Dear Housewife, you look fine.

Ready for some mommy real talk?  Here we go:  I hate the way I look somewhere around 96% of the time. Does that surprise you?  It shouldn't.  Not when (according to an article I am now way too busy to find) 70 something percent of both stay at home and working mothers in this country feel the exact same way. 

I've had conversations with dudes about this and they don't seem to get it. 

"You look fine."

They claim. 

Their wives look "fine."  Their sisters and mothers look "fine."  We all look fine. 

Oh wait... Except for that mother of three at Walmart that we've never met. 

She's fat. 

Or that facebook friend that posts all the selfies and inspirational quotes. She's "ugly" and/or "desperate" or (my favorite) an "attention whore."  And I wonder sometimes how it is that I look "fine" when so many other mothers have "let themselves go."  What's so different about me?

The answer is:  Absolutely nothing. And I've known this for quite a while, but I used to let that knowledge fester inside my head creating an untold number of crippling insecurities. 

Housewife Couture began with a telephone conversation between myself and a friend of mine who is also a stay at home mother to a large number of children. She and I both did some modeling in our physical prime (read: 19 years old) and we were discussing a mutual girlfriend that is still in the industry and just scored a major runway campaign. We commented on how amazing it was that she still looks so young... So glamorous... So....

Childless. 

Because our friend has no children and this, we decided, must be the source of her perfect skin, body and clothing. This woman wears dangly earrings!  And red lipstick!  And fake eyelashes!  (All things which we gave up long ago due to the grabby nature of little toddler fingers).

"Wait, seriously. What are you wearing right this second?"

I asked my friend. 

We shrieked with laughter as we both described the dirty, unflattering, mismatched "outfits" that covered our stretch-mark laden bodies. We giggled until tears rolled down our makeup-less faces over the state of our hair, the baby spit up on our shoulders and the hideous, oversized sweaters we both wore to hide our flabby stomachs from our husbands. 

From there, we moved on to a discussion about the "mom style" boards on Pinterest. Which...

And it occurred to us that maybe we've been playing for the wrong team for too long. Why are we sitting here feeling bad about ourselves for not wearing scarves and boots while we scrub toilets and clean up vomit? Why are we comparing ourselves to fashion boards on Pinterest or advertisements riddled with moms wearing hats while they snuggle clean, smiling two year olds? What planet do these women live on?

What if, for just a moment, a clothing company made and marketed the kind of clothing moms ACTUALLY wear. Where are THOSE advertisements?  Where are THOSE women and children?  Because while I can sit here and be like "Ok, Brie. This is it. We're going to get dressed every day this week and put on makeup and wear lingerie to bed." I know it's bullshit and so do you. 

Sure, I try to get dressed for my husband because I still want him to think I'm sexy and pretty and whatever. But the second that man leaves the house, I'm throwing on the ugly yoga pants and all this stupid hair is going right up on top of my head because being a stay at home mom is DIRTY and EMOTIONAL and completely unforgiving. 

My friend and I chatted about the entire concept for quite a while and hung up somewhere around the time we decided it was late enough for that coveted afternoon glass of wine. 

While I was sipping my Pinot, I snapped, edited and sent her this photo:

And since I'm something of an "attention whore" myself, I ended up putting it on Facebook in the hopes of making my other hardworking, pajama wearing friends smile and know they're not even a little bit alone. 

From there, Housewife Couture has become (on a very small scale) kind of a thing... And I want to make it bigger. Not because of the attention whore thing... That's whatever... But because I want other women to know that they don't have to look perfect to be glamorous.  We ARE glamorous, damn it!  None of us have let ourselves go... That's not what it's about. We are raising children, cleaning houses, working two jobs, cooking, organizing, going back to school, trying to be good wives or going through divorces. We are scooping up poop and puke with our bare hands, breastfeeding until we're (literally) bloody, singing songs, teaching lessons and hopefully drinking a little wine at the end of our seemingly endless days. 

And so, to Pinterest, which thinks I should be wearing a freaking pashmina and fishbone braid during all that nonsense, I would like to say:

Thanks, but no thanks. 

Housewife Couture is a joke... With a message. If you don't get the joke, fine. But I hope you do at least get the message. 

Let's stop holding women to expectations that don't exist ANYWHERE other than advertising and Hollywood. Let's stop pretending that "mom style" doesn't include our husband's old Tshirts and lounge pants from Walmart. And when we DO get dressed up, let's just accept the fact that a sequined dress doesn't magically transform us into single, childless people with no garages to organize. 

Because if we keep looking for guidance toward that scarf wearing, childless model holding the happy baby that doesn't belong to her, we are just going to get lost in a sea of self-doubt and a lack of understanding for what the world should expect from us. 

You're not "fine", mama. 

You're beautiful. You're stunning. You're exceptional. You're glamorous. 

You're couture. 

You. Are. PERFECT.  And damn it, so am I. 

So let's take a selfie to celebrate and not worry about whether or not people will think we're attention whoring.  It's time to show the world what we look like every day.  And I'm here to prove that with a little photo TLC and a fake fashion label, anyone can look like a page out of a magazine. 

All the women you'll see on this site are real. They're wearing their real clothes and posing with their real children. Some of them are married, some are not. Some have lots of children, some are pregnant with their first. Some of them work, some of them stay at home. The photos ARE all photoshopped (obviously) to look like advertisements, but I don't do nearly as much on most of them as you might think.  Every woman on this site has a story... Some of them, I'll share... And some of them are heartbreaking. 

If you're a husband that's accidentally stumbled onto this website, go tell your wife how beautiful she is. Trust me, she needs to hear it. Even if you said it five minutes ago. 

If you're a fellow "housewife" take a moment to absorb the fabulousness. Take a look around. And if you decide you want to be a part of the photo series, send me an email at housewifecouture@gmail.com

I'm always accepting photo submissions (a lot of the ones you see here were taken by husbands, kids etc.) and if you live in the Houston area we can schedule a photoshoot with me as your photographer. It only takes about 15 minutes and requires basically no set up.

And look, if you don't get it or think the whole thing is stupid, feel free to leave a crappy comment so I can explain it to you as condescendingly as possible.