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Once in a while, you come across a piece of clothing or accessory that just speaks to you and yells, “Buy me, I am gorgeous! Don’t worry about the price!”. Well ladies, the Rachel Parcell metallic embroidered holiday dress spoke to me and whispered just that when I saw it launch at Nordstrom back in mid-November. I mean, how adorable and festive was this dress?! I wanted to buy it. Moreover, I needed to buy it. I hemmed and hawed for close to 5 minutes before launching the Nordstrom app on my phone. Boom – added to cart and paid. I’ve bought shoes and bags upwards of $200 before, but knowing that I would get many uses out of them made spending the money easier. I couldn’t believe I just bought a dress for nearly $200 that I would possibly wear once a year (probably not at all in a global pandemic). On the other hand, I started to think about all of the reasons why I deserved the dress, and what purchasing a dress from a blogger-turned-famous influencer really meant. Especially to someone just starting out on her own blogging journey, like me.
For one, the dress was simply gorgeous. Hadn’t I worked my tail off all year long giving my all to a career and my family while trying to stay sane in a global pandemic? Yes. Wasn’t the detail and color exuding the holiday spirit? Yes. The shape of the dress is classic, fun and wispy. The color? Bright, merry and festive. The dress itself is flattering on most if not all body shapes. It was beautiful, and I worked hard for it.
More importantly, I couldn’t resist that this dress design (not to mention Rachel’s other collections) were the culmination of one blogger’s blood, sweat and tears over the course of several years. That resonated with me, and inspired me to imagine what her journey must’ve been like to the point of curating her own clothing collection for Nordstrom. If you’re like me and starting out on your blogging journey, you know that there are many highs and lows to this game, days where you feel your content and vision are in alignment for your followers and days where you feel that you just aren’t doing enough. Days where you may question yourself and wonder why you began blogging in the first place. How inspiring to be part of a blogger’s journey simply through a piece of clothing? I could only imagine the success and failure that she has experienced in her journey and how that has shaped the business women she has become today. To me, that was both exciting and motivating, and just what I needed on that day back in mid-November.
Years from now, I’ll pull this dress out of the closet and show my daughter pictures of her and I wearing the festive matching RP holiday wear, frolicking around our Christmas tree with no fancy place to go in 2020. My hope is that at that time and place, I’ll have something to show for my hard work on this blog – possibly a holiday dress of my very own. One can dream!