What I Learned from My Fashion Consultant
This is the expensive Christmas gift I received that I’m learning to “accept”.
1) My husband’s Hanes T-Shirts are not fashion accessories.
2) The one and only pair of jeans I own do fit – but are not cut for my body type.
3) The black-angora sweater from Henri Bendel my husband bought me when he proposed is staying in my closet; although it is not longer in. It’s staying along with my Grandma’s nightgown that smells like her, and my Mom’s washcloths that I pulled out of her house when she died. It smells like the home I can never visit again.
4) The first dress I bought at Express that I could fit into after delivering a baby 11 years ago is “not a keeper.”
5) Many of the items I’ve been wearing as PJs, are actually fashionable everyday clothes.
6) The black velvet floor-length skirt with the elastic waistband that I used to wear to parties while pregnant is “not a keeper.”
7) It’s one thing to know what’s in; it’s another to know what your body type is.
Just because I do yoga once a day does not mean I need to wear my yoga pants all day.
9) Wash new clothes in vinegar to “set the dye” to help prevent fading.
10) It’s not cheating to take digital pictures of your outfits and look at them before you get dressed.
The only reason I have some of the clothes left in my closet is because I need something to wear until I go shopping.
And about the guilt I’m feeling about all of this: I do hate shopping, and I never buy things for my self. However, I love the German Girl’s attitude when it comes to pampering Mom. She writes about her recent MOM’s group meeting, complete with a fashion consultant, massage therapist and hair stylist. (You should read about what she learned about shampoo.) Put your own oxygen mask on first. How can we pamper others when we learned how to do it for ourselves? No more playing the martyr. I have a life to live.
How fitting that my favorite newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, www.wsj.com
wrote an article about fashion today. In an interview by ALESSANDRA GALLONI with Miuccia Prada “On Conquering Fahion Probia.” She says, “Some say it’s about seduction, but I think that’s limiting. What you wear is how you present yourself to the world…”
The typical next step is to go to a better department store (Not Victoria’s Secret) to be fitted properly for foundation pieces – bras, undergarments. However, I have always had my bras fitted properly, so I get to skip that step.
So next, the consultant will take me shopping for my all-year lightweight basic black wool suit. It will, and should, eat most of my wardrobe budget. But this is something I will wear often, for two-three years, in differing forms. Our first stop is Banana Republic, and we’ll move on from there.
MORE Pinkerton Files Blog explains virtual shopping in the future, with 3D body scans. An eye-popping story about shopping for the perfect size “0″ in Asia where “eating disorders are a legitimate form of weight control” on Ranting on the ROK.
Books to Review:
What Not to Wear
Dress Your Best: The Complete Guide to Finding the Style That’s Right for Your Body
What You Wear Can Change Your Life
Related posts:
Oh, dude, dude, dude. I am on your wavelength. My primary New Year’s resolution is not to cure cancer or stop snapping my bubble gum, but to be as chic as a French woman. I read a charming but most insightful book by a British woman, “All You Need to be Impossibly French”, and superb undergarments are essential. And no athletic shoes worn in public. The list of essential elements goes on and on, not unlike the manifesto decreed upon you by the fashion consultant.
So, yes. I will join you at the fine foundations counter. If the well crafted Wacoal bra comes in a demi model, I will be whipping out my Visa card on the spot.
And, Banana Republic has never failed me and now they have petite sizes (I’m only 5 feet). Ann Taylor, too. But Talbots or Eddie Bauer - no, no, no. Too frumpy for the French.
I have enjoyed your visits to my humble blog. I am not worthy of your kind comments, but I’ll take them anyway.
I wish we had petite-sized clothing in New Zealand. Not that I’m petite-small, I’m just petite-short. It’d save me hundreds of dollar a year in hemming costs.
[...] Of course, I did not pay retail…. and I had some help. [...]
[...] And of course, my personal shopping excursion with my fashion consultant. [...]