Sometimes when you write a blog, it is easy to leave out all the stuff you’re bad at. I like clothes, but that doesn’t mean that I have it everything together. Heck, if I make it out of the door with shoes on, it’s a minor triumph. If I remember to put on earrings before work, I give myself a mental high-five (way to go, Ash!). So in interest of staying humble and lest my readers think I have things figured out, here are some frank confessions.
Confession 1: I’m short and I’ve got a long torso, so even by short girl standards, I have super short legs. So unless I buy capri trousers to wear as normal trousers, my pants need hemming. Even when I buy them from the petite section. So you’d think I’d learn to hem things, but nope. My mom hems everything. MY MOM LIVES SEVENTEEN HOURS AWAY. So when she’s not available to hem my stuff, I buy trousers that are slim cut enough that I can just cuff them on the inside and they kind of stay up by themselves. This means that at any given moment, I have five inches of excess material swimming around my ankles. Am I ashamed by this?
Yup. But not ashamed enough to hem anything.
Confession 2: My justification for outfits is usually, “It’s okay, because I’m wearing it.” And even as I say it, I realize that “justification” is too strong a word for that line of reasoning. I sometimes get dressed in the dark. Or without contacts in. So some of my color combinations are very brave and / or foolhardy. Same for my fearless print-mixing.
Confession 3: I’m terrible at accessorizing. If I didn’t have to wear shoes, I wouldn’t. (The only shoes I like tend toward the bizarre – I have a pair of spiked tennis shoes that I enjoy.) If I wear rings or bracelets, there is a high risk of fidgeting myself to death. Earrings are about as far as I go – even then, odds are good that I will forget to put earrings on before I run out the door. I mainly just like clothes.
Confession 4: I’m surprised when anybody takes my advice about clothes, because I know what I looked like during high school. Given, it was the early 2000s and it was rough on all of us, but my favorite shirt was bright orange with reflective lettering. It was also a boy’s shirt from Gap Kids (why was I shopping in the boy’s section of Gap Kids? I don’t even know). So lest I present the appearance of having all my ducks in a row, know this – my standard wardrobe used to consist of Winnie-the-Pooh t-shirts plus my dad’s old sweaters plus lumpy mom jeans.
I just like clothes. It doesn’t mean that all my ideas are great, I just like playing around with different styles and trying different shapes and colors. The great thing about starting out in oversized men’s sweaters and mom jeans is that the only direction is up! Even on the days when I forget the earrings and I have five extra inches of trouser cuffed at my ankles, it can still be a good day. I can’t take clothes too seriously, because I can’t take myself too seriously. So don’t worry if your outfit doesn’t work today. Try again tomorrow. Try, fail, laugh it off, try again, keep going. Don’t be afraid to fail or to admit you have weaknesses!
The Art of Getting Dressed 