Florida Fashion

I am by no means a fashion consultant. If you ask me whether or not something goes together I will probably say yes as long as it isn't purple and blue or orange and red in the same outfit. If it's clean and the colors don't make me throw up or clash, then it works for me. Once I actually wore something to church and asked someone if what I had on looked ok together. A friend felt sorry for me and actually went to the store and showed me what would look good on me. She was right too. How did she know that? Usually, I feel as if I have a mutated fashion gene when I am around people like that.

Stuff that looks good on other people or on the mannequin usually makes me look like I'm trying to be 23 again instead of 42. I know basic things such as white goes with everything and for the most part, so does black, unless of course it's brown, then it doesn't work. Who made up that rule? Stacy and Clinton? It sounds suspiciously like the "'i' bfore 'e' except after 'c' rule in spelling which I happen to have a much better grasp of than fashion. Because I knew the "white with everything" rule, for awhile I had a lot of white shirts, a few different colors for shorts and maybe a pair of white dress pants.

Then someone had to go and start the khaki bandwagon. What? What am I supposed to wear with that? Red? Blue? Black? White, perhaps? Was khaki supposed to be the new white similar to brown as the new black that I heard awhile ago? I looked in the crayon box, white is not khaki and brown is not black. They are all separate crayons. Check it out for yourself. The back to school supplies are in stock at your local WalMart by now. It took me awhile to be able to say "khaki" without laughing let alone trying to find something to wear with it. The word khaki sounds like something an infant would do that would require a lot of baby wipes to clean up. Anyway, I also know you aren't supposed to wear white before Memorial Day so I had a real problem from about Labor Day through May. Sometimes I pushed the limits and wore my white into October. I figured if we could still see the sun in NW Ohio, I could still wear white.

The real dilemma was what to wear in the winter. I guess once upon a time someone happened to be wearing white and was standing out by their mailbox and got run over by a snowplow. This prompted the Department of Transportation to mandate a new law disallowing the wearing of white in the winter. Of course that prompted the fashion gurus to come up with a new color called "winter white" which everyone knows is really "off white" or "eggshell" or "bone" which is what my Dad paints all of his walls with because it goes with everything. Good thing I knew this so I could stock up on winter white fashion. I also had a small amount of black for safety measures. You never know when there might be a blizzard and you have to go to your mailbox since everyone knows the post office delivers mail in all types of weather except for possibly hurricanes. The only rule I know of in this situation is you should be careful about wearing black and white together because it looks a little bit like you just got released from jail.

I usually look like I've either just stepped out of the barn for a few minutes or else I look like a general slop. Sometimes, I manage to pull off both looks at the same time, which I personally refer to as "multiple fashion errors". When I go to the store, I look at "nice" clothes but then somehow I always end up with another blue t-shirt instead of a dress. For the record, I haven't worn a dress since Mike and I got married. As for him, he wore a long sleeved blue t-shirt. And jeans. We might have promised to love, honor, cherish and make sure the other one doesn't look too sloppy when we go out for dinner but I can't remember that part for sure without getting out the video.

Do you see the problem here? It isn't as if we don't know better. It's just that we usually think we can get another year or two out of our clothes since it's the kids who are growing out of theirs faster than I can spell Hollister, Abercombie or run a google search to see if I spelled those correctly and to figure out what happened to Fitch. The problem with getting another year or two out of clothes is that if you do it too many times pretty soon people are pointing and laughing at your rainbow shirt and Jordache jeans from the 80's. Now that was some real fashion, but only if you had the jeans with the embellishment on the pockets. Plain pockets were nerdy.

A few years ago I was scrolling through the TV lineup when I ran across the show "What Not to Wear". Well, clearly I have a problem so I thought I'd watch and pick up a tip or two. After watching this show, I can safely say that if I'm wearing it, Stacy and Clinton would be yelling at me to throw it away if I was on that show. That would probably hurt my feelings similar to when Mom threw out my old Nike hightops. What was she thinking? Those were the most comfortable pair of shoes I had ever owned and she ditched them just because the sides were ripped out. Man. Stacy and Clinton are terrifying, merciless and also pretty funny. Some of the stuff they make people throw away make you wonder...as if I have any room to talk.

After spending the summer in Florida I can safely say that while I may not dress like a fashionista (what is that anyway? Is it Spanish?) I try to make the attempt not to offend anyone with my sloppiness. For instance, I reserve my holey clothes for wearing at home, unless it's just a small hole under the arm or something. If I had a garden, these shirts would be "garden shirts". This is a term my sister's and I had to come up with due to an incredibly ugly shirt our Mom passed off to Val and told her if it was too ugly she should wear it in the garden. I guess that was good advice except for the part where her plants all died due to the ugliness of that shirt.

Anyway, this is what I learned about fashion while we were in Florida based upon what I observed.

It was Star Wars weekend at Disney's Hollywood Studios, formerly known as MGM Studios and it was hot. While we were there we saw kids and adults dressed like various Star Wars characters. Jedi's were running around with those brown robes on, I saw a few Darth Vaders dressed completely in black, some people had masks on. Really? Did I mention it was hot? It was over 100 degrees with the humidity that day. All I can say is that George Lucas would have been paying me to wear that stuff in that type of heat. Crazy.

If it's really, really hot (as opposed to just really hot) and you need to go to the public swimming pool to cool off, it is perfectly fine to wear a pair of white capris so skintight that you can see your mottled skin through them. The mottling occurs because the pants should be at least two sizes too small, thus ensuring they will cut off the blood supply to your lower limbs. This fashion statement is acceptable for those who are 300 lbs or more. It would be considerate to make sure you stay away from the kiddie section so as not to frighten small children thereby causing them to drown and avoiding all the hoopla associated with that type of scenario, although it is not a requirement. I would mention that apparently it's fine to wear this with nothing on underneath except for I was trying to keep this blog so that the kids could read it if they wanted to. If you wear this to the pool, and people shout "Eeewwww" when you walk by, you might deserve it.

Since we were at Disney for awhile, there is always someone who thinks wearing black socks with Tevas, Birkenstock or Crocs is a good idea. I saw women and men doing this so apparently these types of shoes are gender neutral like they tried to make neckties a few years ago. Remember that stupidity? Just so we are clear on this, I'm not wearing a tie any sooner than I'm going to wear a dress. If men don't want to wear a tie, why would I want to? Similarly, if I'm not going to wear a dress, why would a man want to? Oops. Anyway, it's possible that I don't understand the point of these types of shoes. Personally, I wear my Birks because my feet hate to be confined in shoes and socks and if I wore a pair of flip flops I would probably get a cramp in my foot. That's another reason why I would be voted off the "What Not to Wear" island. Stacy and Clinton hate Birks don't they?

Apparently, anything goes as a swimsuit at a waterpark and that's all I'm going to say since this is supposed to be a rated G blog. At one point , I thought my eyes were going to fall out of my head when I saw some of the things people thought were acceptable to wear. And in all sizes. I mean ALL sizes. Let's put it this way, WalMart sells underwear with more coverage than some of the swimwear I saw at Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon. In fact Mike and I laughed at one suit we saw when I stated, "I want to see her go down Summit Plummet with that on." Or not. Thanks anyway.

Flip flops of all types are acceptable forms of fashion. Just ask my kids. Also, I have no room to talk since Birkenstocks really aren't that much different except for I could buy a lot more pairs of flips at WalMart for what I pay for my Birks and they generally don't make a racket when I walk in them. However, I was really surprised by the guy who was wearing flip flops with, are you sitting down? Get ready. Big reveal coming up here. Toe socks. I am not lying. I am also not lying when I say that for all of my own fashion faults, when I saw that, I did a full out laugh. The good thing about it was that someone clueless enough to wear something like that, is usually clueless enough not to think someone laughing to the point of tears is not laughing at them because what could they be doing that is so funny?

Here are a few of my own fashion rules:
1. Please look in the mirror before you leave the house and make sure what you are wearing is the right size. If it isn't people are likely to make comments such as "Nice outfit. Did they have it in your size?" Once I saw someone wearing a yellow leather skirt. These were my comments:
a. I had no idea cows came in yellow.
b. How many cows had to die to make that skirt? (it was a big, yellow leather skirt)
c. Nice skirt. I guess they didn't have it in her size.
d. Yellow? Leather? Should these two things go together?

2. If you have to ask does this make me look too ___ (big, little, short, tall, skinny, fat, etc.) then you already know the answer.

3. Don't make your husband tell you something makes you look too fat. That's what your friends are for and he's worried if he tells you the truth, you will put poison in his food next time you fix supper.

4. Certain outfits should not be made in certain sizes.

5. The federal government should make a law banning spandex from this country, all clothing made from this material and the sweatshops churning out items made with this material.

You should feel sorry for Stacy and Clinton. From what I have observed this summer, they have a lot of work to do and they need to get cracking. I'm probably the least of their worries.