Style blogger Amanda Montgomery
Style blogger Amanda Montgomery opts out of black “… and I love when collections don’t just keep florals to spring and summer, when they bring them into fall and winter.”
AMANDA MONTGOMERY
had already been blogging about fashion, trends and beauty on her site, Latest Wrinkle, for a few years when she showed up at Toronto Fashion Week to catch a few shows.
It was 2015 and an army of photographers had descended on Yorkville to capture the fabulous style of the stylishly fabulous. Montgomery was photographed wearing a floral print top, voluminous chevron skirt, off-white faux fur jacket draped over her shoulders and soon the national publications came calling.
To date, Montgomery has been featured in Buzzfeed, The Huffington Post, Good Housekeeping, Fashion Magazine and the list goes on. The attention is not surprising considering Montgomery’s style pedigree — she studied fashion design at Blanche McDonald in Vancouver — but didn’t come easy considering the archaic stereotypes Montgomery had to push past to embrace her love for pastels and florals.
“It’s very fun and girlie and kind of whimsical,” says Montgomery, 31, of her sense of style. “Colour is usually really, really important to me … I love anything with different textures … and I love when collections don’t just keep florals to spring and summer, when they bring them into fall and winter, which we’re actually seeing a lot of this fall, which I’m really excited about.”
Being plus size most of her life, Montgomery, who worked for Aritzia and helped design the athlete escort and medal holder uniforms for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, had always been told to wear black everything — it’s more slimming, they said, more flattering. And so she did, despite dreaming about being able to wear the same range of clothes as her friends.
She designed her own outfits for a time, but soon there would be more options. There would be more bloggers. There would be more awareness of plus size fashion. And now Montgomery is able to find clothing she loves in stores and online shops and has put down her thread and needle altogether in favour of blogging about fashion instead.
“I felt like I was missing something that I had in school that I didn’t have when I was working,” says Montgomery of her transition from fashion designing to fashion writing. “And that was kind of a whole immersion in the fashion world. We would watch runway shows and review them and talk about design elements and trends and stuff like that. And I missed it so that’s why I started the blog to have that outlet to write about the things I loved writing about in school.”
Here Montgomery wears an off the shoulder white blouse with pom poms from Forever21 with a millennial pink floral skirt from Rue 107. Her powder blue lace up ballet slippers are Christian Siriano for Payless. And she accessorizes with a thumb ring and bracelet from Torrid and Peach handbag from Clementina Bags.
Most eye catching piece
I have a rose gold sequined skirt … it’s a midi skirt to my knee and it’s a full skirt so it has a bit of volume. It’s heavier than I thought it would but it’s OK — I can handle it. It’s really comfy. It’s from a brand called Society Plus.
Quirkiest wardrobe item
I have a straw hat with pom poms on it and I have a unicorn face bag. It’s like a straight-up unicorn head … it’s a little handbag, it’s on a chain.
Wardrobe must have
Pretty much anything pink, pastels and florals, I guess. That’s most of what my wardrobe consists of. And I do like vibrant colours, too, but those are my go-tos.
Best purchase
My best purchase is actually a part of this skirt. It’s a set — it converts into a swimsuit. So there’s the skirt that goes over top and the top is a cropped cap sleeved wrap top and it’s actually a swimsuit top … and then it has high-waisted bikini bottoms that you wear underneath and so any time I think I’m going to be anywhere near a beach, I wear that outfit. And then I can just take off the skirt and I becomes a swimsuit.
Regrets buying
This pink ruffled bib front jumpsuit that I got without trying on. Because I kind of look a little bit like the Easter Bunny and I have this irrational fear of the Easter Bunny, so that was a really not good combination … you don’t want to look like an Easter Bunny.
Loves to shop at
Eloquii, and I love checking out newer and up and coming … two of my favourite bloggers they’re based in LA — Nicolette Mason and Gabi Gregg, they just launched about a month ago, a collection called Premme and it is beautiful plus size pieces. Absolutely gorgeous. And Nicolette Mason is probably my favourite blogger to follow. She just has very cool style.
Ridding her closet of
Slowly I’ve been getting rid of everything that is black. Because I grew up being told that if you wear black you’ll look more slim. And so basically those were the clothes that I’d been given to wear and even when I was buying my own clothes I’d only wear black. But I don’t like black. Black’s not my thing. I love colour, I love vibrancy, I love pastels. And so I still have black pieces in my closet but they’re not being worn as much so they’re slowly getting out of there.
Splurges on
Usually dresses and skirts because I spend all year in them. I will wear pants if it’s very cold and I need to but I’d much rather be in a dress and skirt. And there’s nothing worse than buying a dress that you’ve fallen in love with and then it only lasts a season.
Beauty product she can’t live without
On days when I’m just hopping out and I need something quick to put on, I will always have SPF moisturizer. Right now I’m using SPF 50 by Avene. And then mascara, I always have to put mascara on and right now I’m using Too Faced Better Than Sex.