Some Fleeting Thoughts About Fashion

Ok, here's something that ought to make you laugh:

So I was looking at this hilarious old picture of Dri and me, taken when we were in 8th grade (that'd be roughly 1983 for those playing the home game), and I realized, with mingled horror and delight, that our *matching* purple outfits (there's a whole world of funny just in that one word, "matching") would actually be kind of fashionable right now. Isn't life bizarre? I guess you really should keep all your old clothes boxed up somewhere.

Apparently I wasn't really paying attention over this last year or so while I was pregnant and bloated up like Monstro the whale, but it seems women's fashions have changed again. (Surprise!) Mixed Asian/Victorian/gypsy seems to be what's in, enthusiastically mashed up and layered. Super low rise pants, cropped tight belly showing shirts, spaghetti strap tanks and double layered shirts are still around, but now I'm seeing spangly ruffly peasant skirts, flouncy sparkly or stretchy ruched scoopneck shirts, and what the hell do they call those loose knit little half-sweaters that cover the boobs, the shoulders and the upper arms? Capelets? I have no idea. I can see the early '80s trends coming back too, not the neon/paint splattered/big shoulders stuff, but the wide studded belts, the ruffled skirts, the layered shirts, the sneakers as fashion (not sports) accessories.

However, even these observations are probably at least a couple years out of date. These days I tend to only notice fashion trends when they're so screamingly obvious, even 12 year old girls are wearing them--you know, years after things could even remotely be considered hip, when they've trickled down to places like Target so that busy moms like me can pretend to make a daring fashion choice for $14.99. I mean, I don't have time for fashion--I don't shop as a recreational activity (much as I'd like to sometimes), I don't read women's magazines (well, ok, except for Working Mother, but you know what I mean), I don't watch TV. I only notice that fashion is changing when I walk down the street to get coffee one day and see that all the little boutiquey clothing stores are featuring new looks on their mannequins, and then suddenly I start seeing the women around me (on the street, at yoga class, in the supermarket) with the new styles. Oh God, I'm so mass-market...how did it come to this?

Believe it or not, I actually like playing with clothes--I wish I had time (and the budget!) to go out and leisurely shop for some new fabulous trendy stuff. There was a brief shining moment when I was in college when my best friend Anji took me under her expert mall-shopper, club-hopper wing and showed me how to cruise the stores to see what the new trends were, and taught me to try on new fashions even if I thought at first that they looked silly, to get my eyes used to the concept of the next hot thing(s). Then when we went out on the weekends, we'd check out what everyone else was wearing, so that when we went back to the mall we'd know what was current hipsterdom and buy accordingly. Ah those leisurely days of young adulthood, with nothing better to spend time and money on!

But not only do I have the time and budget squeeze of being a working mom (and one with an overly active social and creative life) I also have the frustration of being a, shall we say, rubenesque curvy woman who isn't quite big enough for the plus sizes but isn't really small enough or built right for the regular women's sizes. Given my relatively small waist, short legs, and big boobs, I rarely look right in most of whatever the current fashion is anyway. I mean I was always like this, even back in college (back then I was even heavier, actually), but now I don't have the compensatory firm youthful juiciness anymore that used to let me get away with certain not-as-flattering fashion choices. Even though there are places like Lane Bryant now, and even Old Navy offers larger sizes, I still have the hateful experience of going to a clothing store and finding that hardly anything there will fit me, or look good on me. Through years of trial and error (back when I had time for such things), I have slowly figured out the sorts of styles and materials that look good on my body type (short, heavy and hourglass), and I try to stick with those, no matter how tempting the new stuff might be. (Which is not to say that I'm not sorely tempted to go find myself a couple new spangly ruffly skirts...as long as they're long enough they'd probably look good on me, especially if I wore them with a fitted top. But who has the time?)

In the meantime, in lieu of actually going out shopping or updating my wardrobe any, I've decided to change my glasses. I figure that, along with my new hair, ought to be enough of a style shakeup for now. Maybe people just won't look past my neck. Right? Suuuure. For those of you who are just dying to know (and I'm sure all 4 of you are), here's a picture of the new glasses (with the caveat of course that this is not the most flattering picture, given that it was a candid of me sitting around with the baby on the weekend. But you can get the idea):

Augh. There's so much more to say on this topic. But my lovely soft bed is calling...and I must answer.