Things are going… ok. Nevermind that I’m having dreams of guns, giant black ghostly bears and immense Great White sharks eating gigantic black kraken. (Which actually is kind of cool, I can’t even be properly frightened by my own sea monster nightmares!)
I am here to take you on a very scary trip through my style evolution.
Going back to childhood, I have always been a… weird dresser. I remember vividly the outfit I picked out to wear for my seventh birthday: blue green culottes, white tights, blue green Keds and a pink and blue and green shirt printed with comics. My style most closely resembled Claudia Kishi’s. Or rather it would have done had I not horrified my very classically fashion oriented mother at every turn. To this I would like to point out that along with her stunning Nina Piccolino dresses she owned (and wore) a POWER SUIT. She also owned a kilt. But I don’t think she ever wore that.
My mom influenced me a lot when I hit 10-13, mainly because she was the one who bought my clothes. My mother to this day has no idea how to dress me. She has no clue what colors suit me (I wore BROWN makeup for years because she told me that was all that suited me) or what styles work with my figure. For years I wore greens and purples that clashed with my skin and the amount of drop waisted sack dresses I wore in my life is sad and mind boggling. This is not entirely a failing as my mother is tall, slender, extremely fair, has green eyes and reddish brown hair. You can only tell that we’re related if we’re standing right next to each other. I have inherited her long neck and torso and my father’s short stumpy legs. She has a natural elegance I do not have.
And then I moved to Ye Olde Farm where I dressed weirder – my freshman year I wore a white poet’s shirt from Eddie Bauer, flannel boxer shorts, white socks and Teva sandals. But then I got better… mostly. I still had and wore a pair of rainbow tie dye tights. My stepmom has a very posh taste in clothes and taught me the lesson of buying quality that lasts as opposed to cheap stuff that won’t. Which is why I still have a flannel shirt I bought at Nordstrom’s in 1994 hanging in my closet. I still miss the cream cotton cricket sweater I bought that same year. But outside of school I spent the years from 13-20 in my dad’s old clothes: work boots, jeans, t-shirts, trucker hats and flannel shirts. It seems counter intuitive but when you’re working you want *more* layers, not less. Especially in the sun. And then it was grunge and all my dad’s old clothes became fashionable.
I have a great story about my work boots. In 1995 I was very into grunge and wore my work boots everywhere. I went to one of those Art Institute workshops in Seattle and on the way home my boots (steel toe and steel shank) beeped in the little security checkpoint. The guy got out the metal detecting wand, saying “I guess it’s your boots.” He checked them accordingly and then stood up with a look of admiration. “Those are
great boots.” What a different world that was, eh?
I dressed better in high school than I did in college. And up until quite recently as well. Those years, I am sad to say, I have photographic proof of.
Here I am at Stonehenge in 2002. Eeesh. I grant you it was freezing but that giant Speedo jacket was a late night purchase at the warehouse type store I worked at about four years prior to this. I should also point out that at that point in time it was the warmest thing I owned. Also, those were stretch jeans. And not the good kind. The cheap meant-to-last-two-washes kind.
Here I am later that same year. Yeah, I was totally that kind of girl. It comes from living on a farm. You are ill prepared for articles of decidedly feminine clothing and wear them badly. And tend to sit like a man. But you can see that I was getting an inkling that giant farmer jackets weren’t really my style.
This one doesn’t look so bad but believe me, it wasn’t good. Those jeans make me cringe. I have since learned that I need a much wider leg in pants to balance out the top half of me. (Also, this is when I first discovered Photoshop Actions.) I still have those shoes though but they are worn only in the house.
And then it all went so horribly, horribly wrong. You can see some knitting there but my word, it does not suit. And what is up with the rest of my outfit anyway? Women with short stumpy legs should never wear voluminous cargo pants. EVER. (Also, I had not worked out the whole self portrait thing at this point.) (Also, also, we had just gotten in and our car does not have A/C. Hence the hair.)
Danger, Will Robinson! I don’t even know. This was to wear to a wedding. WHY?!?
Ignore the horrible smile. This is another evolution. I do badly in summer because I am a) allergic to humidity (not really, it just wears me out very quickly), b) allergic to the sun (this is true, I have to cover my head, legs and arms if I’m going to be in the sun for any length of time. I also get sun stroke *really* easily so I have to watch that too.) So I wear lots of linen pants and that particular linen cardigan which I hate but have not yet been able to replace since I can’t knit with linen.
AAAAAAAAAAAAH! This was *early last year*. Granted I never ever left the house in this! Short, stumpy legs ahoy though.
I admit that around the house I have a uniform of sweats/pj pants, t-shirts, sweatshirts/cardigans and scarves/cowls. Think about how you feel when you’re run down and feeling sick and tell me how dolled up you feel like getting. But I have stopped wearing ratty cardigans and shorts, for which I am sure the whole world thanks me. The long socks still get worn to bed though. They’re warm!
Now. I like it. Also, I haven’t worn glasses for very long but don’t I look weird in the photos without them?
Of course I’m finding that I’m looking more toward knits that I *used* to have the patterns for. Things like Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan would fit in well now. Likewise Stefanie Japel’s first book. I got rid of them ages ago thinking I would never wear anything like. Ho hum, eh?
And look, it’s J. and I, eight years ago. We weren’t even married here. Awwww.
Hope you enjoyed this gallery of fashion horrors. It made me giggle, at least.
