Topic 5: On the Satisfaction of Being Well Dressed

Carol:

The Satisfaction of Being, Well, Dressed

There was a time when I aspired to be well dressed, well groomed, well make-upped, but never all at the same time. Style-wise, I peaked around the 10th grade, which isn’t saying a lot considering that in 1964 that meant I spent hours teasing my hair into a big puff ball, wore white eye shadow and black eyeliner, and went out on dates wearing false eye lashes and fake fingernails. Somewhere along the way from teasing my flip, I went on to ironing my foot-long hair and “sleeping” in rollers made out of orange juice cans, so don’t tell me I never cared about style.

Fashion-wise, being overweight all my life has presented a challenge in trying to keep in vogue with the ups of mini-skirts and downs of granny dresses. It was just kind of a relief to find something that fit and didn’t make me look like my 75-year old grandmother. Luckily my family raised me to have self-confidence and a sense of humor, both of which I needed by the time I arrived in San Diego in the late 1970’s to teach high school. I was only about ten years older than some of the students, and I learned how to face forward (see topic #2) and not take myself too seriously (see topic #4) when I walked through the parking lot and saw all the “No Fat Chicks” bumper stickers on the cars.

Moving to a small, fairly rural community in central Arizona from beach-chic southern California in the 80’s was kind of a relief. Back then fitting in fashion-wise was mostly a matter of finding a comfie pair of jeans and a cowboy shirt for the fourth of July festivities and notching up my personal dress code to panty hose and heels when I went to work. Yes, back then we DRESSED UP to go to work. Now that I’m retired, I have four levels of clothing: (1) “My kids wouldn’t be caught dead walking with me in this outfit”: generally reserved for dog walking; (2) “Well, I can get away with this at the grocery store if I don’t run into anyone I know; (3)”Hey, here’s something that doesn’t have a stain on it, kind of matches, and doesn’t need ironing; and (4) “Omigod, I forgot all about this beautiful top I bought for weddings that is stuck in the back of the closet and never gets worn.”

What does get worn from the back of my closet is the oldest outfit I own, purchased in March of 1981 for a spring break trip with my husband to the Cayman Islands. I bought it at Sears, and its garish colors and pattern have not faded one bit in 29 years, proving the maxim that bad taste never wears out. But, in 1981 it fit and it didn’t make me look like my 75-year old grandmother. How do I remember exactly when I bought it, and why have I kept it all those years? In March of 1981 I was 5 months pregnant with my first baby, ecstatically happy even though I couldn’t buckle my sandals for the whole week of our vacation, and I felt like I was the most beautiful pregnant fat chick in the world. When I wear that dress—mind you it is a level 1 outfit that never leaves the house—I am reminded of the satisfaction of being, well, a mother.

Both (almost) 29 years old.

 
Megan:

I am not a good shopper. I do not enjoy trying on clothes, so if I don’t find something that fits on the first try, I go home again. My best-fitting professional clothes have all come from large super-markets that don’t even have dressing rooms. In the back of my mind, I’m pretty sure the items were manufactured by small foreign children in hot rooms, but I didn’t have a lot of money and these clothes were cheap. But most importantly, they fit me well.

From the plethora of TV shows like What Not to Wear, How to Look Good Naked and Queer Eye, we know that dressing well boosts one’s confidence and is the only way to be taken seriously as professional. But do they teach us that because it is true, or is it true because it’s what they teach us? I’ve always preferred comfort over style, and been happiest when the two overlap.

The county library system I used to work for had an ambiguous dress code. We were supposed to dress in a similar style to the people we served. The people I served were prisoners, and it seemed to me that the dress code within the prison was deliberately designed to distinguish between prisoners and staff. The officers wore black and white uniforms. The senior management team wore suits. Civilians (which is what they called people like me – subcontractors working in the prison, but not for the prison) had a lot more choice of what to wear.

When I started working in the prison, the full-time library officers were male and the only advice I received on my appearance was to not wear short skirts or low cut tops. That made sense to me. When the library officers were female, our conversations often shifted to what I was wearing. Sometimes they approved. Often they were appalled.
“Are those staples? Tell me you did not staple your skirt together!”
“I caught it on the radiator, there was a hole.”
“You ripped that skirt six months ago!”
They also disapproved of my habit of using safety pins to hem my trousers. I would argue against making any permanent alterations to my clothing. “What if I grow taller?” I would say.

I think the highlight of my professional-dress career was when I implemented the decidedly American “dress-down Friday” rule. Except, I didn’t work Fridays, so we had it on Thursday instead. And since I was the only person who wasn’t wearing a uniform, it only applied to me. I walked around comfortable and confident in my jeans and T-shirts, dressed exactly like the people I served.

(Of course, now that I am unemployed, my dress code is alot more ... relaxed)