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Following fashion daunting (and pointless)
As if there is not enough to keep track of between raising children, following current events and most importantly, figuring out what to fix for dinner, we are expected to stay in fashion. Personally, I don't have time or the money to follow fashion trends.
By the time I figure out something is in fashion, it's on the clearance rack or being used as a mudroom's doormat. I've rarely been one to follow fashion trends, only because I look back at vintage photographs of myself from the early '80s and already cringe. Neon colors should never have been invented and more importantly turned into clothing. Legwarmers never should leave the dance class. And if collars were meant to be standing on end, they would be made that way.
These days with four small children, I'm usually happy if I can get out of the house without small chunks of food stuck to my clothes. I usually spend the first 10 minutes at my destination shifting my shirt to hide a stain on my pants or scrubbing the spot on my shirt's sleeve, which looks vaguely like that morning's cereal. With all that pressure just to stay clean, I rarely know the season's trends, the must have skirt-length or this year's "black."
(Wouldn't it be easier if black was this year's black?) But fashion trends have started to pop up, in all places, parenting and family magazines, so I am going to be in the midst of fashion this year or at least hanging my fingernails to the edge.
For those in the dark, these are the predicted fashion trends, at least for the next few hours:
- Your basic wardrobe should be all one color such as blue or black, so that everything coordinates with that one color. Lime green and fuschia are not recommended choices (see above). If I have to tell you why, then you shouldn't even be looking at them in the store.
- This year's "black" is actually pink, which means that my 6-year-old daughter and I can now wear matching outfits.
- Coincidentally, polka-dots are another trend this season. As a fan during polka-dots' last trip into the fashion limelight, I still have polka-dotted dresses and shirts, even shoes. I may look like a walking case of the measles, but I'll be in fashion.
- Cargo pants became popular several years ago (after a disastrous entry in the early '80s along with parachute pants) and are predicted to stick around like blue jeans and the white t-shirt. Wearers are advised to wear slimmer, flatter pockets because they are more flattering. But doesn't that defeat the purpose of having pockets to fill. Even my maternity pants have cargo pockets, which is handy because I'm not feeling big enough without giant, bulging pockets on both thighs.
| - | Skirt length will be somewhere between upper-thigh and mid-ankle. It's up to you to find the least flattering spot on your leg and have the hem of your skirt hit you there. n | And those who lived through and had to dress themselves in the '80s can start to grimace because preppy clothes are back. This means one thing: alligator shirts are in. Those little animals which adorned the upper, left chest of every polo shirt have returned and should remain popular until at least the next full moon, when once again, they'll become a cliche. |
They say fashion must regularly change. (Don't ask who "they" are; it's probably the same group who tells us that we're all going to fall over dead from eating movie theater popcorn and fettuccine Alfredo.) In fact, they're surprised how long cargo pants have stayed in vogue since two years of popularity in the fashion industry is an eternity. Change in fashion is a good thing considering that we could still be wearing blue polyester leisure suits, white linen togas or bearskin wrap-arounds complete with saber-tooth accessories. I will stick with my blue jeans and my t-shirts because they'll never go out of style and more importantly, they hide stains the best.