When I am in Boston, I shop. It is not that I am lacking for the exact same stores at home, but I am usually in Boston during holiday sales and there is no sales tax on clothing. So even though I end up purchasing additional luggage to lug the items back across the country, in my mind the thrill of acquiring masses of clothes in a short period makes the new luggage (which rarely seems to be on sale at the same time as the clothing) seem like a savvy investment, rather than an economic anomaly.
Of course, shopping while on vacation is a bad idea for so many reasons, most obviously because time away from my real life means I am not experiencing my real life. Halter tops, sequined headbands, platform wedges, all things I would never be caught dead in back home look charmingly exotic. Yes, I think, looking at the people around me at leisure in their leisure garb, maybe I am a hat person. Why not an embellished top? Look how cute that woman looks with that flower barrette. Maybe I have an inner Rachel Zoe clamoring to express herself.
Another challenge is that my real life is in a completely different culture and climate as my leisure shopping outings. The Boston sale racks in late December boast amazing deals on wool jackets and wool sweaters and wool dresses and wool scarves and wool coats. Not only do I live in a place where it rarely dips below 70 degrees farenheit, but I am exceedingly warm blooded. I don't need much of a prompt to share the story of how I spent an entire New York winter with just a cotton cardigan. Of course, I had a closet full of coats and cashmere sweaters and scarves--I was a sale hoarder back then, too--but buying clothes and wearing clothes are two completely different issues. In fact, one of my few memories of college involves buying a Claude Montana taffeta wrap top at John Wanamaker in Philadelphia because it was marked down more than $1250 dollars! I don't know what business I had as an 18-year-old freshman spending $150 on a couture top that I literally never took the tags off of, but I think many of my thrifty sisters out there might understand the excitement of that score.
This past week, the urge to splurge was back, but in a modified "I have kids and a mortgage" way. I was sifting through the sales racks at Saks and found a Tory Burch dress that was in a decidedly un-Tory-like print (a good thing) and made in my favorite indestructible silk fabric, the type that looks and feels like 1970s double-knit polyester, but really is pure silk. It was a size too small, and, truthfully, I never wear dresses (although I had bought two the day before). But it was more than $200 off and maybe I could wear a Spanx and start rotating silk dresses into my wardrobe for work. In the old days, I would have grabbed it and bought it without even trying it on--what a deal!--but now that I am an adult with an occasional handle on my impulse-control issues, I used a self-talk strategy that I vaguely recall hearing about at a continuing-education seminar, and reminded myself that if I suddenly wore a silk dress to work, rumors would fly that I am job-hunting (which I am not), which would make me anxious and cause me to overeat, resulting in me having even less of a chance of squeezing into the Tory. The dress stayed on the rack.
Earlier in the day, I was shopping at one of my favorite stores, Anthropologie. My husband recently read me a passage from an hysterically snarky book about my demographic sisters and brothers describing Anthropologie's offerings as looking vintage but being brand-spanking new; looking handmade, but being mass produced; and, best of all, giving the shopper the feeling that has searched through an estate sale, but without the annoyance of not having one's size in stock. People like me apparently love this aesthetic and I have to say the writer totally nailed me on this one.
Anyway, I was busy pulling all sorts of delicate asymmetrical cardigans and funky patterned A-line skirts off the shelf when a salesperson introduced herself as the personal shopper and began advising me on how to wear a dress I was studying backwards for a chic-er effect. Typically, salespeople avoid me like the plague because, despite having a lovely engagement ring and a relatively significant purse, I also tend to be texting with one hand while attempting to balance a cup of coffee with my other hand. I think salespeople don't want to be responsible for cleaning up the mess they fear I will inevitably make. And I can't say I blame them. I still cringe at the memory of adjusting an enormous Coach purse on my shoulder at a Crate and Barrel and accidentally knocking over a display of wine glasses.
So, this very thin and effortlessly accessorized woman continued to offer me advice, even after I shuffled into the dressing room. Anthropologie has the annoying practice of writing the shopper's own name on the fitting room door in dry marker. I will admit to giving false names in the past and then not being able to figure out which room was mine. This stunt also backfires for me at Starbucks, and at Radio Shack, when I make up a random zip code when they ask to input one into their system. Now, if the personal shopper had gotten any read at all on my aesthetic by the way I was dressed and groomed that day, she would have known that any suggestion of adding a shrug or belt to a potential outfit would be enough for me to put a kibosh on the purchase. Of course, if I were to imagine myself as a shrug person or someone with belts hanging on the back of my closet door, I very well might have scooped up the cream-colored wool dress that I would never wear because it is not dark, it is wool, and it is a dress. But I can be a contrarian at times, especially if in order to try anything on I have to first peel of various layers of cardigans and jackets and heavy leather boots. My rule is I have to have at least three items to try on to make it worth disrobing. I had at least a half a dozen items, all utterly incompatible with my real life and, even on sale, not exactly free. So I have to thank the personal shopper for her words of wisdom; she saved me from myself.
Showing posts with label clothing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clothing. Show all posts
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Meet the New Shirt... Same as the Old Shirt
I wear black. Black shirts, black sweaters, black shoes, black watch. I have so many black tops that I feel compelled to explain to my coworkers that each day's shirt, despite appearing to be identical to the one worn the day before, is in fact a different and (usually) recently laundered piece of clothing.
I also own many black skirts that vary slightly in cut and fabric, but I have to give myself props for usually wearing a pattered or colored bottom with the black shirts. OK, to be entirely truthful, I will only buy patterned bottoms if black appears somewhere in the actual pattern itself to assure indisputable coordination. Some say everything goes with black.. I say nothing goes better with black than more black. I also buy in bulk. If a pair of faux croc leather kitten heels are in my size and on sale, I'll buy three pairs. My clothing is so interchangeable that one day this summer I actually went to work wearing two different shoes. Granted, only a trained connoisseur of Banana Republic pointy-toed flats would have known the difference--one had a patent flower, and the other a patent curlicue affixed to it.
To my credit, I have ventured into the blue territory, taken a turn into grays, and even dabbled in browns. I remember in my 20s wearing an ensemble of a J Crew chocolate brown linen button down and J Crew chocolate brown linen pencil skirt. I looked like a preppy UPS delivery person. And this was in the days before UPS went public and the employees became overnight millionaires. I was ahead of my time. Just last week I was all ready to finish off an ensemble of brown top, and brown and pink spotted silk skirt (cuter in person) with some adorable brown woven Mary Janes from Anthropologie. Love those shoes. Or rather, loved those shoes. I had one shoe on, ready to run out the door when I realized I couldn't find the other. My theory is that my husband--in his annual end-of-year sweep of the closet in search of items to donate for a tax write-off--scooped the other Italian leather marvel into a Goodwill-bound bag. Hopefully a one-legged (preferably left) person who wears a size 9 1/2 B shoe will enjoy my footwear.
When my son was born, I attempted to live on the wild side by dressing him in little patterned sweaters or multicolored shoes (again, cuter in person). I had brightly colored blankets, colorful crib sheets. If I was the dark, monochromatic minimalist, my son was the bold, lively fauvist.
So imagine my confusion when he announced he only wanted to have "blue things," in honor of the blue Power Ranger (his favorite at the time). Blue dishes, blue blanket, blue toys and, alas, blue clothing. In fact, for four or five years, I can only recall him not being dressed in blue one time: I was away and my husband took my son to sit on Santa's lap and dressed him in an old (i.e. pre-blue fixation) outfit consisting of a solid red shirt and solid red pants; the picture consisted of a child's head and puffy white beard as the only relief from the sea of red. For years, I had to study every prospective purchase to ensure that its blue-to-other-color ratio was correct, lest the item be rejected. This was not a battle I was going to pick, or else I would be waving the blue... I mean white... flag within hours. Children and their preferences are just not forces with which to be reckoned.
My daughter gravitated toward pink with even more of a vengeance than my son's obsession with blue. Being very detail-oriented, she specified that she prefers "light pink" over the hue's darker counterpart. Unfortunately, this preference was voiced after tags were removed and receipts lost for a stash of new magenta- and fuchsia-colored clothing. To make matters worse, she would only wear dresses. Not skirts, not culottes, not tunics, just dresses. For a few years, only Hanna Andersson striped "It's a Play Dress, It's a Day Dress" dresses. And only ones with pink stripes, or pink with a coordinating stripe. I became so accustomed to hoarding these dresses (which can only be ordered online), that I had stockpiled them in sizes for years to come, only to have her abruptly announce she no longer liked stripes, and only wanted to wear flower or heart clothing. And to go with these patterned dresses, red sequined ruby slippers (just like Dorothy!); yes, she owns so many pairs that she occasionally literally follows in the footsteps of her mother and wears an unmatching pair. Two lefts are her favorite combination.
A few weeks ago, I mixed it up by wearing a striped shirt (yes, with black stripes mixed among the other colors), with a black skirt and black shoes. I went to pick my son up at his after-school program. I saw him way across the playground and waved, as I do every day. But this time it took more energetic motioning, along with bellowing his name several times. When he finally stopped what he was doing and came to me, I asked what took so long. He told me that he hadn't recognized me wearing so much color.
I also own many black skirts that vary slightly in cut and fabric, but I have to give myself props for usually wearing a pattered or colored bottom with the black shirts. OK, to be entirely truthful, I will only buy patterned bottoms if black appears somewhere in the actual pattern itself to assure indisputable coordination. Some say everything goes with black.. I say nothing goes better with black than more black. I also buy in bulk. If a pair of faux croc leather kitten heels are in my size and on sale, I'll buy three pairs. My clothing is so interchangeable that one day this summer I actually went to work wearing two different shoes. Granted, only a trained connoisseur of Banana Republic pointy-toed flats would have known the difference--one had a patent flower, and the other a patent curlicue affixed to it.
To my credit, I have ventured into the blue territory, taken a turn into grays, and even dabbled in browns. I remember in my 20s wearing an ensemble of a J Crew chocolate brown linen button down and J Crew chocolate brown linen pencil skirt. I looked like a preppy UPS delivery person. And this was in the days before UPS went public and the employees became overnight millionaires. I was ahead of my time. Just last week I was all ready to finish off an ensemble of brown top, and brown and pink spotted silk skirt (cuter in person) with some adorable brown woven Mary Janes from Anthropologie. Love those shoes. Or rather, loved those shoes. I had one shoe on, ready to run out the door when I realized I couldn't find the other. My theory is that my husband--in his annual end-of-year sweep of the closet in search of items to donate for a tax write-off--scooped the other Italian leather marvel into a Goodwill-bound bag. Hopefully a one-legged (preferably left) person who wears a size 9 1/2 B shoe will enjoy my footwear.
When my son was born, I attempted to live on the wild side by dressing him in little patterned sweaters or multicolored shoes (again, cuter in person). I had brightly colored blankets, colorful crib sheets. If I was the dark, monochromatic minimalist, my son was the bold, lively fauvist.
So imagine my confusion when he announced he only wanted to have "blue things," in honor of the blue Power Ranger (his favorite at the time). Blue dishes, blue blanket, blue toys and, alas, blue clothing. In fact, for four or five years, I can only recall him not being dressed in blue one time: I was away and my husband took my son to sit on Santa's lap and dressed him in an old (i.e. pre-blue fixation) outfit consisting of a solid red shirt and solid red pants; the picture consisted of a child's head and puffy white beard as the only relief from the sea of red. For years, I had to study every prospective purchase to ensure that its blue-to-other-color ratio was correct, lest the item be rejected. This was not a battle I was going to pick, or else I would be waving the blue... I mean white... flag within hours. Children and their preferences are just not forces with which to be reckoned.
My daughter gravitated toward pink with even more of a vengeance than my son's obsession with blue. Being very detail-oriented, she specified that she prefers "light pink" over the hue's darker counterpart. Unfortunately, this preference was voiced after tags were removed and receipts lost for a stash of new magenta- and fuchsia-colored clothing. To make matters worse, she would only wear dresses. Not skirts, not culottes, not tunics, just dresses. For a few years, only Hanna Andersson striped "It's a Play Dress, It's a Day Dress" dresses. And only ones with pink stripes, or pink with a coordinating stripe. I became so accustomed to hoarding these dresses (which can only be ordered online), that I had stockpiled them in sizes for years to come, only to have her abruptly announce she no longer liked stripes, and only wanted to wear flower or heart clothing. And to go with these patterned dresses, red sequined ruby slippers (just like Dorothy!); yes, she owns so many pairs that she occasionally literally follows in the footsteps of her mother and wears an unmatching pair. Two lefts are her favorite combination.
A few weeks ago, I mixed it up by wearing a striped shirt (yes, with black stripes mixed among the other colors), with a black skirt and black shoes. I went to pick my son up at his after-school program. I saw him way across the playground and waved, as I do every day. But this time it took more energetic motioning, along with bellowing his name several times. When he finally stopped what he was doing and came to me, I asked what took so long. He told me that he hadn't recognized me wearing so much color.
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