3. adding in the “flair:” style & confidence

by Cassandra Mendez · Published August 25, 2020 · Updated July 29, 2023

hi hello hey, and welcome back!

Our podcast is called Rare with Flair. You hopefully knew that already, but there’s something important about it we wanted to emphasize this week: flair. We chose this name very intentionally because we felt that it fit our brand perfectly: being disabled, but also enjoying living life as women in our 20s. While many of our future episodes will be focusing on the “rare” aspect, we wanted to remain three-dimensional to our audience and talk about things that matter to us, which in this episode, is fashion!

Like many women in their 20s, we love fashion and each have our own defined style. This episode starts with us explaining why we love fashion so much even though we’re legally blind. As we mention, we’ve been stared at our entire lives, so part of why is to give people something nice to stare at! Then we each have fun talking about our own styles in clothes, shoes, jewelry, and even explaining what our tattoos mean to us.

Spoiler alert: growing up disabled not only influences how you function daily, but as we discovered in this episode, it’s also influenced our style preferences. This leads into talking about confidence and when we began to accept ourselves more fully. We talk about fashion faux pas from trying to fit in in middle school, things we may still be a little self-conscious about, and touching on body positivity. Afterward, we answer a listener question, and play a little game of Style This or That where we ask each other questions about our style preferences.

Thank you to all the listeners that have emailed us over the past couple weeks! It’s been lovely hearing all your stories and encouragement. As always, if you have any questions for us that we can answer on the podcast or just want to send us a funny story, our inbox is ready at hello@rarewithflair.com!

collage of cassandra and casey standing outside. cassandra wears a striped top, denim skirt-jumper, white knee high socks, and white sneakers. casey wears a lavender sleeveless fit and flare dress and white sneakers — Cassandra + Casey showing off their style, 2020

show notes

housekeeping

First, just wanted to note that we will be mentioning several brands throughout the show! None of them have sponsored us (…yet 😉 ) but they will be linked below if you’re curious.
Cassandra references episode 2 and mentions that she got her guide dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind, the largest guide dog school in the country (since she forgot last time oops).
- She plugs Guide Dogs for the Blind’s documentaries “Pick of the Litter”, the movie-length version of which shows puppies in their puppy-raising homes (available on Amazon Prime, Hulu, and now Netflix), and a docu-series showing the process when the puppies leave the homes and go to “dog college,” aka formal guide dog training (available on Disney+)
Casey jokes about our name and how it sounds a lot like “flare up” which is a common way of saying a chronic illness has gotten worse for a period of time (lol). We will be talking chronic illness in the future so stay tuned for “Rare with a Flare Up” 😉

fashion + personal style

casey and cassandra sitting at a table with their arms around each other and smiling at the camera, march 2014 — Casey with hair extensions, 2014

Casey’s five style words: romantic, vintage, feminine, classic, and whimsical
Cassandra’s five style words: bright, feminine, edgy, trendy, unique
Casey mentions her love of Peter Pan collars (Wikipedia)
Casey brings back the reference from episode 1 of her Doc Marten shoes
Cassandra mentions Lilly Pulitzer
Cassandra mentions Converse shoes
Casey mentions Adidas, Vans, and Keds
Cassandra mentions oVertone coloring conditioner
Casey mentions when she had hair extensions, so see our photo from 2014 (we’re so little!)
Cassandra mentions Neutragena, Sephora, & Bite Beauty for lip color
Cassandra and Casey mention their Medic Alert bracelets and we highly recommend them for anyone with a disability or allergy! They could save your life!
Cassandra references her permanent ileostomy (read more on our about HPS page)
Cassandra mentions Michael Kors
Casey mentions the nonprofit Dare to be Rare
Cassandra mentions the Five Solas in Christianity (Christianity.com)
Cassandra mentions the Taíno people (Wikipedia), the native occupants of Puerto Rico before colonization

casey smiling at the beach, sporting a white halter top and lavender high waisted shorts. she has a pixie cut with a white headband — Casey at the beach, 2020

cassandra outside with guide dog romana sitting on a stone bench. cassandra wears a bright floral skirt, brown strappy sandals, a white graphic tee with the word "sunshine" four times, and a white wide brimmed hat — Cassandra and guide dog Romana, 2020

tattoo pictures

We wanted to share pictures of our tattoos so you all could visualize them after we tried to describe them.

Casey’s tattoos

Casey's first tattoo on her ankle of a treble clef and cross hybrid — Casey’s first tattoo: treble clef and cross hybrid, 2011

Casey and her best friend Audrey after getting their matching tattoos. Casey and Audrey pose sitting on the ground and propping their knee up so you can see both girls with their tattoos — Casey and her bff Audrey with their
matching tattoos, 2011

Caseys second tattoo on her right wrist. photo shows the inside of her wrist and pink nails with the word "rare" tattooed in Braille — Casey’s second tattoo: “rare” in Braille, 2019

Cassandra’s tattoos

Cassandra posing against a cream colored wall and only her top left is visible. her bicep tattoo is the focus, which is a phoenix drawn of lines and swirls as it rises. "Sola fide" is written in script above — Cassandra’s first tattoo: phoenix with “by faith alone” in Latin, 2017

Cassandras ankle with her second tattoo, a small, round, potted cactus in full color with a pink flower on top. words in handwriting arc on the left side of it that read "te amo mucho," or "i love you a lot" in Spanish — Cassandras second tattoo: a potted cactus in honor of her abuela and “I love you lots” in Spanish, 2018

Cassandras right thigh soon after it was tattooed. It shows an abstract, geometric sun with oval eyes and an oval mouth in black ink. behind it are two arrows intersecting with feathery fletching — Cassandra’s third tattoo: a Taíno sun with two arrows, 2018

Cassandra right and older brother carlos left posing with their matching tattoos against a dark wall. both look serious with crossed arms. carlos looks over his shoulder to face the camera as his rolled pant leg revels the back of his calf where his tattoo is. cassandra wears shorts and her thigh tattoo is visible — Cassandra and older brother Carlos with
their matching tattoos, 2018

confidence

cassandra standing outside for her first day of 7th grade wearing chunky white skater sneakers, light wash bootcut jeans, and a striped green polo — Cassandra wearing an Aeropostale polo, 2009

teenage casey and her older sister lynley. casey is wearing a baggy white polo shirt and sporting the frosty pink lips and bronzer look she mentions in the podcast — Casey sporting “frosty lips”, 2005

Casey and Cassandra joke about the cringe-worthy outfits they wore when they were in middle school (enjoy these pictures lol)
We both mention: Aeropostale, Hollister, Birkenstock, The North Face
Cassandra makes mention of Casey’s adorable skirt from Anthropologie (photo below)
Watch Casey’s video on accepting her nystagmus (involuntary eye movement) (YouTube)
Cassandra speaks about having white arm hair due to lacking pigment in albinism. For more on albinism, see our about HPS page or episode 1’s show notes.
Cass recommends Dollar Shave Club and references ZoomText magnification software