bemuzin

Secrets of a Boomer Fashionista – Part 3

When Hub and I started dating, we occasionally rode the weekend ski train to Winter Park, which was such a luxury because after a chilly day on the slopes, we could all party relax on the train on the ride home.

One Saturday, a fellow passenger  – who obviously partied relaxed too hearty – stared cross-eyed at Hub and me cuddling in our seat then slurred, “Zou look like brudder and zizter.”

Ewwwwwww

We weren’t dressed alike that day but since then, when we see a couple dressed alike, we look at each other, “Promise me. Never!”

I’m not talking about those bad-dude, leather-decked, heavily tattoed bikers with their wind-whipped babes on the back of their hawgs. They’re wearing BLACK and you know how much I *heart* black.

I’m talking about those harmless little white-haired, stoop-shouldered elders in their MATCHING pale blue jackets. What is it about the elderly and pastels – especially blue? Is there some rule like the “No white shoes until Memorial Day” that decrees once you reach 85, your jacket has to be pastel blue? And if you’re married and 85, your jackets have to match?

No siree! Not only will you never catch me in a pastel blue jacket, you’ll never catch Hub and me in matching apparel anything.
 

        * cricket  cricket  cricket * (sound of uneasy silence)

 
Fine. That’s not quite true.

I have another Sammy Secret.

If I tell you, I’m going to have to kill you. Some secrets are just that embarrassing sacred.

I’ve never had a waist to speak of. I’m best described as a tree trunk. Fairly straight up and down as in: thick waist + smallish hips = straight up and down.

Consequently I’ve always had trouble finding pants that fit. Women’s lower-half clothing is designed for pears and apples, not tree trunks.

If I get pants wide enough for my waist, they are too big for my hips. If I size down for my hips, they squeeze my waist. In addition my legs are short enough that I have to shop in the “petite” section. Did you know petite means “very sparse selection”?

Worst of all, whether petite or regular size, clothing is invariably too short/tight in the crotch resulting in a wedgie-like condition to the extent that I find it utterly painful to sit and barely tolerable to stand.

Two summers ago when I pulled my skorts and shorts from the closet, I realized a sadistic prankster had snuck in and shrunk everything. Nothing fit.

Cruelly, I was faced with that dreaded trip to the clothing store. The thought made me a little crazy.

I cannot justify or live down what I did next, but for some inexplicable reason instead of heading to the store, I opened Hub’s dresser drawer; removed a pair of his white briefs; and put them on.

What’s even more shocking than trying them on is discovering they fit! (Why do men’s butts get skinnier and women’s get wider as we age?) Sure there was a little excess room in the frontal area, but crotch-wise, hip-wise and waist-wise, the briefs fit. Comfortably!

I swear I’m not a cross-dresser and I wasn’t seeking a new line of underwear (like I said, inexplicable impulse).

But I desperately needed summer apparel for my bottom half. Why not shop in Hub’s closet?

Lo and behold, his black shorts fit me perfectly! Not only were they tree-trunk straight, but they had oh-so-comfy crotch space for my delicate self.

I raced to the store; bee-lined for the Men’s-Is-the-New-Women’s Department; and returned with 3 black, 1 tan and 1 gray pair of shorts.

I pulled out my Perma marker and tattoed my labels so we could tell them apart in the wash.

Mission accomplished, I poured myself a gin & tonic and toasted my Fashionista Coup. Two summers hence I’m still loving my men’s shorts.

When I was 10, I remember vowing, “When I get married, I’m ALWAYS going to dress up for my husband.”

Instead, I dress just like him!

Secrets of a Boomer Fashionista – Part 2

Raqi is eight years old. For the last year and a half, whenever we have put on our swimsuits; taken a bath; changed into pajamas, there’ll be a moment when – her top off – Raqi will hunch her shoulders together to make (non-existent) cleavage; gesture towards her chest with her hand; and look up at me with hope and wonder in her eyes, asking, “Mima, don’t you think I’m almost ready for a training bra?”

At first, I’d say, “Almost,” thinking she’d lose interest.

She hasn’t.

Now I want to ask, “Train them to do what, Honey?”

I settle for, “Raqi, you’ve got 90 years to wear a bra, and they aren’t all that comfortable.”

She’s not listening.

Of course, this gets me musing about my own ambivalent history with bras. I can sum it up as:

The Five P’s of the Bra-pocalypse:

1. Puberty
2. Protest
3. Perky
4. Professional
5. Past Their Prime

Puberty

I was so traumatized by the Puberty P – PERIODS! – that I have completely forgotten details of my first bra or my teen years wearing one. Perhaps you blogging bosom buddies can ‘fill me in’ on your memories of crossing that threshold.

I’m begging you; no stories about PERIODS.

Protest

I was a child of the ’60s; now I’m in my 60’s.

Has placement of one apostrophe ever altered meaning more drastically?

When I arrived at college in September 1969, the Forbidden Fashions of Free Love flourished on every corner of campus.

I promptly ditched my bra, modest knee-length skirts, and suffocating nylons (girdles! garter belts!), happily donning the peasant blouses, bell bottoms and fringe belts that proclaimed to the outside world I was ‘down with the protestors’ even though my inside voice kept crying, “Where are the adults?”

Perky

In my early 20’s as a married-too-young, college dropout housewife, I played tennis with my small town fellow housewives who were in their late 30’s. I was lucky – my boobs were tiny and perky. I never considered caging them, not even for tennis.

One judgmental competitor with a bleached blonde beehive hairdo and securely harnessed buxom bosom jealously lectured me: if I didn’t ‘support’ my breasts in my 20’s, they’d be sagging by the time I was 30.

She was as off the mark with that prediction as she was with her backhand.

Professional

Post-divorce, returning to college to complete my degree and securing my first career position, I dutifully wore a bra every day to work. Those were the days when a professional female ‘costume’ consisted of pantyhose, white blouse, navy suit (skirt, not pants) and one of those silky patterned rectangular strips of cloth that we wrangled into a clownish neck-choking bow

Aha! That must be the reason for my aversion to wearing patterns!

After two miserable years, I fell into my dream team position at a small firm where I could dress in a more boutique-y style, ditching “the costume” altogether. But I still dutifully wore my bra for work.

Past Their Prime

OK, they’ve finally lost their perk and – Victoria’s Secret be damned – there is no suitable bra for 60+ year-old national treasures.

There’s also no credible reason my past-perkies chose this stage to expand 3X the size they’ve always been.

I see three choices:

• Free Range Roaming No Bra
• Pushed Up and Painful Underwire Wonder Bra
• Flat, Flatter, Flattest UniBoob Athletic Bra

Well hell. I’m a Colorado Cowgirl; ain’t nothing better’n Free Range Roaming for my buckaroos.

I cling to my Sammy Secret that my all-black ensemble covers a multitude of sins. Except of course for the rare opportunity to meet a blogger buddy in person, in which case I’ll ‘saddle up.’