A Functional Adult Gets Some Style

I love clothes more than I ought. I love reading Vogue and online shopping and staring at people walking on the street who have cool clothes. I got especially excited last night because I hung out with my friend Rev, who I hadn’t seen in awhile and who is Le Stylish all the time. She has a great sense of style because while her outfits always nod towards whatever is trendy at the time, she never looks exactly like anyone else, just herself. So cool. I may have spent too much of our time at a cool bar freaking out about how much I liked her purse. But seriously, you guys, her purse was amazing.

LOOK AT THIS PURSE OKAY

I’m a little jealous, because she has a job that allows her some flexibility in looking cool at work. I wear boring suits every day. There’s only so much you can do to jazz up a charcoal gray pantsuit without looking stupid, and in my job it’s better to err boring than look stupid.

So my attempts at stylishness are usually limited to occasional frantic bursts of online shopping, and drooling over my friends’ clothes.

This weekend was particularly opportune because in addition to getting to drool, when I got home, I remembered that I had engaged in some of said frantic online shopping approximately 10 days earlier and I HAD THREE BOXES IN THE KITCHEN ALL FULL OF SHOPPING JOY.

Huzzah! So after my efficient Saturday morning routine of sprawling all over the bed, drinking orange juice pensively for 30 minutes, a botched workout* attempt, and eating some jelly beans, I opened the boxes and started trying on the clothes. Yay! Style leveling up imminent! I was no longer a boring gray-suited android!

I had ordered the following things, all of which seemed like good ideas at the time:

• Hot pink jeans

• A hot pink blouse with gray trim

• A wetsuit-influenced “scuba” dress, cobalt blue with neon chartreuse side… ovals

• Black flats to wear to work

The jeans didn’t come because they ran out or something, and CANCELLED MY ORDER. WHAT. As a child of the 80s, I was so excited to branch out into the realm of colored denim! Boo.

I tried on the blouse with a khaki skirt that I had recently forgotten I own (whoops, sorry skirt, I didn’t mean to hurt you, baby, but you can’t tie me down to one skirt). And it looked AWESOME. So awesome I got excited, went out to the garage to show husband, where he somewhat less enthusiastically agreed it was great.

Husband: Yeah, it looks really nice!
*pause*
Husband: You didn’t have that blouse before?
Liz: No! No, it’s new!
Husband: Okay. But you did… have the skirt before?
Liz: Yes, duh.

He’s one for two. Excited with my blousey success, I spent several minutes happily imagining all the places I was going to wear it before trying on the Scuba Dress.

Here’s a picture of it. It’s not as ridiculous as it sounds:

Please be clear: I am not this lady.
This is a different lady.
Wearing this dress is her job.

It’s cute, right? And side panels like those, I have read, theoretically make one look thinner. And looking thinner is the ultimate goal of Western society; once we all look sufficiently thin we will blast off into space like the arcologies in Sim City 2000 and conquer all galaxies through how nice we look. Or such is the impression my subscription to Vogue magazine has given me.

I tried it on and really liked it. It was au courant and funky and a good color on me. So I walked around the house, trying it on with different shoes, before I went to show Husband.

Husband: Oh, would you wear that at the lake?
Liz: No, it’s a fancy dress. It’s very chic?
Husband: Is it made of swimsuit material?
Liz: No, it’s just supposed to LOOK like swimsuit material.
Husband: Okay. And you wouldn’t wear it when we are hanging out around the lake.
Liz: No.
Husband: So where do you wear it?
Liz: At a fancy bar!
Husband: A nautical themed bar?
Liz: A BAR-THEMED BAR.

This conversation with Husband was giving me the uncomfortable realization that… I don’t go to fancy bars, or really even bars, all that often. My trip to a cool bar last night with Rev was an aberration; despite working in a fancy city, I hightail it out after work like the municipal authorities are after me and I need to get outside their jurisdiction ASAP.
 

In this more critical mood, I noticed the bunching. This “Scuba” dress was tight in some places and loose in others, which meant I kept having to yank it down. This is a problem whether you are scuba diving or drinking at a bar.

So, tragically, the “Scuba” dress is going back. Though the quote marks are staying.

Aaaand the boring black flats for work are maybe fine, but not that comfortable. I am leaving them in possible-return limbo.

So my attempt at increasing style is 1 for 4. But the weekend’s not over yet: tomorrow I’m shopping the old fashioned way. No internet, no waiting in the mail, no having to pick things out myself: I’m just going to the mall and buying everything Rev was wearing last night.

---

* My latest attempt to trick myself into exercising is by incentivizing myself using cute workout clothes. I usually find myself “saving” my exercise clothes – for example, never talking my running shoes outside, ever, lest they get dirty. This leads to weird results where my Nikes stay pristine for YEARS and my gladiator stiletto sandals start looking tired after half a season. But today, I figured if I have to run, I might as well like how I look doing it (assuming I like how I look doubled over and wheezing). Though that was distinctly un-fun and ended 7 minutes later, so I don’t want to talk about my workout any more.