The Fashion Police

I just wanted to pop in and tell everyone to shoot over to http://toberead.wordpress.com/
My writing partner, Faye Hughes and I are blogging about: Why Can't Life Be Like A Romance Novel? Faye's post is up today, tomorrow I will be taking a stab at it. So pop over!

Crime Scene Christie

Deadly Deleon blogged about this very subject once upon a time, and she even touched on it yesterday, but recently this issue has been bought to my attention—on more than one occasion—and I’ve decided to take a stab at the whole fashion-sense subject myself.

Fashion sense is right up there with common sense, right? It’s about color, tone, texture, body shape, and form. Hey, I write a monthly interior design feature, basically I make part of my living by dealing with design concepts.

It’s not algebra, guys.

I mean, what’s to stop a woman from walking into her closet, pick out a top, a cute skirt, choose a belt, a scarf, snatch a couple pieces of jewelry out of the box and “Shazam!” a snazzy outfit is born.

Well, I don’t have a freaking clue what’s stopping me, but I’ve never been able to do it. (Now, there’s the issue of not being able to walk in my closet, but I’ll save one that for another blog.) And no, it’s not algebra, but I seriously missed out on the “fashion togetherness” gene.

Don’t misunderstand, I don’t consider myself totally fashion-impaired. I don’t walk around wearing stripes running horizontally across my backside. I know that crop tops were not meant to accent belly rolls. I’m aware that tight white polyester and cellulite don’t do well together. (You’ve seen them at the grocery store, too, huh?) I’m generally cognizant of what colors make me look sick to my stomach and which ones accentuate my skin tone and bring out my eye color.

But I am slightly envious of the women who always look so “pulled together” that they could have walked off a catalog page. And the only place they shopped was their own closets. And when you compliment them on their outfit, they always say,” Oh, this? I haven’t done laundry and just snatched something out of my closet.”

I’m even more envious of the women whose style is just a bit edgy, trendy, and they look great wearing it, too.

I’m more of the classic-style of dresser. Which is just another way of saying, extremely boring.

I’ll admit that I’ve tried to add a little spunk/spark to my wardrobe. Last year, I bought a black velvet French beret to wear with a black sweater jacket which was accented with a strip of black leather down the button line. The buttons were large silver, stylish “Harley-Davidson-ish” looking buttons. I pulled the outfit together with a pair of black pants and nice metallic silver shell to be worn beneath the sweater.

I put the ensemble on, looked at myself in the mirror and thought, Damn, who’s that forty-something woman trying to look like a hot babe but ain’t even close to being hot?

And just to make sure my opinion wasn’t off, I came downstairs and casually walked into the room with my son and husband. Their uncontrollable laughter had me digging in the trash for the store receipts lickety-split. (I mean, I’d paid dearly to look that ridiculous.)

So, I’m back to the nice classic style of suit-jacket, matching pants, in my skin tone-acceptable colors. As always, my outfits are topped off by a very small brimmed, nothing too showy with feathers or anything, type of hat, which has grown to become my trademark.

However, my demure style of dress and lack of fashionability has been a slight embarrassment to some. Namely, my mom, who owns more belts and earrings and scarves than a junk yard dog has fleas. Her closet is like a walk-in boutique with all the latest trends, styles, and hot colors. Her hair is dyed red, her jewelry always . . . always matches her clothes, even her shoes. Her purses look as if they were made by the same designer who put together her shoes. And frankly, she pulls it off with pizzazz.

Don’t you know that she’s constantly trying to save her daughter from her humdrum style, too? I have a whole closet full of mother-gifted clothes. Why, just last month while visiting her in Los Angeles, I was wearing my silver heart-shaped necklace, with a small pair of 14-karot gold earrings. (See, I even wore them in my press picture.)

Mother dropped me off at the OCC chapter meeting, and took the shortest route to the mall and bought me a pair of silver earrings to wear the next day when I went to church with her. I mean . . . to my mother, wearing gold earrings with a silver necklace was as bad as corduroy in the summer, or white cotton before spring.

So . . . now I’m getting ready to pare down my wardrobe for the Romantic Times’ Conference. I know there’s going to be hundreds of women wearing the latest, trendiest styles. And I’m thinking maybe I need to go shopping and get something . . . something different. Something that doesn’t look like the same thing I wore last year. I’ll let you know later how it comes out.

So what about you, guys? Want to share any fashion mistakes or fashion impairments? Offer any fashion tips for the fashionably-slow?

Crime Scene Christie