Enough?
I threw myself an all day pity party yesterday, commencing as soon as Hubby's truck started its descent down the driveway. I do prefer solitude for my pity parties. My self-pity isnae ever far from random targeting rage and best done with public safety measures in place. Solitude is the best public safety measure I have found. Ya can't snipe at what ain't there. Hubs will be at his corporate halls for most of this week, so I have the option of continuing the pity party, if I choose. At the moment I feel like I've worked through most of that process, but a downside of solitude is that it makes it all too easy to confuse my gigantic stubborn streak for healing strength.
My one productive activity of yesterday was to finish the dress I was sewing on at the start of the GK vacation. I wore it to bed last night and am still wearing it this morning. I believe I will wear it to work on the car this morning. I doesn't know but I am beginning to wonder if the obesity flashbacks are leading in the direction of inappropriate use of costumes, beginning with listening to the sewing circle gab beneath that quilting frame. I am gently confident the fiercely German businesswomen of that circle viewed a garment as a garment. Shop clothes for the menfolk held terms like, "Man Apron." I think. Maybe. For certain, their terminology fell on the wayside as the sewing arts worked their way into industrial sweat shops and the mainstream adopted the marketing vernacular. I still find great humor in the import/export tax of designs leaving one gender department to find its way to another department. The diff between masculine and feminine can be found in the department label.
As I allow the flashbacks to sort themselves to something cohesive, the dress feels like an appropriate raspberry to today's feminine norms. The making of it was far more simple than the shirts and pants of today's women's department costumes, but its lines and cuts are old world (60's) feminine. I find myself flashing back to the mechanical breakdown we suffered in the drizzling rain on the way home from a formal Mason's dance in 1974 Germany. While the other women of the group gasped at me crawling in the mud while wearing my formal gown while they guarded their finery from the *harsh* conditions, I simply shook my head and dug deeper in the mud. Somewhere through the ordeal, one of my fellow GI's silenced them with, "Hemlines don't reach the engine compartment and you guys never wear a fancy dress more than once, anyway."
And there is the sunrise. There is nothing wrong with my car. Just maintenance.
Replies
^It^ has been denamed in the merging of tongues
^It^ has been defamed in the quest for Just One
^It^ shimmers strength through the gossamer lights
Which are masked by fear in the industrial brights
We feel the tugs through our costumed perfection
Of each and every pretensive selection
Walk bravely to where the brave dare not go
Be knot distracted by the costuming flow
Trust that ^It^ will be fair
I love this entry from start to finish, additional comments and all, Arfie. I think it genius and insightful.
Between my equestrian world & my mother going to work for high end boutique as an account payable clerk & then the hereditary tradition of fashion etiquette ingrained in my mother & I by my grandmother, this entry makes so much sense and connects so much with my experiences.
I have many brief flashes of ending up at the horse trader’s farms dressed in Sunday finery and without care or consideration from the fine shoes or expense of dry cleaning, walking thru hooves churned muck & hiking up my skirt or dress & leaping bareback onto the lastest horse brought in with just a halter and lead to guide it. Eventually I learned to forsake shoes & stocking to go barefoot thru the muck of the paddocks but nothing could stop me from getting on that horse. Luckily my mother had an equal love for horses and extreme patience and understanding because I’ve ruined many a skirt and dress back then.
Though for a good 14+ years of my life I was emerged in the world of high fashion, I’ve never treated any of my valuable clothing any differently than a pair of jeans and t-shirt. I take better care of these clothes now but I see absolutely no reason not to still wear them for everyday clothing even though it’s likely ridiculous overkill of fashion. There was a time when I separated daily from professional or dress wear but after years of boxes gathering dust with treasures of beautiful clothes being wasted by neglect, in the past few years I’ve given up.
Now days you can find me cleaning the house in a $300 dress with no concern, doing minor car repairs in my fancy clothing and expensive shoes without a twinge of guilt.
Clothes are meant to be worn and if I’m dressed to the nines and disassembling a car door to fix a window off it’s tracks in stiletto boots and silk top so be it. I know how to care for my clothes afterwards so I find it fun to preform tasks in my finery that would likely make the fashion world faint at the idea.
Hugs & love, Arfie.
Thank you, Mighty River, but I donae believe the connections are anywhere near the same lines, The servants who catered to your high fashion world donae have the same perspectives as the cutie pies in the horse parade. We only get to shovel the shit. Of course we might do the shoveling in one of the garments which never made the cut in the high end boutiques. This season that might even be pink camouflage.
I haven't liked blue jeans and t-shirts since the 80's when my high tech co-workers demanded I wear them to work. No, I amae joking. They were out to dethrone the suit and tie regime. Even if the demand hadn't pushed my authority issue buttons, I couldnae afford blue jeans on my young family budget. I had no choice but to wear them boutique rejects from the second-hand stores. Girl howdy, it pissed off my co-workers. Different thread. . . Pun intended.
I still donae like the blue denim uniform. Denim is far from the only field strength fabric available.
My mother is the queen of thrift fashion couture, thankfully. And yes I’ve mucked out a stall a time or many in overpriced high fashion because it needed to be done and my horses comfort was far more important than my clothes.
I know it’s not the same but I think in a way we regard something the same way and put value on more important things than trendy clothing and shoes. I’m pro-vintage and always have been even when I had to do the runways. The only value my high end clothes have is that they fit and last far longer than most clothing lines you get at an average mall.
I unfortunately suffer from the typical Russian waif body, leggy with no breasts, no hips, no waist. That makes finding clothes in the states that will fit a exercise in futility. So at least my now decade(s) old high fashion is still working and might as well keep using them cause you can only live in athletic wear for so long before you get tired of looking like you’re just leaving the gym every day, lol.
Hugs & love Arfie
Thank you for the girl talk, Vltava.
You’re welcome Arfie.