Can I get away with this? (Ruminations on clothing and mindset)
Yesterday, after a delightful brunch with matt_ruff and lisagold (and the ever assertive Sophie Sestina) and an afternoon of work, I went downtown for movies with bedii and ladyjestocost.
My bus brought me downtown about a half hour earlier than I had to be at the movie theater, so in the wake of this weekend's experiments with clothing, I decided to stop into a store I've never been able to shop in to see just how far this smaller body thing would take me. I stopped in to All Saints Spitalfields, a British clothier that's taken up pretty prominent residence here with a window full of antique sewing machines. Their sizes stop at size 14 so I grabbed something I thought might be attractive and tried it on. And it fit, and it actually looked kind of adorable. (And was sized in the British manner, which meant I was wearing an American size 10, not an American size 14, which was actually little too much for me to handle. I still don't believe that's really what was happening.) Two things stopped me from buying it. The first was the price--on sale it was $85, simply too much for a blouse that would probably be in style for only six months or so.
The second was a question that I sometimes hear in my head, something my mom used to ask: Can I get away with this?
It's a damning question, and it has put the stops on me more than once. What does this question mean, exactly? A number of things:
--Is this too young a look for me?
--Am I kidding myself about how this looks on me?
--Am I really small enough to wear this or am I missing something important?
--Am I betraying someone by choosing this? (I'll get back to this question in a minute.)
--Am I allowed to wear this? (I'll get back to this one, too.)
The first question has to do with self-perception and old-fashioned ideas about age-appropriate clothing. Except perhaps on either end of the bell curve, I'm not really sure there's such a thing as age-appropriate clothing once you're past, say, 18. The second and third questions have to do with self-perception as well, and can be helped--and often negated--by getting a second opinion.
The fourth question--about betrayal--is a more complex issue. See, I've spent most of my life as a bigger girl and have felt a certain sorority with other women who wear larger sizes. Some styling just doesn't suit larger bodies; it doesn't serve a woman to wear clothing not cut or styled for her body shape. This can be challenging when one does like to dress at least a little fashionably. I have for many years felt a certain loyalty to the retailers who served women who wear larger sizes, providing some sense of style. For me, that's been primarily Lane Bryant, with a touch of Macy's Encore and Nordstrom Women's (shopping at Torrid always feel like work because their cuts have proven so unreliable, at least to me, and some of their stuff is just, well, cheap). But I've been painfully aware of styles that I knew I'd look good in at a lower weight that such places don't stock for girls of my size, and I've developed a certain self-preserving disdain for clothes I liked that I knew I couldn't wear. I could appreciate them aesthetically, but they were beyond my reach realistically. Before I decided to take my weight into my own hands, my choice was either to be sad and covetous about these clothes or just dismiss them. But now . . . here I was in a store I would never have even bothered walking into before, looking pretty cute in something I would previously have disdained as trendy clothing meant for nymphs. It felt like I was betraying that dismissive disdain, that person who was above this sort of trendy nonsense. And it felt like I was betraying friends--and legions of women I've never met--with similar weight issues who couldn't wear such clothes. It felt like I was trying to get away with something.
And then there was the question of whether or not I was allowed to wear what I was wearing in that moment. Because if such clothes were meant for trendy nymphs and I was a sober, sensible, big girl, how could I take myself seriously? And how would anyone else?
See how this works? It's a killer. But it's deeply ingrained and the old voices are LOUD in my head. e_bourne saw some of that on our expedition on Saturday.
So I have some work to do in the areas of self-perception and personal prejudice, because that's what it is. I've trained myself into this idea that I'm not allowed to have cute, trendy clothes, that such things are Not For Me, that I may, in fact, may be better off without such nonsense.
Except that I really did look cute in that top. And there's no reason I shouldn't buy myself clothes in which I look attractive (expense being a separate and worthy consideration, and one I look forward to being the only consideration when I shop)--because besides protecting oneself from the elements, the point of clothes is to look attractive. And I deserve that.
My bus brought me downtown about a half hour earlier than I had to be at the movie theater, so in the wake of this weekend's experiments with clothing, I decided to stop into a store I've never been able to shop in to see just how far this smaller body thing would take me. I stopped in to All Saints Spitalfields, a British clothier that's taken up pretty prominent residence here with a window full of antique sewing machines. Their sizes stop at size 14 so I grabbed something I thought might be attractive and tried it on. And it fit, and it actually looked kind of adorable. (And was sized in the British manner, which meant I was wearing an American size 10, not an American size 14, which was actually little too much for me to handle. I still don't believe that's really what was happening.) Two things stopped me from buying it. The first was the price--on sale it was $85, simply too much for a blouse that would probably be in style for only six months or so.
The second was a question that I sometimes hear in my head, something my mom used to ask: Can I get away with this?
It's a damning question, and it has put the stops on me more than once. What does this question mean, exactly? A number of things:
--Is this too young a look for me?
--Am I kidding myself about how this looks on me?
--Am I really small enough to wear this or am I missing something important?
--Am I betraying someone by choosing this? (I'll get back to this question in a minute.)
--Am I allowed to wear this? (I'll get back to this one, too.)
The first question has to do with self-perception and old-fashioned ideas about age-appropriate clothing. Except perhaps on either end of the bell curve, I'm not really sure there's such a thing as age-appropriate clothing once you're past, say, 18. The second and third questions have to do with self-perception as well, and can be helped--and often negated--by getting a second opinion.
The fourth question--about betrayal--is a more complex issue. See, I've spent most of my life as a bigger girl and have felt a certain sorority with other women who wear larger sizes. Some styling just doesn't suit larger bodies; it doesn't serve a woman to wear clothing not cut or styled for her body shape. This can be challenging when one does like to dress at least a little fashionably. I have for many years felt a certain loyalty to the retailers who served women who wear larger sizes, providing some sense of style. For me, that's been primarily Lane Bryant, with a touch of Macy's Encore and Nordstrom Women's (shopping at Torrid always feel like work because their cuts have proven so unreliable, at least to me, and some of their stuff is just, well, cheap). But I've been painfully aware of styles that I knew I'd look good in at a lower weight that such places don't stock for girls of my size, and I've developed a certain self-preserving disdain for clothes I liked that I knew I couldn't wear. I could appreciate them aesthetically, but they were beyond my reach realistically. Before I decided to take my weight into my own hands, my choice was either to be sad and covetous about these clothes or just dismiss them. But now . . . here I was in a store I would never have even bothered walking into before, looking pretty cute in something I would previously have disdained as trendy clothing meant for nymphs. It felt like I was betraying that dismissive disdain, that person who was above this sort of trendy nonsense. And it felt like I was betraying friends--and legions of women I've never met--with similar weight issues who couldn't wear such clothes. It felt like I was trying to get away with something.
And then there was the question of whether or not I was allowed to wear what I was wearing in that moment. Because if such clothes were meant for trendy nymphs and I was a sober, sensible, big girl, how could I take myself seriously? And how would anyone else?
See how this works? It's a killer. But it's deeply ingrained and the old voices are LOUD in my head. e_bourne saw some of that on our expedition on Saturday.
So I have some work to do in the areas of self-perception and personal prejudice, because that's what it is. I've trained myself into this idea that I'm not allowed to have cute, trendy clothes, that such things are Not For Me, that I may, in fact, may be better off without such nonsense.
Except that I really did look cute in that top. And there's no reason I shouldn't buy myself clothes in which I look attractive (expense being a separate and worthy consideration, and one I look forward to being the only consideration when I shop)--because besides protecting oneself from the elements, the point of clothes is to look attractive. And I deserve that.