I love Tracee Ellis Ross and am taking this opportunity to talk about her glorious outlook. Tracee is covering Elle Canada’s September issue, with a photo that’s just a close up of her face trying to look off the cuff elated as she’s showing off her manicure. While I get what they were going for she looks like she just woke up with a bad hangover and is shielding herself from the light coming in through the window. You can see the editorial in the Instagram slideshow below. It looks like they were going for eccentric looks that help showcase Tracee’s adventurous style. Inside, Tracee talks about one of her favorite subjects, fashion, and how it can be a topic of conversation and a game changer. I really like how she framed this as she just goes with how her clothing makes her feel.

How would you describe your style?
“I genuinely lean toward what makes my heart sing. It changes every day. Sometimes I’m one person; sometimes I’m another. But I know—I know when a script is for me, when an outfit is for me. When I get dressed, sometimes I say ‘That’s it! Okay, that’s right!’ out loud.”

Is your love of fashion innate? I assume you were mining your mother’s closet from day one?
“Obviously! But, yes, I came out like that. There are pictures of me from before I could talk, naked, wearing Mom’s high heels. When my mother was onstage, I used to hide in the quick-change booth, and after the curtains went down, I would collect the beads that had fallen off the gowns, separate them by colour and put them inside those little cases that film used to come in. I loved it all. In hindsight, I now know that I [grew up watching] a woman in her full power and glory, who utilized her agency. And that’s what clothing, style and fashion represented to me—a uniform for greatness. Your clothing can change your narrative and reframe circumstances, and it can be a visual marker for a larger conversation. That is why it has that meaning in my life.”

Your personal life has been a hot topic lately. “In an interview the other day, someone said, ‘I love how outspoken you are about deciding not to have children and choosing your career instead.’ I said: ‘Hold on. One: Yes, I am outspoken. Two: I have not “chosen” whether I am having kids or not, because it’s none of your business. Three: If I do choose whether or not to have a child or whether or not to have a husband, it has nothing to do with my career. And four: The reason that I’m outspoken is because….’”

Of questions like this! “Yes! I want to shift the language. It drives me nuts. It contributes to this idea that young girls dream of a † wedding and not the lives that they want or how they want to use their talents and what they want from their world. Marriage might be a part of that. But it might not. If I had one life mission—which this isn’t because I have so many others!—it would be to dismantle that myth, that false belief.”

[From Elle Canada]

Tracee has consistently spoken out about the narrative around women, that marriage and children are the only path to happiness and fulfillment. Last month she told Vanity Fair that she’s responded to invasive questions by asking “Why don’t you just get out of my womb? What are you doing in there?” Respect.

In terms of fashion, my mom was always big on costumes and Halloween and she also taught me that clothing was transformative. That could have been partially genetic as Tracee mentioned too, given that I insisted on wearing dresses every day for a year in kindergarten. So Tracee and I have that and fabulous moms in common. I’m really into theme dressing, retro fashion and secondhand clothes. I try not to look ridiculous but I’ve worn leg warmers with pom poms out to dinner. That was my uniform for greatness that cold winter night.

Look at her one giant earring!

ELLE CANADA SEP.18 ~ cover story. link in bio. —— “You have to learn. That a small no is a big yes. How to have the courage to say what you mean and mean what you say. To have boundaries without hacking up a relationship. Boundaries can be bridges; they don’t have to equal excavating someone from your life.” —— #ELLECanadaxTracee

A post shared by Tracee Ellis Ross (@traceeellisross) on Jul 31, 2018 at 1:29pm PDT

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos credit: Getty and Elle Canada