What to Wear? A Rant

I need a formal outfit. I don’t have one. I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know how to pick out an outfit or ensemble; don’t know any store that really suits me in the first place. Everything I see is either too old, too young, too expensive or too stupid looking. I hate this new tweed trend. Do you know how stupid big feet look in ballerina flats? (Hint: Think Ronald McDonald sans makeup)

What’s a gal to do? I’m more of a Target/Old Navy type of girl. They don’t really have formal stuff. And trying to be fashion conscious gets me nowhere. Puffy sleeves, are they kidding? Only a model or a meth addict can wear those. And I can’t do the 80s thing again with the minis and the leggings. It looked stupid once and I fell for it. Does the fashion world have to rub my nose in it?  I’m still reeling from the effects of layered hair and I just got the worst haircut that makes me look like my mother and although I love my mother more than life itself, I do not want to BE my mother.

And I don’t want to look like I am going to a prom. I don’t even
know what a prom is; well, I sort of do. We didn’t call them proms back in Canada, they were semi-formals. (Leave it to Canada to take the romance out of a prom. Instead of evoking starlit prom memories, disco balls and spiked punch, the Canadian term makes it sound like a meeting where you’re required to button up and take notes, with the possibility of some coffee and a cruller at the end.)

Besides which, I don’t know the difference between formal and semi-formal, so the point is moot. I guess a black dress is the safest. But I don’t know where to look for one.

Or maybe I should just come clean.

Okay, fine. I don’t know how to dress up. I’m kind of an idiot that way. I don’t know how to put together an outfit, unless it involves slip-on shoes and sweatpants. The last time I really dressed up was at least five years ago, for my best friend’s wedding (the real version, not the movie). I looked pretty good; my friend had her hairdresser friend do my and the other bridesmaid’s hair and makeup, and the dress was long and black and had spaghetti straps (oooh) .  When I look at the photos, I am not ashamed. My husband was in Turkey at the time, (the wedding was in upstate New York.)

There are some pretty hot pictures of me sandwiched between two good-looking men. Who are a happily co-habiting same sex couple with a lovely house near Saratoga. Ah well. Youth is wasted on the young, beauty is wasted on situations where you aren’t going to get any action.

Anyway, I’m supposed to go to this big swanky party with my husband; company dinner party, and I don’t know what to wear. I haven’t worn a dress in years, and as for formal, well, like I said, my best friend’s wedding…. THAT dress doesn’t fit anymore, (it was pre-kid, so just shut up), so it’s long gone.  The only other pseudo fancy dress I have is a maternity one, which I bought for LAST year’s holiday swanky party, which I did not attend because three days earlier I had emergency surgery and ended up in bed for four months awaiting the birth of my preemie daughter.

I’m between 35 and 45 and I don’t know where to go to look nice. Where am I supposed to shop? I don’t want to go to the mall. I don’t like the mall. I fear the mall. I especially don’t want to go to the mall to try on dresses with my two small children in tow. I may as well just buy a Barney towel and sew it into a smock. That would be their first choice for an outfit for me.

If you look, for example, at Target, you’ll find cute stuff in the juniors’ section that is either too young or too small. If you look in the ladies’ section, most things are too old or too big. Where’s the in between—30 ish to 40ish clothing market? And don’t tell me The Gap. I hate The Gap. It used to be jeans. And then it just got stupid. And expensive.

I love vintage clothes, so I may try the vintage store up the street. But weeding out finds amid the mass of  rayon, nylon, and Dacron requires patience. And time. Neither of which I have in bucketloads at the moment.

I know there’s a wonderful store called Anthropologie, which has vintage-inspired beautiful AGE APPROPRIATE clothes, but frankly all I can afford is a scented candle or a cute wool shawl from there. It’s too expensive and that just  depresses me. It is probably the only store that I know of that caters to my taste and age. But not my income bracket. So what’s a girl to do?

I suppose if I lived in New York this would be easier. There are so many ambush makeover types of programs that the odds are if I hung around Trump Towers long enough looking frumpy someone will come and help me, or at least try to get me to give them some money.  I’d love for some nice TV people to approach me gently, sweep me up in their makeover van and bring me out to the swanky event looking ten years younger and twenty years hotter and have everyone cry and freak out because they never knew I was a hottie, etc. etc.   Could someone do that for me, please? Because it’s the journey there that exhausts me. I want to look nice. I just need outside assistance.

I’m going to ask my babysitter/friend if she can help. Maybe she can rescue me from old maternity dresses and running shoes.  The only problem is she’s 25. And I’m…not.  I don’t want to dress like a hooker or some perpetual 39-year-old botoxed uplifted collagened fading beauty actress who wants the ingénue parts but keeps getting cast as the mother or hilarious older neighbor lady with lots of cats.

So I don’t know, what do you think? That Barney towel is sounding better every minute.

Advertisement