It occurred to me the other day that the last time I wore a
dress, Ronald Reagan was president.
I’m not sure exactly when or why I lost my interest in
skirts and dresses. Back when I was in my 20s, I wore dresses all the time – if
you could call them dresses. The ones I wore looked more like long blouses
because the style back then was the mini-dress. And believe me, I embraced that
style whole-heartedly, even though I never had what one might call shapely
legs. In fact, they’ve always kind of
resembled two tree trunks with varicose veins.
Still, I owned a closet full of mini-dresses…the minier the
better. I still wonder how I ever managed to sit down in them without
unintentionally flashing everyone in the room. And forget about bending over or
squatting. If I dropped something on the floor, it stayed there. If I saw a
coin on the sidewalk, I walked right over it. There was no easy way to pick up
something on the ground or floor while wearing a mini-dress, not without
getting arrested for indecent exposure.
The other day, when I was looking through the clothes in my
closet, I happened to notice the last four outfits I’d bought to wear to major
events – a wedding, two anniversary parties and a Christmas cocktail party –
and all four were pants outfits. It made me realize that over the years, I’d
somehow gone from being chic and hip, to looking like a fashion clone of
Hillary Clinton.
But I’m not the only non-dress wearer around. From what I’ve
seen, the majority of women don’t bother to get all dressed up nowadays the way
they used to. I can remember when going to church involved wearing a dress,
high heels, a hat, white gloves and a purse. Now, a lot of women go to church
looking as if the minute the service is over, they’re going surfing.
I also remember how “gussied up” (I’m showing my age here)
everyone would get for the annual Christmas parties where I used to work. Every
year, the company always held a huge bash at the Chateau restaurant in
Manchester. This, of course, meant I would have to spend weeks of shopping in
advance, searching for just the right dress to wear.
Linda, a co-worker of mine back then, and I usually went
shopping together. Our favorite store for party attire was Pariseau’s on Elm
Street in Manchester. One year, the hottest new style was something called a
pant gown. It resembled an evening gown, but the skirt portion consisted of
these voluminous pants, kind of like culottes on steroids. Linda and I were
eager to be the first to wear them and make a grand entrance at the annual
party.
I’ll never forget the first pant gown Linda tried on. It was
made of sparkly copper, gold and silver brocade, with a bodice heavily
decorated with crystals, pearls, shiny gold balls and glass beads. She looked
like a walking Christmas tree. All she needed was a light-up star on top of her
head.
“Hmmm,” was all she said as she admired the gown in the
store’s 3-way mirror. One thing about Linda was she had a perfect 36-24-36
figure, so she could have tried on a burlap sack with armholes cut out of it
and still looked stunning.
“Well, do you like it?” I finally asked her.
She shook her head. “It’s not fancy enough” She turned to
the sales clerk. “Do you have anything flashier?”
The pant gown she ended up buying was so bright, it could
have qualified as its own float in the Disney World electrical parade. I settled for a pant gown that had a white
lace bodice with silver threads through it, a pink satin waistband, and a black
pants-gown skirt made up of dozens of tiny accordion pleats.
I can’t help but wonder what everyone would wear to those
same parties at the Chateau nowadays. I’m guessing yoga pants and T-shirts.
I think one of the reasons why dresses aren’t as popular as
they once were is because there just aren’t as many of them around. I can
remember going into just about any department store years ago and seeing racks
of dresses everywhere. Now, if stores have even one rack, it’s surprising. And
the dresses on those racks usually aren’t very party worthy. They’re more like
dresses you’d wear while running barefooted along a beach – or cleaning out the
lint trap in your clothes dryer.
It seems as if the older I get and the more varicose veins
and sagging skin I acquire, the less enthused I am about wearing dresses. But
if I ever do decide to wear one again, it definitely will have to be during the
winter. That way, I can wear black opaque stockings or, even better, knee-high
boots, to conceal my legs. I don’t know what I would do during the hot summer
months, though. Somehow, I don’t think a cotton sundress and knee-high boots
would make a very cohesive fashion statement. I mean, it would look as if my
body couldn’t decide whether it wanted to go to the beach…or a ski lodge.
And speaking of leg attire, I’m a little disturbed that the
bare-leg look currently is all the rage.
Women are opting not to wear any stockings at all, rather than suffer
with the discomfort of pantyhose that either stop the circulation from the
waist to the knees, or end up sliding down until the crotch is somewhere at
mid-thigh. But I’ve always considered pantyhose to be my dear friends, despite
the discomfort and chafing they cause. What I like about them is they hide
flaws, suck in fat, and they add some color to my legs, which normally are
about the same shade as milk.
So now, with Christmas parties looming in the near future,
I’m wondering what kind of stylish new holiday outfit I should buy. Maybe a
classy black dress and some high-heeled boots?
Nah. I’m leaning more toward sweatpants and a hoodie.
MY BOOK SALES TO
BENEFIT ANIMAL SHELTER
NOTE: For those of you with electronic reading devices, my
book, “There’s a Tick in my Underwear!” currently can be downloaded free of
charge at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com or Smashwords.com.
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