fall, I started seeing them more.  Here are a few of my favorites:

That's the way it goes...

Hello young world!
Remember me? I surely hope so... If not allow me to re-introduce myself...

I'm Tandrika.  A fashion enthusiast and marketing nerd from Atlanta.  I started this blog back in 2011 (woooow...) to showcase my style and love for fashion.  As you may have noticed I dropped off the face of the earth around 3 years ago (My last post was October 12, 2012).  There were a few things that led to that disappearance.  I have a story to tell... Like to hear it? Here it goes...

OOTN: BarOne

Hello young world!
 This past weekend was crazy in Atlanta. The BET Hip Hop Awards was here as well as the HBCU Football Classic. I wanted to get fancy and go out but because of all the rappers and entertainers in town this weekend I knew all the groupies were going to be out and the club owners were going to be charging $100 plus a limb to get into the club. Plus, I'm just over the whole club scene anyway. Luckily, my old manager just so happen to call me wanting to go to a lounge. It's soo sad but for me to be from Atlanta I literally have NO idea what goes on and where everybody likes to go on Saturdays. Anyway, my co-worker suggested we go to BarOne so I made reservations and that's where we went. If you watch Housewives of Atlanta then you know that BarOne is owned by Cynthia Bailey's husband, Peter Thomas. He's soooo handsome in person! He was actually there celebrating his birthday. Ok enough of the rambling here's what I wore:

ChicksxKicks: Reeboks

Hello young world!

Recently, Reebok teamed up with a few fabulous young ladies to design their own version of the Reebok classics for women. This collaboration includes two female entrepreneurs: Simone Amelia a.k.a. Boss Lady, Lifestyle Manager of online urban retailer DrJays.com and Fashion designer Melody Ehsani.  These ladies designed their own versions of the Reebok Betwixt.

Boss Lady was inspired by her favorite cartoon heroine, Princess Jasmine, in the design of her version of the Betwixt.  The shoe design incorporates animal prints and gold chains.

Curves Fashion Week

Hello Young World!
A few weeks ago I was on Tumblr when I came across a post about Curves Fashion Week. When I saw the post I assumed that the event was going to be held somewhere other than Atlanta. However as I kept reading I learned that the event was held here in Atlanta!(Yaaaaayyy!!!) So I immediately began scanning the whole internet and sending emails to find out more information. The PR rep responded back with me very quickly and I was granted media access to the Independent Fashion Designers showcase. My curvy compadre Kim (kayelleknows) and I charged up our Nikons and headed to the show. This was my first fashion event! (That's the reason why it took my almost a month to do this post. My editing skills are on a novice level) The event was very nice! It's one of the best fashion shows I've been to Atlanta (other than the ones I've produced :-])Here are my favorite looks from the designers that were featured in the show:

I'm here!!

Hello young world!
I hope you still love me... Or kinda like me... I've been low key working on a few projects and trying to figure out what and how I wanted to do my blog.  Of course I'm still working on those things but I wanted to give you a few outfit pictures from my birthday.

Love YOU some YOU!

Hello young world!
I recently read two articles from two plus size fashion blogs that I follow about confidence (Diary of a Fatshionista and Frantic Dreams). It's kinda inspiring to hear other women's stories about their confidence and how they gained it. Unlike those beautiful ladies, I don't have lots of people emailing me about how I became so fabulous.  However, I did feel inspired to discuss that topic because it comes up alot in conversations that I have with other women.  So with that being said I decided to share my story...
Now my story is very much like everyone else's... I was always the tallest biggest girl in my classes, I got picked on, called fat, blah blah blah. I didn't really embrace myself until I was a Sophmore in college. I was 19 and was getting over my first real heartbreak.  At some point during that time I decided that it was time that I started loving me.

Wise words from my mommy: "No one will love you like you love you!"

*waves* Hi!!

Hello young world!
Sorry for the lack of posts.... It's not really like I post on a regular basis anyway (bad Tan!).  I really want to start posting regularly so I've been researching and brainstorming about what direction I want to go in.  Independent Fashion Bloggers has been a great help in my research.  If you are a blogger you must read their articles daily!  I learn so much from that site on a daily basis.  There's more to quality blogging then just taking random pictures and writing a paragraph or two about the random pictures.  I hope from now on that I will be giving my faithful few readers quality material :-)

On to some more fun stuff... My summer so far has been amazing! I'm having soo much fun!  I have to admit that I've become an Instagram-aholic so I've been capturing moments of my summer in pictures.

Flyer Learning: Summer Kicks

Hello young world!

I'm not a sneaker-head... I swear I'm not.  But I do appreciate fly sneakers.  This summer there will be a lot of dope sneakers dropping and I'm super excited.  I hope to get my hands on a few of them.  To my surprise a few old school labels (Saucony and New Balance) are making a cool comeback.

Brown Girl Beauty: Summer Lips

Hello Young World!!
I'm not usually a make-up wearer however lately I've been into different lip colors.  When I'm looking for lip colors and glosses it's very important to me that it's moisturizing and can last a long time.  Dry lips are not sexy!
My favorite lipgloss right now is the MAC Cremesheen Glass.  It's absolutely perfect!  The colors are fairly sheer with a tint to them. It's long lasting and moisturizing so you can wear it all day every day.  My favorite is Partial to Pink.  Its a really pretty, slightly shimmery, natural pink color.  It also adds a nice touch to pink and nude lipsticks.  I use it so much that over the last three month's I've bought three of them (don't judge me).  Here are the other colors I've bought over the last couple month's.  These will definitely be a part of my summer wardrobe.

  When I go out (depending on what I have on) I wear the Japanese Spring over Up the Amp.  I bought Star Quality while I was in Miami a few weeks ago and I wore it everyday.
Other than the Cremesheen Glass, I heard that Urban Decay's Lip Junkie line is pretty good.  I'll be trying those next.

What lipcolors are you wearing this Summer?

Thanks for reading!

The creation of The L.I.F.E.Style

Hello young world!
For the last two months or so my team has been working on a special project.  It's entitled The L.I.F.E.Style which means The Look in Influences on Fashion, Entrepreneurship, and Style.  This series will give viewers an in depth look into urban fashion businesses, entrepreneurs, artists, and more.  In this first video we had the opportunity to interview and interact with many well known urban brands.

 Here is the first video of the series:



The idea behind The L.I.F.E.Style series is to tap into those things that drive the urban fashion scene.  We will go behind the scenes and interview those people that are responsible for keeping you fresh.  Stay tuned to The AKTion Team TV channel on YouTube  for more...

Thanks for reading!

Chick in Kicks: Wendy Lam of Nitrolicious

Hello young world!
I'm doing a project in my social media marketing class where I have to come up with a social media marketing plan for a brand.  I chose to do MAC cosmetics because as of lately I've been really into their products.  Anyway, as I was researching some of the social influencers for the brand I came across Wendy Lam.  Her blog is Nitrolicious.  As some of you all may know she was one of the bloggers that had the opportunity to create a lip glass for MAC's Blogger Obsession Collection.  While I was on her site researching her work as a blogger I came across this video where she's shopping around New York City. Guess what tho?  She stopped at the Flight Club!! She's a sneaker wearer!  In the video she says she owns over 200 pairs of sneakers... Love at first site! :-)



I have to make my way to Flight Club one day.  Did y'all see those white and green Retro 4's?!!! Need them...
Thanks for reading!

Style Project: KayElle

Hello young world!
I would like you all to meet one of my business partners/besties Kimberly (aka KayElle).  She is a blogger, photographer, Sneaker hoarder, lover of all things cute, all round cool chick.  [ You can visit her blog here].  Kim is also a Tomboy that tends to hide her curves under big shirts and hoodies.  *whispers* She doesn't own very many "girl clothes"! Don't tell her I told you!* Anyway, she works with me and as you all know we had a manager's meeting last week in Baltimore.  I took on the task of getting her dressed for both events.  Here are the pictures:

This is what she wore to the banquet

 Outfit Specs 

Dress: Torrid 

Shoes: Payless 

Jewerly: Forever 21 and Payless 

 We caught a great deal on the dress. It was only $50! Then she was able to get another discount because she applied for the card. Overall the dress was a good deal. Because Kim is smaller at the top I thought it would be nice to put her in something that was one-shouldered. I think the dress looked really good on her. She received several compliments. Yaaaaay me! :-)

 This is what she wore to the trade shows and the meetings

 Outfit Specs 

Skirt: Ross 

Denim Shirt: Walmart 

Shoes: Converse Chuck Taylors

With this outfit I wanted to keep her in her comfort zone with sneakers but pull her out a little bit by putting her into something more form fitting and show her curves off a tad bit.  

She really loved her outfits and felt good in them.  Let me know what you all think!

Thanks for reading! Make sure you go and check out her blog! KayElleKnows  

Chili

Hello young world!
Today was the second day of my business trip which actually included some business.  My day was full of meetings and a really nice trade show.  Last year I wore dark colors to the meeting so this year I decided to wear more colors.  I also wanted to take a chance and mix prints but I kinda chickened out. :-( Maybe next time....

Here's my outfit...

Outfit Specs:

Dress: Style 369

Cardigan: Torrid

Shoes: Bakers

In cased you actually noticed, I'm actually wearing a little make-up.  I've been looking for a really pretty orange lipstick and a friend of my suggested Chili by MAC.  I loooooovvvee this lipstick! It's absolutely perfect!



Stay tuned for my next post... I styled one of my business partners/homie for our meeting.  Everyone loved her looks and I can't wait to share them with you guys! :-)

Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a comment... Or three... Or 90... :-)

Leopard and Berries

Hello young world!
As you all may know from a previous post, I recently got acquainted with body-con dresses.  I bought this dress a few months ago to wear in Orlando for All-Star weekend however I never got the chance to wear it.  The company that I work for has an annual meeting for the mangers which includes a banquet so I decided to pull out this dress for the occasion.  I initially wanted to wear a royal blue pump with it but after scouring well over 10 stores I could not find a decent pair in my size :-(.  So I settled for these beautiful berry colored H by Halston pumps.

Outfit Specs:

Dress: ASOS

Shoes: H by Halston for Bakers 

Accessories: Charlotte Russe 

 I went with a berry colored pump because I thought it would a different twist on the animal print dress. Usually people pair red pumps with leopard print but I wanted to do something a little different. Let me know what you guys think! :-)

 Thanks for reading!

Spring Obsessions Pt. 1: Wedges

Hello young world!
Youtube has been my BFF!! I'm really learning how to use photoshop and it's pretty exciting.  Now I'm not professional (yet!) however I was able to make my first wishlist/favorites collage.  I decided that I'm going to do a brief series of posts sharing with you guys a few of the spring trends that I am excited about.  The series will be called Spring Obsessions.  Hopefully you all will find these posts useful when you are looking for ideas to help with your spring wardrobe.
The first trend that I'm super excited about is Wedges.  This year all of the wedges I've seen have been really cute! I do not own very many pairs of wedges but after this spring I definitely will be making them apart of my wardrobe.  Here are a few pair that plan to buy:

Here are the sites that you can find these and plenty more wedges:

DSW
Zappos
Bakers

All of these sites carry 11's and in some cases they carry 12's! :-)

Let me know what you all think!

Thanks for reading :-)