I’m thinking of launching a new game show. I call it Style Smackdown. It came to me the other day when, for the four thousand and twelfth time, I opened my closet, sweater chest, and tee shirt drawer and it hit me like a smack to the skull that I have absolutely nothing to wear. Sure, I have a few decrepit pairs of cords and some black suit pants decomposing in the back of the fashion abyss that runs along my bedroom wall, but other than that, I’ve got nothing. Nothing stylish. Nothing “now”. Nothing that I really can’t wait to wear.
In an effort to smack back and fill my drawers, hangers and cubbies with cool stuff I’d actually look forward to putting on, I ran to my local Borders, staked out a spot among the magazines, and grabbed a fistful of fashion bibles. Ten minutes into Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, InStyle, Glamour, Marie Claire, and Cosmo, it dawned on me that I didn’t have a prayer of finding something “now”. But if I wanted something “then,” that could be arranged.
Before I get to where I’m going and I promise, I am going somewhere with this, I’d like to take a quick poll. How many of you are reading this while wearing skinny jeans? How many of you even own a pair? And if you have succumbed to the attraction of these pencil-leg pants, I must know, oh fashion savvy sisters, what do you wear on your feet? Nice safe flats or sexy stilettos? Slouchy boots, or a pair of above-the-knee leather bad boys that look like they should come with a whip (for a very special, dominatrix-inspired date night, don’t you think?)
I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m betting that like me, most of you don’t clad your limbs in skinny jeans. Sure, you have a few friends who do, and some of them probably look darn good. But I’ll bet the rest of them look less like Paris Hilton than upholstered pears in their Rock and Republic’s. No, you’re not slipping into a pair of those suckers. Why? Because you’re not blind. And because years ago you made the most important of fashion purchases—a mirror.
