The end result of this Stacy and Clinton overload is that I've become incredibly critical of my own wardrobe. You see, it's not easy being a fashionable House Wife. Roughly 70% of the time, I'm home with my dog, doing laundry, household projects, talking to friends, writing, etc. The dress code for these activities is pretty relaxed, as you can imagine. In fact, right now, I'm sitting here in my robe, clutching my morning cup of coffee. Mind you, it is 7:30 in the morning, so that is acceptable, but if I didn't have anywhere to go today, I could easily look like this until time to crawl into bed tonight. (I haven't done that yet - even when I was sick I got a shower and got dressed. As a child, I was never allowed to stay in my pajamas after being awake more than five minutes, and the lesson stuck.)
Plus, I've made a deal with Tony that I will always be showered up, dressed and have my makeup done when he gets home. (I did sell makeup for a living - he got used to seeing me done up.) I understand his intention. He's trying to keep me a part of the clothed and groomed world, and I'm trying to remain attractive to the man who is allowing me this fantastic life, not greet him from the couch, covered in Cheetos and cupcake crumbs, growling like Jabba the Hut. It's a win-win. Now sometimes that might mean that I'm throwing my makeup on at 4:30 in the afternoon. But I honor my commitments. Tony really doesn't care what I'm wearing when he gets home - although he did mention something about a french-maid outfit - so long as I don't start that long, slow slide into wearing nothing but sweatpants. Usually, I wear jeans.
When I do go out, it's mostly for errands and lunches with girlfriends. Again, not fancy-dress occasions. Usually, I wear jeans. Every once in a while I'll have a meeting with the builder of our house or one of the sub-contractors, but they wear jeans, so I feel overdressed in my party frock. Usually, I wear jeans. Date night is really the only time I get to break out of this, but if we are, say, going bowling or to hang out a friend's house and watch the game, getting really dressed up is out of the question. Usually, I wear jeans. Jeans with heels, but still jeans.
But here's the hard part - I don't like jeans. Never have. Another part of my childhood indoctrination, where I was taught that jeans were for farming and/or construction work and that ladies just don't wear jeans. (I did both farming and construction work in my youth.) Ladies wear dresses or in dire circumstances, trousers. Nice trousers with a blouse. I was the most dressed-up kid you ever saw in school. Some of the other students actually asked if I was a member of a religion that required wearing skirts. How they came to that conclusion when I was wearing a camouflage mini-skirt I don't know. (My mother had a bit of a quirky side to her clothing choices for me. By the time I reached high school, she thought I should dress exclusively from Hot Topic. I was more of a Lauren Ralph Lauren girl. And the only sophmore in my high school who dressed like a 50-year-old socialite.) But I enjoyed it. I liked being a little different, feeling like you didn't have to have a special occasion to put on nice clothes.
Even in college, I dressed up. Well, except for my senior year, when I was in the midst of a deep depression and wore the same pair of bib overalls about three times a week. It was ugly. But we got through it and eventually gave those bibs to the Goodwill. Some other college student in a deep funk can have them.
I seriously never imagined myself in a situation where jeans would be my day-to-day attire. All my jobs have been professional and required business dress. I have racks of suits and dresses and skirts in my closest. The floor is covered with stilettos, wedges and slingbacks in every color and texture. My professional wardrobe is well-edited, flattering and appropriate, with touches of color and texture and personality. I love my work clothes.
My casual wardrobe is something else entirely. I own one pair of jeans that kind of fit and that I like to wear. I have a few casual shirts, some sweaters and a few jackets that can work for business or casual. But that's about it. The problem is that when I had money to buy clothes, I always spent on business stuff. I felt like that was the clothing that made me money, so I should spend on it. When it came to my casual stuff, I wore it maybe once a week and it didn't matter if I only had three options. I could rotate.
Now that my life is 99% casual, I'm in a pickle. Enter Stacy and Clinton. For all their "contributors," they devise work, casual and evening outfits. I analyze those casual outfits like they are the dead sea scrolls. I look at the jackets, the shoes, the accessories. I listen to what kind of jeans they recommend for what kinds of body types. I now know the difference between a low-rise and a mid-rise jean and that my pants should start an inch and a half to two inches below my belly button, and not a fraction lower or higher. I know that a structured jacket can save just about any outfit and that my tops should have texture and visual interest, instead of the plain t-shirts I tend to wear endlessly. I know my accessories should be bolder and more selective and that I should buy two pairs of the jeans I love and have one altered for flats and the other for heels.
I take all this information in and store it in the shopping part of my brain. And then I go out and buy dresses like the ones Stacy wears on the show every week. Tailored, unique and fabulous, they speak to me like no pair of jeans ever could. And the shoes. Oh, God, the shoes. Who wants comfortable (but classy!) shoes you can grocery shop in when you can have a killer pair of hot-pink stilettos?
I know, I know. It makes no sense. I guess I just refuse to believe that women won't return to a time when dresses were acceptable no matter where you were and jeans were reserved for construction workers and farmers. A girl can dream.
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