Summer uniform foiled
I guess it had to happen eventually. The summer uniform I've been wearing for most of the last two summers and was planning to recycle this year with only minimal changes – has suddenly been adopted by some semi-official voice of fashion, which has pronounced 2009 the "summer of the shift." Drat!
It's such a basic dress, and that should've been my tip-off. Everything in design seems to be going basic right now. Just look at the new Pepsi logo if you don't believe me – and then spend an hour or two watching television. Snapple, too (is that a Pepsi brand? Wonder who got that account?)! I defy you to not find at least one major corporate logo that's undergone radical simplification over the last six months to a year. It's becoming chronic!
And now these dresses are everywhere! I keep seeing all these pictures of models wearing expensive and suddenly stylish versions of my formerly proprietary standard summer uniform – a plain linen shift over pants or leggings or shorts, with sandals and possibly some kind of hat or sweater or wrap – and it's causing me all kinds of angst. Because god forbid people might see me wearing the same old thing I always wear, and think I'm wearing it because I'm trying (and yet still somehow failing) to be fashionable? And then, if I keep wearing it after it goes back out of fashion, I'll be seen as behind the times. Instead of transcendent of them, which my silly vainglorious ego seems to think is the best way to be thought of by others, if they really must think of me at all ....
I can only write this because I know from reading my statistics that my regular readership has now descended into the very low single-digits. So I'm not really revealing the extent of my shallowness and self-consciousness to anyone who doesn't already know about it first hand.
(It does make me sad, though – just as an aside – to remember that I lost an old good friend over my unwillingness to censor myself on this blog. Or so he said. And so few people actually ever even read it!)
I've decided not to abandon my uniform though, and instead use this as an opportunity to challenge myself. I've always said the uniform was about keeping my life simple and stress-free, and about pleasing myself by wearing what I like, instead of trying to keep up with what I think other people think I should like.
If that's really true, then what do I care if everyone else is wearing the same thing this year? They'll soon get tired of it, and move on to something else, leaving me to continue wearing it until I get tired of it too.
In a way, now that I think of it, I'm starting to kind of like the idea that tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of other people will be wearing this exact outfit, and that there's absolutely nothing special about it. It's another one of the primary functions of a good uniform, that it allows me to blend. Because sometimes I enjoy being more expressive but most of the time I just want to go about my business without attracting undue attention.
And anyway, it's really not like I invented it myself. My original inspiration came from the way poor men dress in hot places like India, those long lose white shirts over long loose white pants. Use your clothes as a sort of portable, personal shade structure.
All this by way of announcing that it's finally getting hot around here – really hot now, moving toward the 90s – and I've officially broken out the loose summer layers.
It's such a basic dress, and that should've been my tip-off. Everything in design seems to be going basic right now. Just look at the new Pepsi logo if you don't believe me – and then spend an hour or two watching television. Snapple, too (is that a Pepsi brand? Wonder who got that account?)! I defy you to not find at least one major corporate logo that's undergone radical simplification over the last six months to a year. It's becoming chronic!
And now these dresses are everywhere! I keep seeing all these pictures of models wearing expensive and suddenly stylish versions of my formerly proprietary standard summer uniform – a plain linen shift over pants or leggings or shorts, with sandals and possibly some kind of hat or sweater or wrap – and it's causing me all kinds of angst. Because god forbid people might see me wearing the same old thing I always wear, and think I'm wearing it because I'm trying (and yet still somehow failing) to be fashionable? And then, if I keep wearing it after it goes back out of fashion, I'll be seen as behind the times. Instead of transcendent of them, which my silly vainglorious ego seems to think is the best way to be thought of by others, if they really must think of me at all ....I can only write this because I know from reading my statistics that my regular readership has now descended into the very low single-digits. So I'm not really revealing the extent of my shallowness and self-consciousness to anyone who doesn't already know about it first hand.
(It does make me sad, though – just as an aside – to remember that I lost an old good friend over my unwillingness to censor myself on this blog. Or so he said. And so few people actually ever even read it!)
I've decided not to abandon my uniform though, and instead use this as an opportunity to challenge myself. I've always said the uniform was about keeping my life simple and stress-free, and about pleasing myself by wearing what I like, instead of trying to keep up with what I think other people think I should like.
If that's really true, then what do I care if everyone else is wearing the same thing this year? They'll soon get tired of it, and move on to something else, leaving me to continue wearing it until I get tired of it too.
In a way, now that I think of it, I'm starting to kind of like the idea that tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of other people will be wearing this exact outfit, and that there's absolutely nothing special about it. It's another one of the primary functions of a good uniform, that it allows me to blend. Because sometimes I enjoy being more expressive but most of the time I just want to go about my business without attracting undue attention.
And anyway, it's really not like I invented it myself. My original inspiration came from the way poor men dress in hot places like India, those long lose white shirts over long loose white pants. Use your clothes as a sort of portable, personal shade structure.
All this by way of announcing that it's finally getting hot around here – really hot now, moving toward the 90s – and I've officially broken out the loose summer layers.
2 Comments:
You lost a friend over the friend's deceitful, manipulative, and sexually molesting behavior. And as soon as you compromise your own integrity or seem to forget his abuses, I'm sure he'll have you back.
It's amusing to me how common a mild vice that vanity is.
I always love that you have these seasonal uniforms for work. I guess it's time for you to start a new trend since BIG FASHION seems to have copied you--that's how I'm choosing to think of it anyway.
I never ever have any idea what to wear when I have to show up for a meeting or interview with a client/potential client. Plus, I really have very little that is suitable and don't have a good sense of what looks good on me.
One thing I have always liked is what I think of as a "chicken-feeding dress"--a loose-fitting vaguely Depression-era slightly empire-waisted dress that falls below the knee and maybe has a floral pattern, worn with low-heeled boots and a cardigan sweater. I think I could sail very easily from middle-age into advanced old age in such an outfit, maybe adding a hairnet to the ensemble at age 80 or so.
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