Topic 171: Judging by Appearances

Carol:

The “Judging By Appearances Pink ‘N Blues”

In the late 1960’s, Virginia Slims used a logo to capture a new niche, young and hip women smokers. I’d like to think the slogan “You’ve come a long way, baby” was more than a catchy marketing gimmick, that women—people—had come a long way toward breaking stereotypes and moving beyond superficial appearances, but recent news  show that we still make judgments  based on gender stereotypes.
 

Take the story of Storm Witterick, the Canadian baby whose parents decided not to reveal the gender of their third child, delivered at home last January. Their decision twittered and Facebooked into an international controversy, a heated and polarizing debate about gender bias and child-rearing. Some people argue that “social experimentation” on children is tantamount to child abuse; others praise the family for defying stereotypes  that go beyond pink and blue wardrobe choices.  Not that it matters to Storm with his/her beautifully, chubby cheeked smile in photos. Not that it matters to Storm’s older brothers who also look happy and content even though, omigod, they  express their individuality with gender-bending clothing, colors and hairstyles. The Witterick children certainly looked happier than my friend’s son who came home crying from kindergarten in 1986 because the teacher wouldn’t let him cook in the play kitchen with the girls.
 

Or, what about the “SlutWalk Protests,” a global reaction to an April 2011 comment by a Canadian policeman who suggested to a group of Toronto law students that women could avoid being “victimized” if they stopped dressing like sluts. The idea that women are “asking for it” if they dress a certain way is not a new one, but  this particular remark set off a wave of protests around the world after it found its way onto Facebook.  SlutWalk marches have been held in Canada, the United States, Australia and Great Britain. Rallies have attracted all manner of folks in all manner of attire.The “in your face” reactive tone of the SlutWalk movement now includes rallies with workshops on stopping sexual violence and educating law enforcement and public agencies about sexual assaults. Five thousand people were expected to show up at a rally planned for London.
 

I’ll end with a favorite recollection from teaching at a community college where the rich mix of students simply defies stereotyping. I overheard an early morning conversation between two women and a man in my composition class. One of the women was probably in her late 30’s and wore the typical “uniform” of generic blue jeans, tank top and sweater, no flash or boobage . The other was younger and much edgier, with vivid maroon hair, the generic blue jeans, tank top but no coverage so that the head and wings of the large, intricate and quite beautiful dragon tattoo on her back spread out from underneath the straps of the shirt. The man was a bit older, a Vietnam Vet with a scruffy beard and generic blue jeans, a Harley Davidson tee-shirt covering the beginnings of a beer belly. The Vet was doing most of the talking. The women punctuated the conversation with clucks of agreement and nods of understanding, full of compassion for a fellow single parent’s frustrating efforts to get his three little girls to sit still long enough to brush the tangles out and braid their hair.
Gotta run, She Who Must Be Obeyed wants to see Kung Fu Panda 2, and we know who is top dog in this household.

Sources: “SlutWalk’ Marches Sparked by Toronto Officer’s Remarks.” BBC News US & Canada. 8 May 2011.

Stampler, Laura. “ 'Genderless' Baby Raises a Storm of Controversy.” Parentdish.com 26 May 2011
  

Megan:

The Appearance of Being Judged

You might have noticed yesterday that I’ve changed my avatar in the cartoons to reflect my haircut. A few weeks ago, in an impulsive and emotional mood, I went into a local discount hair salon and cut off nearly 24 inches of hair. I guess I was thinking, “Change my hair, change my life.” I have a friend who, after he split up with his long-term girlfriend, cut his hair and shaved his incredibly bushy beard. It’s a common enough ritual. Thing is, I thought having shorter hair would mean less time spent on styling it, but it actually requires more work. This is a lesson I have forgotten and  learned again and again.

The amount of time and effort I put into my appearance varies depending on my mood, where I’m going and whether I expect to meet someone I would like to impress. I get dressed up to go to lunch by myself, but not to go to the grocery store. I put more effort into my appearance before a softball game than I would if I was going to a movie. I’ll still be wearing yesterday’s makeup when I meet a friend for coffee and then die a little inside when we run into a friend of her husband.

In the prison, appearance was very important to the inmates. Most of them spent hours in the gym cultivating body-builder-type physiques. They saved their small salaries for months to purchase the newest and flashiest looking trainers (or tennis shoes). They put enough pressure on themselves and each other that it was fairly obvious that they ones who didn’t take care with their appearances were either bullied, mentally ill, or incapable of dealing with prison life. The habitual self-harmers, and the ones who didn’t wash or clean their cells were generally shunned by their peers because, frankly, they were awful to be around. For some, maintaining an aura of filth (ala Pigpen, but not cute) widened their circumference of personal space in an institution where privacy of any kind is nearly impossible.

It always seems to me that the importance one places on others’ appearances corresponds to the effort one puts into one’s own. My grandmother never steps foot outside her house without being fully dressed up. In fact, it wasn’t until a couple weeks ago, when I went to her house without calling first that I had ever seen her without makeup on (that includes the time she was in the hospital recovering from a hip replacement). She makes comments to me about what other people are wearing, and I know that being well-dressed is important to her – that she considers it a measure of success.

And of course, the reverse is also true. I had a college friend in England who saved money on food by dressing in her worst clothes and going to the farmer’s market at the end of the day. By giving the appearance of poverty and homelessness, she got free food from the stalls. Judging (and being judged) by appearances is part of life. You get better service if you look nice. People take you seriously. I both resent and appreciate this fact, depending on my mood. Sometimes I enjoy the boost in confidence I get when I know that I look good. Other times I resent the fact that I know I am more interesting than I appear, and that’s really hard to convey without being superficial.

Topic 154: Personality in Apparel

Carol:

 Hats Off to the Ladies

Darn it if I didn’t miss another big event. April 25 was the official Red Hat Society day. In case you haven’t seen or read about the Red Hat ladies, they are a social organization for women over 50. The first lines of Jenny Joseph’s 1961 poem “Warning” was the inspiration for the Red Hat Society

“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.”

The RHS official website makes it clear right at the beginning; these ladies all about fun, frivolity and friendship
 
The word that comes to mind when I see the Red Hat ladies is “crone.” No, not the hunched over, wart-faced witchy types depicted in films, but the archetype of the wise old woman who gathers the young children around her knee for winter stories and passes on life knowledge to her daughters.  The modern crone is a woman who wears her aging as a badge of survival and celebration, comfortable with a new phase of life that is more about gain than loss.
 
I only know one “Red Hatter,” for sure. She has always been fun and frivolous, and she always wears purple to offset her bright red hair. Maybe she read Jenny Joseph’s poem a long time ago and turned to purple when she was young. The poem is not about being old really; it is about being young. Its title is “Warning,” and only the first half of the poem describes the freedom of old age when women can not only wear what they want but act how they want, “and make up for the sobriety of [their] youth.”  The rest of the poem is about the responsibilities young people have, the social and parental duties, the pressure to conform . Joseph throws in a little teaser in the last stanza, a thought that maybe, just maybe, there is room to “practice” the audacity of personal freedom right now, before women get old.  Like I say, my Red Hatter friend doesn’t need the empowerment of a Red Hat Society to make her feel comfortable in her red and purple-ness. She already had it.
 
I have another crone friend who makes me laugh whenever I think about her. She is more of a “Mad Hatter” than a “Red Hatter,” and she has a an outrageous costume for every occasion. Go to her house for the Academy Awards, and she will be dressed in a tiara and long white gloves. She has a hat with sparklers that light up for 4th of July, and rabbit ears for Easter. She honed her talent for frivolity from 20-something years of teaching first and second graders. Her frivolity and lightheaded joy for life is not shallow; it was hard won from a tough childhood.  Her hugs and hats are celebrations of survival.
 
I have another crone friend who makes me applaud whenever I think about her. She was all about hats for a while, for a year that was the antithesis of frivolity and fun. It was the year of wearing hats to cover the bald head from chemo and radiation. It was about a Knit Hat Society of friends who banded together to help her fight the cancer, shopped and cooked and called and cried…and laughed.. ,with her.  I know that behind the “in your face” bravado and the hats there had to have been times of emotional meltdown, but boy did she show me what strength and friendship are all about.
 
I love seeing the Red Hat ladies congregating at the Courthouse Square or meeting for tea in the Wild Iris. But, I already belong to a Society of Fearless and Frivolous Friends, and I take off my hat to them all. 

Sources:

Joseph, Jenny. "Warning." poemhunter,cm. http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/warning/

Red Hat Society Official homepage. http://www.redhatsociety.com/index.aspx



  

Megan:

Impersonality in Apparel

Didn’t we already have this topic? For someone who cares as little about clothing as I do, it’s hard to come up new material for another essay.

Instead, I’m going to rant a little bit about what I think is a size-ist policy in mainstream department stores (Size-ist, by the way, is discrimination against people of size.)

Before

After

A few weeks ago, I was watching an episode of What Not to Wear, and Mindy Cohn (Natalie from The Facts of Life) was their victim guest. I really liked her original style, which featured tunic shirts and leggings and comfortable shoes. She looked like she was always on the way to a yoga class, but the woman mostly does voice work now, and it’s nice to be comfortable. After the makeover, she looked pretty nice too – but anyway, she made a point during the episode that resonated with me: Most stores do not stock cute clothes for bigger women.

I shop at Kohls a lot. I’m aware that their clothing is not quality, but they fit my other requirement – cheap and comfortable. What annoys me about that place, is that the first thing you see when you walk in are all the super cute summer dresses on display. I love dresses. One of my favorite things about being back in a consistently warm climate is that I can wear sundresses every day if I want for about 6 months of the year. So, I see the dresses and get excited and then head over to the area with clothes in my size, and there’s nothing. Lots of pants, lots of big shirts, and maybe only two styles of upper-arm-concealing, hide-your-problem-areas-with-excess-fabric dresses. It is extremely frustrating.

This is an old argument. I know that the excuses. It is easier to design a dress in a smaller size because the measurements tend to be more consistent. When you get to the bigger sizes you get people with small hips and a giant bust (or the reverse),  all sorts of fruit shapes (apples and pears and bananas, oh my) and maybe it’s not economically viable to design affordable clothes which account for those variables.
 
Except that I know it is done. We have Maurices, a mid-priced store, in our mall that stocks sizes 0 - 24 – cute and casual as well as professional clothes for plus sized women – and nearly the same dresses for the entire range of sizes. Lane Bryant and Torrid also cater to the bigger sizes, but I would have to drive to Phoenix to shop at those stores, and also they are not very affordable if you are unemployed.

I’ve read that it is harder for overweight people to achieve promotion to higher paying jobs because they are often perceived to be lazy. This perception can only be reinforced by the ill-fitting and unattractive clothing lines available to the lower incomes. I’m not saying the general lack of fitted, cute and sexy options is part of a conspiracy to make plus-sized women feel bad about themselves – there are plenty of other outlets to feed our insecurity. I’m saying there is a market. No matter what their size, most people feel more confident when they look good. Increase our options and maybe we’ll shop more.  And that’s good for the economy, right?

/rant

Topic 72: Fashionable Tardiness

Carol:

Timely Matters

I don’t like to be late for anything, so I overcompensate by arriving early. Another member of my family—you know who you are—is often late not to be fashionable but because he gets caught up in a newspaper article,  lingers over  one more cup of coffee or can’t find his keys. I once got the idea that we could carpool together to our jobs in San Diego, about a half-hour drive from our home, but one morning as I sat waiting for him in the car again, waiting. I imagined him scurrying around the house looking for his wallet or a notepad; I realized carpooling was not good for my blood pressure or our marriage.
 

I do recall one occasion that merited the grand description of “fashionable tardiness.” The summer of 1972, several friends traveled through Europe together. In London we bought matinee tickets to a play, but someone—you know who you are--decided to meet us after he did some last-minute shopping before our return to the States. I arrived at the theater early, of course. As the minutes ticked by, my anxiety level began to rise. The theater filled, and the lights dimmed. My anxiety turned to anger as I stared at the empty seat next to me. Anger turned to concern as the play began, and I thought of possible scenarios: death by double-decker bus, mugging by Cockney pickpockets. Fifteen minutes into the play, I finally spotted him at the edge of the aisle waiting for an appropriate moment to squeeze along the row to his seat. Concern turned to relief turned to anger turned to…omigod, he looked so handsome. He had bought a brand new sports coat and tie, and I had never seen him look quite so, well, fashionable. I gave him a little pat as he sat down, and he smiled at me quite proudly. This was the same guy who the year before had bought his first pair of plaid polyester bell-bottoms at K-Mart. Marc had smiled at me quite proudly back then too.
 

I suppose the notion of “fashionable tardiness” comes from the idea that in high society people wanted to make a grand entrance in front of a crowd. I know that what makes being late fashionable versus rude is a matter of cultural context. Google shows us that.  Fanny Burney wrote about “fashionable tardiness” in her 1782 English novel Cecilia. Ohio-born William Dean Howells wrote about it in his 1888 novel April Hopes.  A 2010 Peace Corps trainee blogs that time is “fluid” in Rwanda, and being fashionably late can mean anything from 40 minutes to an hour. 
 

My favorite part of My Fair Lady is the ballroom entrance of Eliza Doolittle, newly transformed from flower-seller into a finely-gowned lady of society. Henry Higgins, who would never dream of being late to anything himself, carefully schools Eliza about the drama of making a grand entrance, the epitome of “fashionable tardiness.” Abso-bloomin’-lutely loverly!
 

Now that I’m retired, I don’t even carry a watch and I don’t care so much whether people in my family are late or not—you know who you are—but I still can’t break my own habit of punctuality. As far as I’m concerned, there is no such thing as “too early.”

Sources:
Ian in Rwanda:

Megan:

Fashionably Late

I am never fashionably late. I am neither fashionable nor late. My friends would tell you that I am extremely prompt, strangely so … often arriving exactly at the time we’d arranged. There is a reason for this: I arrive early and hide around the corner with an eye on my watch.

Ok, that’s not exactly true (I don’t have a watch).  I mean, I don’t always do that. I just cannot stand being late. I would rather be an hour early than 15 minutes late.  I think I get this from my father in reverse– he is always late. When I arrange to meet him at the movies, he often walks in late. This irritates me to no end (especially if I’ve already seen the movie and I know he will like it). I also don’t understand someone who is okay with missing the previews.

Tardiness runs on both sides of the family, and it actually doesn’t bother me (except at movies).  I don’t hold it against the late person, especially if that late person has kids. Kids slow you down. I have no problem waiting around for someone, that’s why I always carry a book in my bag.

Anyway, the expression “fashionably late” conveys the impression that a person is too busy and in demand to arrive on time, having to flit from one engagement to the next. I am neither busy nor in demand (possibly because I am not fashionable?). But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been the first person at a party because, even though the invitation said 8 p.m., no one bothered to show up until 9. That does annoy me. I didn’t show up early (cuz I was hiding around the corner), but the fact that I am the only person there is embarrassing and conveys the impression that I am desperate and over eager. I don’t want to have to think about this crap – that’s the problem with these topics sometimes. I am not a very good grownup, I fall down stairs and I’m obsessive compulsive about being on time. Thanks for reminding me Topic.

Wait, here’s something kind of funny and weird. I get lost a lot when I drive. I’ve mentioned that before. Consequently, I leave early to allow extra time in case I get lost. What I might not have mentioned is that I often get lost driving familiar roads. One might cause the other. For example: a couple of weeks ago I was going shopping with some friends and arranged to meet at one of their houses at 8 AM.  This friend lives roughly ten minutes away, but it had snowed that morning so I left at 7:30 to allow extra time. The snow melted by the time I reached the main road, and I knew I was going to be early so I started planning where I could park the car and not be seen when I missed the turn to her house. It took a couple of minutes to find a suitable place to turn around (inconvenient dog walkers) and I was heading back in the right direction when a song I really like came on the radio and I was distracted. I missed the turn again. I’m not going to bore you with all the details, but I missed that turn 3 times and by the time I got on the right road, I pulled into her driveway at exactly 8 a.m. That happens to me all the time. I don’t know if it’s luck or my self-conscious screwing with me, but seriously: all the time. That’s why I’m never late.

Topic 68: The Passing of Modesty

Carol:

Hats Off to the Ladies

Family Hats, 1940's

I got up this morning thinking about hats. I have seen dozens of hats in the last week as I have taken the vintage family photos under the magnifying glass to try to identify faces. When the hats weren’t on the ladies’ heads, they were gripped in their hands. Hats with feathers, hats with yards of lace, bows fruit, polka dots, all in the name of fashion…. and modesty. Women wore hats in public, and they wore them in church.  Modesty in dress, modulation of the voice, and body carriage were all formal, outward signs of humility and respect. People did judge a book by its cover.  

 Now the leap from modesty and civility to hats may seem extreme, even ridiculous, but in fact for centuries people (not just women) have shown veneration and respect—and the virtues of modesty and humility—through different types of clothing.  And the choices we make about how we dress, what we wear for which occasion, what we adopt as our personal “uniform” reflect our customs and values.
 

Head coverings of all kinds are an integral part of religious traditions, whether a yarmulke, a prayer shawl, a mantilla or a veil. In Hebrew the word for modesty is “tziut,” and particularly within Orthodox Judaism, the word describes not only the idea of humility and modesty in dress but religious laws that govern conduct between the sexes. Muslims use the Arabic word “hijab” to describe both the use of head coverings and modest clothing in general. Like traditional Jews and Muslims, Catholics and other Christian groups use head coverings at services to show reverence and humility. All of these customs are rooted in religious scripture whether the Hebrew Bible, the Qur'an, or the New Testament.
 

The use of head coverings for religious purposes has become increasingly controversial in westernized, secular societies. Some people argue that such traditions devalue women as subservient to men, or reflect slavish obedience to outdated and unpopular religious rules, or worse that they are evidence of dangerous religious and political fundamentalism.  We may seem to honor the principle of religious freedom without the tolerance of religious custom.
 

Most Americans wore hats to uphold social rather than religious traditions. Etiquette and local customs dictated what kind of hat to wear for different occasions. “In the Edwardian age it did not matter if you were poor or rich, old or a child, whatever the status a person wore a hat, only beggars went bareheaded.  Even militant suffragettes did not campaign without a hat” (source: Fashion-era.com).  Hats for formal occasions are no longer in vogue, not even Easter bonnets. In our town, cowboy hats, ball caps and Tilley head gear are fashion of the day except for at a fund-raiser at our local women’s shelter, a gathering of the red hat ladies,  or a celebration of Territorial Days.   

I love hats, and I have a whole basketful in my front hall closet—two Tilley hats, a gardening hat, and several ball caps showing school and team allegiances. Not a single Easter Bonnet.
I’d like to make a proposal… a modest one. Bring back the hats. 

Family Hats, 1960's

Source: 
Fashion-era.com  

Head covering  and the Freedom of Religion. 
Heacovering for Catholic women.
Headcoverings by Devorah.

Megan:

Today, we are baking christmas cookies and getting ready for a party. We (and by we, I mean me) are also operating on less than 2 hours of sleep. 

I'll be back on Monday.

Topic 13: On Wearing New Shoes

Carol:

These Shoes Were Made For Walking

I guess if there were ever an expert on the topic of wearing new shoes, it would be Imelda Marcos who, when the palace walls came tumbling down, didn’t have time to pack her 2,700 pairs of shoes. Well, maybe she packed her running shoes. Right now, my shoe “collection” fits in one of those cloth things with pockets, that hang over a door, and they represent my evolved fashion rules:

• Comfort over style
• Black is better
• Cheap is even better
• Too much choice is confusing

There are pockets for ten pairs of shoes, and currently seven of those ten pairs are black (my walking shoes are stowed in the closet). Not that I haven’t coveted a stylish pair of shoes in my day.

Most American women of a certain age and middle-class background will tell you that their rite of passage into womanhood was not some mystical, meaningful, spiritual ceremony but a trip to the store (they didn’t even have malls when I was a kid) to buy: the first bra, the first make-up, and….the first pair of high heels. I really had to fight my mother on the shoes because the “All the other girls have them” never worked for anything;. I finally won the battle during 7th grade and proudly wobbled around in my brand new ,1- inch, squash-heeled Capezios. As with my fashion choices (see T#5 on dressing well), my Imelda years escalated from the Capezios to a peak when I was in college. I had the heels, I had the colors, I had the styles, and I had the bunions and blisters to prove it.

My ultimate “new shoes” experience really occurred because of my belief in the late sixties that beneath my Campbell Soup fat-cheeked, freckle-covered, chubby girl exterior was a Bohemian romantic with a touch of mystery. The closest I came to fulfilling this fantasy was the purchase of a pair of espradrilles when I was travelling in France with my boyfriend of that time (who became the husband of this time). Espadrilles were those rope-soled canvas shoes that were ubiquitous and cheap in France at the time. But, they rose to a level of romantic sophistication when worn by Brigitte Bardot or Catherine Deneuve, whom I had actually seen walking down the street in Aix-en-Provence. If shoes make the man, then espradrilles would make me into a tres chic Bohemienne. These espradilles were the perfect color of blue, somewhere between marine and navy. They fit fine, so I slipped them on and headed off for a day of sightseeing with Marc. No busses, no metro, we walked everywhere. When it began to rain, I really wanted to get on a bus, but Nooooooo, we had to walk back to the hotel to save money. By the time I got into the room, I was soaked all the way through and so were the canvas shoes. Shaking with chills, I pulled off the shoes. I looked down, and there they were, two pruned-up blue feet. Dyed the exact color of the espadrilles. Stained the color of the espadrilles.

So much for “La Boheme.”

Megan:
One time I bought a pair of patent leather work shoes that were totally cute and extremely cheap. The first time I wore them to work, I was barely halfway across the parking lot when the pain set in my heels.

I didn’t want to get a blister so I quickly tucked the bottoms of my jeans (it was a Thursday) into the shoes and went through the gate into the prison. The pain only got worse. It takes approximately 7 minutes to get from the gate to the library but it felt like 7 hours. I was trying so hard not to limp; I had tears streaming down my face.

I didn’t stop to actually examine my feet until I reached the library and by that point, my jeans were soaked halfway up the calves with blood. A prison is pretty much the last place you want to have an open wound, except for maybe a cesspit. Luckily the first aid kits are well stocked. I disinfected my heels and wrapped them with gauze and lined the shoes with band-aids. There wasn’t a lot I could do about the jeans, but luckily they were dark enough that they looked like they’d soaked up a puddle instead of half the blood in my body.

Believe it or not, I continued to wear those shoes. (They were cute!) I didn’t stop wearing them until I’d worn holes through the soles, which then detached and flapped as I walked. My library officers (aka fashion police) loved that.

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)