Manolo for the Big Girl Fashion, Lifestyle, and Humor for the Plus Sized Woman.

“It takes a certain type of person to have a painting of themselves above the mantel” said my friend Kirk, who at the time was admiring the same great room I was, the walls packed floor to ceiling with minor Picassos, major Modiglianis and candid portraits of our genteel host as a younger, freer man in Paris which would have been beautiful even if they hadn’t been taken by Man Ray.

“Hey! I have a painting of myself on my mantel!” I protested.

“Exactly.”

If I’m being honest, it’s not a terribly good portrait and I can’t even remember who painted it. It’s a little Liechtenstein by way of early Byzantium for me, but although I have a painting, I don’t think I have a single photo of myself displayed anywhere in the house.

Is that weird? That’s probably weird.

It’s not the dreaded Fat Girl Shame, and it’s certainly not out of modesty. I don’t have many photos of myself from my younger days and most of my grand adventures were either solo, or else photo documentation would’ve been an unwise choice. I do have several photos from last year’s trip to Ireland, but most of them are from the budding hours of our last night in town and feature a good-hearted but misguided and exceedingly ungroomed gentleman of our recent acquaintance trying to forcibly tongue bathe me on the dance floor while I shot pleading looks to my BFF who, in the tradition of all BFFs everywhere, laughed at me mercilessly and kept the shutter snapping.

Other than that, no photos.

I have a girlfriend, Penelope (obv not her real name) on the other hand, who is a normal person.

Like normal people, she has photo documentation of her life scattered in little Ikea frames all over her living space. The odd thing to me is that almost all the photos are from her teens and early twenties…a hundred pounds ago. Especially the ones on the refrigerator. I know she’s uncomfortable with her weight. She’s been uncomfortable with it since she was nine, but it’s like size 22 Penelope doesn’t exist, just size 12 who could still fit in her cheerleader uniform.

I just don’t know what to think. It makes me unusually uncomfortable, like the friend who still uses a head shot from when she was 19 as her internet dating profile, even though she’s in her mid-thirties with a totally different body shape. It’s frustrating, because she’s just exactly as beautiful now as she was then. Same thing with my skinny photo girl.

Maybe I don’t know what it’s like since I’ve always been a big girl.

I’ve never had this slender past to look upon with a combination of pride and shame. Sometimes I’m larger and sometimes I’m smaller, but I don’t harbor any belief I could still pass for 19. The last time I passed for 19 I was probably twelve and a half. Still, if I had photos of myself from that period, I’d probably stick them up.

Just not exclusively. It’s the exclusivity that’s weird.

Is it diet motivation? Coincidence? Blanket self-delusion? Intellectual dishonesty in adorable Swedish frames?

Someone help me understand.

Whether or not we are dedicated followers of fashion, we all develop some sort of style. Some craft it carefully, parsing every sartorial message with more vigor than we ever applied to any sentence in English class. Others fall into a style naturally and without much thought. Some find one thing that works forever, while others change their signature as time, whim, or opportunity dictates.

But one thing is certain: somebody out there knows it’s you by one quick glance at an article of clothing or accessory you wear.

Just last night, Mr. Twistie and I were eating out when an old friend came into the restaurant. Why? Because he’d seen my ever-present hat through the window. There are people in the world I’ve known for years who literally don’t recognize me if I go out sans chapeau.  Once a woman who – at the time – I had yet to meet in the too, too solid flesh sent me the gift of a hat she knew was just my style. Funnily enough, she was absolutely right. I wear it all the time, especially in the rainier months when a tweed cap is just right. Particularly one with muted metallic sequins on it. Really, it’s much more tasteful than it sounds.

I’ve been wearing hats almost religiously since I was fifteen. It started as a simple whim one morning, and became a Way of Life quite rapidly. I actually tried to chuck the habit about twenty years ago, but it was far too ingrained in my soul by that point. I came back to hats.

And you know what? I will never turn my back on hats again. I love them. I love how I feel when I’m wearing them. I love how wearing one turns heads in the street. I love how wearing hats seems to make people smile. I don’t even much care if the smile is the first rictus of derisive laughter. Why? Because hats and I belong together. Hats are my signature, and they delight me.

So what about you? What’s your sartorial signature? How did you come by it? How long have you been doing it? Does it make you happy? Let’s dish!

Happy Monday, gang, how’s every little thing?

Me? I’m fab. Signed the lease on the teensy new Plumcake Cottage in my equally teensy new village where my neighbors are the Pacific ocean, a motionless shriveled man who is approximately 300 years old and looks like Voldemort’s granddad (but, you know, in a nice way, although if he doesn’t move soon I’m going to have to check if he’s dead) and about three dozen dusty old trail horses who seem very interested in what’s going on with their new neighbors and ohbytheway was that a bag of apples they saw being loaded into the kitchen?

Nice work if you can get it.

Back in the states several of my friends still act as if I’ve moved into an uncharted, cannibal-filled area of New Guinea instead of a blissfully bucolic seaside village where, okay, the closest gas station is 20 miles away and if you want eggs for tomorrow’s breakfast you find the tree with the hand-painted wooden sign reading “Huevos Aqui” and follow the shakily pointing arrow to your cholesterol-laden destiny; but it’s also a place where you can walk for six miles on a white sand beach without meeting anyone except an escaped horse and and –at low tide– plump old women peeling mejillones (marine mussels) off craggy semi-submerged rocks.

Still, it’s a long way off from the hipster haven of Austin, Texas or the international moving and shaking of Washington, D.C.. So why the drastic move?

Simply put, I never thought I wouldn’t live in other countries, especially developing ones, and that in a large part has to do with my mother.

Born in Hong Kong, her formative years were spent moving all over Asia.

All her brothers and sisters were born in different countries and as a child I would delight in hearing their stories of cobras and monsoons and peasant revolts…a life totally different than anything I could know from the Benneton-diverse (you can be any color you want as long as you’re rich) confines of privileged suburban D.C..

Love and luck took me to Mexico specifically, but I’ve always been jealous of my mother’s experiences and believed a life lived entirely in your native country is something to be mourned, not cherished.

Although she’s no longer a part of my life and the tell-all fodder far outweighs the Hallmark moments, I thought we could take this week to discuss and yes, even appreciate, our mothers.

Since mother-daughter relationships are so complicated, especially when there’s a weight issue involved –raise your hand if your mother put you on a diet as a child because she couldn’t control her own size so she’d at least try to control yours– we’ll get into the deeper stuff later, but I thought it might be nice to start out on a generous foot.

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know:

What’s the most valuable gift your mother gave you, not by being a bad example, but through positive influence or personal inspiration?