The 2019 Disneybound March Challenge
Last month, my creative outlet was interior design. This month, it was fashion design. I’m still living for creative direction and graphic design during the day (more on that in future posts) but these last two months have been unique challenges to flex my creativity in other directions. These new creative endeavors were tons of fun, but each came with their share of challenges.
The “challenge” this month was a literal social media challenge put out by the Instagram Influencer community @thedisneybound. Born out of the fact that Disneyworld/Land patrons aren’t allowed to dress in costumes (for the safety of unassuming guests and possibly predatory folks), Disneybound was founded by a Disney fanatic who had a wonderful idea — rather than dress in cosplay-level costumes, why not recreate the threads of your favorite characters with what you already have in your closet? Turning casual clothes into lowkey cosplay became a movement called “‘Bounding”, and every March, the community posts a challenge — Disneybound (verb — casually dress as) specific characters for all 31 days of March. Photograph and send in your submissions to document each day, and you’ve completed the challenge!
For someone like me who has a mostly monochrome closet, I knew this would be a bit of a challenge. But, I picked up a few colorful essentials (red converse, a yellow jacket, and a handful of floral prints) and planned out the month as best I could. Some days went exactly to plan. Some days, I was flying by the seat of my bright-red pants. But the biggest challenge of all was following through on the promise to take, edit, and submit a photo every day.
I spoke on my Instagram about how the Disneybound March Challenge helped with my depression in that it literally challenged me every day to get dressed with intention (something my depression loves to make me fear and avoid), but I didn’t mention this part — some days, the pictures were absolute torture. I, like everyone, feel like I can’t take a good picture some days. Even the protection of a “costume,” something that’s always given me false confidence in the past, didn’t work some days, and I spent way too much time trying to find a good angle or editing myself into Photoshop oblivion to look “perfect.” But as the month went on, my photoshoots got shorter, and my editing was far less involved. I began to get more comfortable in front of the camera and behind the “submit” button. I’m not cured of my self-image issues, by any means. But I have a full month of outfits, smiles, frowns, doubt, and confident moments captured on film. And I know it’s something I’ll look back on and enjoy one day.
Here are all 31 outfits for your viewing pleasure! If you’d like to take part in Disneybounding, there’s a theme every month where you can dress up alongside the community for one/a few/all of the days, and every March brings a new 31-day challenge. I hope you’ll give it a try! It’s definitely a new way to think about dressing, a great way to mix up your wardrobe, and a new lens to see and capture yourself through.
Happy ‘Bounding!
