I was happy when Bubby Makes Three gave me the opportunity to let it all hang out. As much as I adore the aesthetics of life, I've got a bit of an issue with the Over-Styled Life. I previously mentioned Fleur Wood's book and how much it made me cringe. Even though I couldn't get into the over-done images and seemingly forced bubbliness of the whole thing, at least it was authentically Fleur Wood. I think she's really, genuinely like that.
Although sometimes I'm rather too preoccupied with the way life looks for comfort, I'm not really in danger of leading an OLS any time soon. It's the kind of life where at a party the host worries more that everything looks perfect than the happiness of the people attending. It's perpetuating the myth that women leap out of bed fully airbrushed into homes that look like a magazine spread. A world where only a $495 rubbish bin from Top 3 by Design will save our homes from becoming land fill. It's eating Donna Hay food rather than just looking at it. It's shopping at boutique grocery stores and paying $36 for a slice of cheese without batting a Bimatoprost coated eyelash.
It's sands and taupes and camels. It's definitely never beige.
It's the woman watching the people watching her children frolicking in their matching white sundresses rather than watching the children herself. Her husband smiles indulgently and wonders if she's put on a bit.
It's over-bright smiles and self-conscious fussing. It's forced whimsy and copy-cat cutesy. It's like we stopped looking at Pretty in mags and decided that we wanted that stylist-created, airbrushed life for ourselves. Without the stylist or the airbrushing.
It's all so samey same same and it's infiltrating more and more sectors of my life and it's driving me a bit bonkers! Fortunately, I am far too frizzy, beigey and generally lazy to really fall victim to the OSL phenomenon. But, I know it... oh, yes, we've met and I didn't instantly turn my back like I should have...
Are you a victim of the OSL? Can you maintain the pace?