My parents kept me entertained with the glossy images in catalogs and Sunday's advertisements in honest attempt to build my vocabulary. I suspect that these materials included all of the latest in men and women's fashion. Thus begins a life-long (?) love affair (?) with clothes.
CHILDHOOD:
AGE 4: I began to thwart my mom's efforts to dress me, complaining that the clothes she wanted me to wear were "too plain" and "didn't have a toy [appliqué] on them."
AGES 4 - 14: The Age of Tacky-ness (now that I was dressing myself) meetsThe Age of Self-Consciousness. Spoiler-Alert: The outcome is not pretty...
AGE 7: I have a vivid memory of wearing THIS on picture day:
Brown and orange Brownies uniform (blouse, brown vest, brown skirt, orange accents)
Red stockings
Black patent leather Mary Jane's
God knows what in my hair
ALSO AGE 7: I remember attempting to impress my grade-school crush (a fourth grader, whereas I was only a third grader! Scandalous!) by donning a light blue Care Bears sweat suit. Who can resist? (My crush went unnoticed - or, more likely, ignored. Shocker.)
MIDDLE SCHOOL
As a late-bloomer, and also young in actual age compared to my grade-mates, and genetically pre-disposed to being short anyway, I remember the shame and disappointment that I couldn't wear the clothes from The Limited, etc., because they dwarfed my already dwarfish frame. (This was before the children's versions of these stores were prominent.) No, I would have to continue shopping in the Size 10/12 range within the Children's Department at Belk. I would squat and duck beneath or between the racks to hide whenever I saw someone I knew walking through the store nearby, for the shame of being "found out" as someone who still wore children's-sized clothes.
I also spent HOURS (and I do not exaggerate - just ask my folks) planning out what to wear for the day or week, in effort to not repeat an outfit within two or three weeks. I kept a weekly planner into which I carefully wrote out my potential outfits. I can still hear my Dad's eyes roll to the back of his head as he pounded on my door, only to learn that I was still trying on clothes in front of my mirror.
I was desperate to wear uber-cool Benetton clothes (in spite of the fact that they remained out of an appropriate size-range). I set my sights on a sweatshirt. Oversized sweat shirts were in style, anyway! I could get away with it! I still remember the price tag: $50.00. Back in the early 1990's, that was even more money than it is now. My Dad saw the foolishness in this and tried to talk me out of it, but I was determined. I bought a cream-colored sweatshirt with the rainbow of letters spelling "Benetton" embroidered across the chest...And lo and behold, the damn thing shrunk, leaving me (for once) in clothing that was too small! I wore it in denial of my terrible judgment and my discontent, tugging at the sleeves to stretch them out to a "normal" length, since it would be many years before 3/4-sleeve shirts were en vogue.
Memories of my clothing preoccupation at this point included my "favorite outfit": an oversized purple men's-style button down emblazoned with yellow lightning bolts and even a skinny, hot pink elastic-necked men's tie. This was worn with (close to) fluorescent yellow shorts (to match the lightning bolts in the shirt, of course) and fluorescent yellow high-top Chuck Taylor's. (I forgive myself for the shoes, which were kinda cool, at least.) I fell for 80's tween fashion hook, line, and sinker.
MIDDLE SCHOOL & HIGH SCHOOL: THE MALL
So there wasn't much to do for a tween/teen in her spare time (or so I remember), except to go to the mall (like, duh!...). I was finally able to wear some clothes from the popular stores where all of the teens shopped, even though I could rarely afford them. So in awe was I that I had finally grown into something vaguely reminiscent of a "normal size" (five feet, barely), that I'd spend hours in the stores' changing rooms, verifying again and again that things did fit (or did not, depending). And in those rare instances when I was able to con my Mom into buying clothes for me or the even rarer instances when I was able to save enough allowance money to buy my own duds, I basked in the warm-fuzzy glow of a coveted clothing purchase. It was so wrong, this love, but it felt so right. And wearing things that the other kids were wearing, shopping in the same stores where they shopped, it was all so validating!
COLLEGE:
I lived footsteps away from the GAP, and I was introduced to Old Navy and Barree Station (an outlet for J. Crew) as a college student. This only fueled my appetite for clothes. When I wasn't making my own money working at a music store, I was threatening my parents that I might sell my plasma, I was so broke (which I did consider at times). I could hear the tone of "Good Lord, our baby girl shouldn't have to sell her own plasma, communing with the homeless people of Chapel Hill, NC!" in their voices as they begged me not to do it and asked how much money I needed, thereby enabling my cycle of spending money on clothes. (Sorry Mom and Dad...Yeah, I just threw you under the bus.)
GRAD SCHOOL THROUGH D.I.N.K. (Dual Income, No Kids) Era:
This was a nice chunk of time during which I could afford my clothing habit. I surely overspent my money and and my time in clothing stores, just the same.
Fast Forward to the "HAVING KIDS" Era:
A rapidly expanding belly necessitates a whole new wardrobe. Then there are the post-baby clothes, or transitional sizes, as I prayed to deflate to something closer to pre-baby width. And then there's the part where I'd get back to something near my pre-baby size and I'd feel wholly unfashionable about the state of affairs of clothes that I was wearing two years prior.
Oh, and then there's all that shopping I loved to do for baby clothes. (And to think I didn't even have girls for whom to buy!) I still managed to buy about one outfit for every day of the year (per size worn, really) for my little guys. This, combined with store credit cards offering in-store rewards and discounts for spending on said cards, really sent me into a shopping spiral that I haven't quite been able to extinguish. (Yet, anyway...)
So, there...It's more than anyone needs to know - or probably took the time to read - about my generally unhealthy relationship with and, at times, full-fledged obsession with clothes. I thought I'd lay out the past to understand the present. Plus, thinking about it so throughly is like a smack in the face: It's a necessary evil to recount this history, if only wake you up every so often. It also allows me to basically condemn my parents as the fault of whatever bad habits I have maintained. (See "Toddlerhood," above.) Freud would like that, I think. (Uh, just kidding, Mom and Dad. Kinda.)
A BRIEF HISTORY IN PICTURES
 |
| "C'mon, Mom...Only clothes with appliques will do!" |
 |
| Sixth or seventh grade, with a dangerous mix of accessories - Gold and silver, leather and plastic.I am way in over my head... |
 |
| For once, I wasn't the one wearing the Girl Scout costume (er, uniform) in the school picture. But I was wearing athletic socks with dress shoes. |
 |
| Dreaming of a world free of tacky shirts and couches and carpets. |
 |
| That coveted Benetton sweatshirt...It was dreadfully, unfashionably "too small" (fitted?) rather than oversized, by early 1990's standards. Let's not even "go there" with the statement my hair is making... |
No comments:
Post a Comment