I’m in a scary place.
I’m in a fashion rut. No, correction – make that a fashion canyon. It’s a canyon so vast that I can’t see the other side, and so deep that I may never climb out again.
I like fashion, I really do. Whether it’s leopard-print shoes or leggings, trendy handbags or wide-brimmed hats, I love them all. Every month a new crop of fashion magazines arrives in the mail and I flick through the pages with a mixture of excitement and dismay.
Excitement, because a fashion magazine is like an orgasm for the eyes. The colors! The graphics! The long-legged, impossibly thin models!
Dismay, because I know that:
(1) I’ll never be long-legged or thin (much less impossibly thin);
(2) I can’t afford to dress in Lanvin or Chanel (I can barely afford H&M); and
(3) I’m far too fond of comfort to bother with towering heels or itchy, scratchy fabrics.
If I’m really honest, I prefer to wear jeans (not the expensive ones, either, I’m talking Levi’s here), along with a soft, faded, washed-far-too-many-times t-shirt, and black Converse All-Stars (or Doc Martens).
Not exactly a threat to Lara Stone, am I?
And the thing is, I know I should make more of an effort. At work, I wear the same trousers with the same tops, over and over again, until even I’m tired of looking at myself.
But if I wear that new pair of new skinny pants I bought, I’ll need to wear heels; and if I wear heels, my feet will be blistered and sore; and if my feet are blistered and sore, then I’ll limp; and let’s face it, limping isn’t a very fashion-forward look.
It’s far easier to just wear the gray trousers and the black sweater again. With flats, of course. So much more practical.
Still, I envy women who make the effort to dress stylishly. They wear on-trend things like riding boots paired with an above-the-knee dress, or a pretty scarf draped around the neck, worn in that offhand, I-just-threw-this-together-on-
But let me tell you, it SO isn’t.
As I stand blearily in front of my closet at six in the morning, fashion is the last thing on my mind. I just can’t be bothered. If I wear that sexy new skirt, I know I’ll be self-conscious every time I sit down, certain that my hoo-ha is showing. If I wear the scoop-neck jersey tunic, I worry that the ‘girls’ will fall out every time I lean over the file cabinet. (Of course, the ‘guys’ wouldn’t mind at all.)
In the end, it’s all about being comfortable in my own skin. If I’m not at ease in my clothes, I’m hyper-aware of myself all day, and not in a good way. I obsess about whether my skirt’s too short or my heels are too high, whether that new shade of burgundy lipstick makes me look less like Shalom Harlow and more like Lily Munster, whether I’m a shade too old for boots and above-the-knee skirts.
© 1964 CBS Television
So I decide to wear something a little different today. Instead of gray trousers and a black sweater, I’ll throw on – wait for it – navy trousers and a hot-pink twinset. And as I look at myself in the mirror, I’m pleased. The color brightens my face, the slim trousers look great with my new navy pumps, and I feel… good. Confident. Tall. Ready to take on the world.
Hmm. Maybe looking stylish isn’t so difficult, after all.
But the burgundy lipstick? It’s definitely got to go.