No one, except someone suffering from serious delusions, would accuse me of being a fashion victim, which was why I started out my visit to the mall on Saturday with such a combination of wild hope and foreboding. Hope--because it springs eternal--and foreboding, because I had a feeling of what was in store. Foreboding won out. If you are over 50 and over 150 pounds and don't get out shopping much because writing at home and driving kids around doesn't require much more than clothes that cover your nakedness, this is what you can expect to find if you are, say, looking for something nice to wear to a relative's wedding this coming June:
1. Skin-tight dresses made of stretchy fibers and
cut all the way down to Florida (I could shoehorn into one of those numbers if I
bought enough Spanx, but I am afraid that when I was done I would look like a Polish
Sausage with cleavage).
2. Peasant dresses of loose-weave cotton that go
all the way down to the floor. These look good on a pregnant Agenlina Jolie and are acceptable to put on when getting out of the shower but I'll be damned if I can figure out when else you'd wear one
3. Boxy mother-of-the-bride suits that not even
Laura Bush would wear (and, speaking of suits, have you ever thought about what
it's like wearing a suit when you're having hot flashes? Has anyone ever
mentioned to designers that middle-aged women may not BE hot but that they GET
hot?)
4. Floral dresses of the kind Ma Clampett might've
worn to Sunday meetin'. Yee haw.
5, "Event" dresses with lots 'n lots o' bling,
totally inappropriate for an afternoon wedding or anything else, really, except maybe being decorated by the French Foreign Legion
6. 6,000 racks of booorring Hillary Clinton
pantsuits
7. Lots and lots of "jackets" and "twin-sets" that are really pieces of cloth sewn together to make it look like two coordinated pieces instead of one crappy piece. Can we make that against the law?
7. Lots and lots of "jackets" and "twin-sets" that are really pieces of cloth sewn together to make it look like two coordinated pieces instead of one crappy piece. Can we make that against the law?
I was about to give up and just go to Burkas R Us
when, wandering through Nordstrom's again on my way back to my car, I realized
(sound of heavenly music) I had missed the Eileen Fisher rack.
I didn't have a chance to try anything on--by then it was late and I needed to get home--but it gave me a glimmer of hope. I plan to go back later this week, when I return the crappy JC Penny's pantsuit I bought in what was the fashion equivalent of deciding to turn tricks on the corner--a moment when I said, Oh, what the hell.
But seeing the Eileen Fisher rack--interesting clothes, sophisticated clothes, clothes made for bodies which may be bigger than size 6, clothes which you may even be able to wear a couple of years from now--gave me a wisp of hope. Maybe, just maybe, there is something out there for me after all. At any rate, I can dream.
I didn't have a chance to try anything on--by then it was late and I needed to get home--but it gave me a glimmer of hope. I plan to go back later this week, when I return the crappy JC Penny's pantsuit I bought in what was the fashion equivalent of deciding to turn tricks on the corner--a moment when I said, Oh, what the hell.
But seeing the Eileen Fisher rack--interesting clothes, sophisticated clothes, clothes made for bodies which may be bigger than size 6, clothes which you may even be able to wear a couple of years from now--gave me a wisp of hope. Maybe, just maybe, there is something out there for me after all. At any rate, I can dream.
