Style, Confidence & 4 New Handmade Upcycled Denim Bags | Funky Grunge Boutique

As a creator, I didn’t really start understanding confidence until I got older. For years, I thought confidence in style meant being able to wear everything I saw in magazines and somehow knowing how to put it all together the “right” way. I thought women who had great style had access to things I didn’t have, whether that was more money, better clothes, or just some secret fashion sense I had missed.

As a young girl who was called ugly, I think I spent more time than I realized trying to figure out how I was supposed to look. When people put words on you at a young age, sometimes those words stay with you longer than they should. You start looking outside of yourself for approval and wondering if you are pretty enough, stylish enough, or doing things the way everyone else seems to be doing them.

Now that I am getting older a lot of that for has changed me.

I understand that ugly can be pretty and pretty can be ugly. A lot of it really does come down to how you see something. That is true with clothes, with creativity, with the things we make, and even with ourselves.

I don’t look at style the same way I used to. I no longer believe you need a closet full of new clothes to have style. There is nothing wrong with wearing the same outfit again. Wear it again and change the shoes, add a scarf, stack on some jewelry. Throw on a jacket or wear the exact same outfit the exact same way because you liked it the first time. #realtalk

Somewhere along the way, we were made to feel like having style meant constantly having something new. I don’t believe that anymore, and I definitely don’t believe confidence comes from being able to afford everything we see somebody else wearing.

There is probably a young girl somewhere right now who loves clothes and accessories but cannot afford everything she sees online or in a magazine. I wish somebody had told the younger me that not having those things did not mean I did not have style. You can use what you have. You can rewear it, rework it, layer it differently, add something to it, take something away, or make it completely your own.

That same way of thinking is a big part of why I love making my Ugly Denim Bags.

I can look at an old pair of janky jeans, frayed denim, scraps, odd pieces, tears, shreds, and things somebody else might overlook and see something I can work with. I don’t need every piece to be perfect. In fact, I don’t want it to be perfect. In fact, I like the rips and the frays. I like the strange little pieces that look like they should not belong anywhere until I figure out exactly where I want them.

I love taking something that already had a life and turning it into something completely different. Maybe that is one of the reasons the word ugly does not bother me the way it once did. I get to decide what ugly means to me now. I get to decide what pretty means to me. I get to decide what I want to wear, what I want to make, and what I want to enjoy.

The older I get, the less interested I am in whether everybody understands my style. I am also less interested in whether something is fashionable, age appropriate, or everybody’s cup of tea. I just want it to feel like me. #realtalk

And darling, that is what confidence looks like to me now.

It is not walking into a room thinking everybody is going to like what I am wearing. Sometimes confidence is knowing somebody might not like it and being perfectly fine with that because you do.

And speaking of ugly, I have four new Ugly Denim Bags coming to Funky Grunge Boutique.

The new four-bag drop will be available Monday, August 24, 2026 at 10:00 AM CST.

Each bag is handmade from denim, scraps, frays, layers, and all the little details I love putting together. They are not made to look exactly alike, and they are definitely not made to please everybody. They just need to find the person who looks at one and says, “Yep, that one is mine.”

Maybe that is what I have learned about style and confidence as I have gotten older. You do not need everybody to understand what you see. You just need to be comfortable enough to see it for yourself.

So, go ahead Wear it again. Rework it. Make it yours. And wear what the funk you want.

Xo Tangie FGB creator!