Trusses and Knee-High Boots... Dressing for One's Age
To dress appropriately for one’s age, one must first be willing to dress appropriately in general. This has never interested me.
Oh sure, I can climb into corporate drag with the best of them: ruffled white blouse, black suit, pearls, pantihose and high-heeled pumps. But this isn’t dressing. It’s earning a living. Functionally, it’s no different than the attire of young ladies strolling on Sunset Boulevard after midnight.
I dress to express myself, not to avoid offending someone else’s standard of what I should or shouldn’t wear. I do not, however, dress to shock, embarrass, or make anyone uncomfortable. For example, I wouldn’t attend a party with one breast draped in velvet burnout while my mastectomy site is exposed because hey, I can’t be arrested for indecent exposure when there’s nothing there to see, can I? I’ll leave that one to performance artists.
What can one expect to see me wear? Black. It’s a perfect foil for purple, flaming coral, fuchsia and all the other colors of passion. You will never see me wearing navy blue, however. Too may bad memories of Catholic school uniforms and prissy girls on the playground, who twirled their full, expensive skirts for no other reason than to ridicule my modest pleats. I haven’t worn pleats since then, either.
At this year’s Oscar soiree I wore a white eyelet tunic over black leggings and high-heeled white leather knee-high boots with lacy cutouts and scalloped cuffs. I felt like I was swooshing through a half&half surf in heaven... I felt like an avant-garde art exhibit on loan from Shag’s studio.
My friends oohed and aahed over the boots and gushed nonstop about how fabulous I looked. Maybe they were humoring me because I brought pastries... but at the bakery where I purchased them on my way to the party, two older women couldn’t stop staring at me. They didn’t look impressed. They looked judgmental. Apparently, unlike them, I wasn’t dressed appropriately for my age. Or maybe it was just that, long before the month of May, I was wearing white boots.
posted by Yakpate at 8:56 AM
6 Comments:
You know, it would be a sad day if your sense of self and style left. They are practically icons of the family - we can only hope to follow your lead!
9:49 AM
Your outfit sounds divine.. just like you are! :-) However, I don't think it tops your motorcycle chick garb that you wore shopping with Heather and I. NOW that was fun!! Stay yourself... express yourself.. Be yourself.. We love ya!
Mary
12:21 PM
Girl, please - appropriate is relative. And as a close relative, I hereby deem every outfit you masterfully put together as entirely appropriate.
Those stuffy old broads in the bakery were just jealous. Am I to presume your white boots are now permanently implanted up two old asses? It would be a shame, those boots rock, but duty calls ...
2:10 PM
Here, here, Heather!
People who look aghast are only insecure about doing anything other than attending the Woman's Auxilliary meetings, secretly wishing they were wearing under their double knits and elastic waists, a black leather corset and a "lick me" tattoo. OH wait..... that's what I'm wishing for. ha ha ha
4:48 PM
You forgot to mention your spangly oversized white sunglasses! As one of the ones oohing and aahing over that outfit (it really was spectacular) I can say with authority that the old snoots in the bakery were passionless bitties who have probably never once used the word pulchritude in a conversation. I'm so sick of people talking about "age appropriate" dressing. That witch from "What Not To Wear" was quoted recently as saying that Heather Locklear -- at the ripe old age of 44 -- should dress "like a mature woman." Um, I would have killed for Heather Locklear's body when I was 19 and never looked as good as she does in tight yoga pants. (Anyway, I'm not sure but the definition of "mature" probably doesn't include feuding with Denise Richards, marrying rockstars and dating David Spade. But I digress.) I have a similar problem with other moms that I know. I get a lot of quotes like "Wow ... isn't it hard to take care of your baby with such long hair?" and "How can you possibly walk in those cowboy boots?" Somehow, since I've now had a child, it's as if I am expected to don the standard mom uniform: bowl haircut, tasteful little terry jogging suits or khaki capris with buttoned-up white cotton shirts from the Gap, simple plain hoop earrings and a Petunia Picklebottom diaper bag. (And flats, always flats...) Hey, can I borrow those white boots? I have a Mommy and Me meeting that I'd love to shake up...
10:36 AM
I no longer have the choice of, Dressing for One's Age." Now, it is , "Dressing for One's Size." It was fun when I was the only mother at a Lutheran Private School dressed appropriately for the Halloween party....long black dress with train, plunging neckline, ghoulish makeup. I guess the tongues wagged that day. Then there was the time I undressed for the occasion. It was a weekend in the country in a friend's log cabin, far from civilization, hotter'n blazes. I cooked for my family then searched and found a clear cold stream, stripped, hung my clothes on a nearby tree limb to the sound of, "Mother!!" "Go and get soap and a towel," was the reply to my daughter." After all, there was no running water in the cabin and who was to know? Or care?
I say, life is for living, laughing. So the drummer is playing a different tune. He is missing the whole beat. I went to a Senior Citizen's gathering ONCE. Never again.
So lift those white knee-high boots. They kind of lose something when accompanied by Dr. Scholl's. Swooshing is for the swooshable. And Pat, you definitely qualify.
So to quote Yogi Berra, "It's Not Over 'til It's Over."
8:20 PM
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