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Get dressed!Advice for women on how to dress without embarrassing themselves. August 21, 2003
Visited a shopping mall or department store recently? Have you seen the clothing females wear lately? And have you measured the attitudes and behavior of the people wearing these clothes? As promised in my previous article, those are the issues on topic for THIS article.
Fashion trends typically come from celebrity trends and what college-age girls are wearing in clubs. Which is fine until people start wearing the clothes outside of clubs, as everyday gear. This is equally inappropriate to wearing a wedding gown for everyday clothes. Each type of clothing has a purpose and function, with appropriate and inappropriate occasions to wear them. You'd think that statement would be obvious, based on the attire of a lot of women I see it evidently is not.
First, there are the women who wear clothes that are simply not age-appropriate. Most forty to fifty year-old women have no business wearing the clothes of college-age girls. Last time I was at the mall, I saw an older woman wearing capri pants, high-heels and ankle bracelet, with a 3/4 shirt that hung off the shoulder. She looked like a clown. It makes me sad to see middle-aged women try so desperately to hold on to their youth. A few words of advice: embrace each new phase of your life, let the past go. Once your body is sagging all over the place, get over yourself and move on. The guys I saw puking after you walked past will appreciate it. I'm sure you were hot once upon a time, but you're not anymore.
On the opposite end of that spectrum is the very young girl that dresses the same way. Ten year old girls wearing tight jeans and low-cut shirts. This is beyond inappropriate. There is something mentally wrong with parents who dress their daughters this way.
The next girl is the right age, but she, well ... hmmm, how can I put this gently. She's a fat slob and nobody wants to see her belly hanging out over her jeans! I know you've seen this girl. The one who is clearly too heavy to be wearing hip hugger jeans and a tight cotton shirt. Not just a tight shirt (too small is a better description, actually), but tight bra too. you can see the bra pressing into the rolls of fat on her back. And when she bends over, inevitably, the shirt rides up a little and the jeans ride down a little, blessing all with a view of her love handles and panties. Beautiful sight, no? This girl is appearing more and more frequently as overweight Americans continue to grow in number. Luckily, she is usually hanging out with a hot-babe friend who is much easier on the eyes.
There is actually one group of girls who are of the right age and right body type to wear this stuff (really skinny chicks wearing revealing outfits are worse than the heavy girls, if you ask me). These are the girls who have all the attitude to match the outfit. Look, if you wear clothes that are revealing or attention drawing, I can only assume that you want me to look at you. So stop acting like you don't want the attention. If you really didn't want the attention, you'd wear something else. You have a nice body, and you're wearing clothes to show it off, you're stupid to think nobody is going to ogle. I've heard the argument that these clothes are "comfortable" and girls wear them not to show their body, but because they like them and feel comfortable in them. I'm not biting on that line of crap, but for argument's sake let's say I believe it. My question then becomes: if you're so comfortable why don't you want people looking at you? I feel comfortable in my clothes too, and I don't become uncomfortable when someone looks at me. Also, are you saying you wear those clothes around the house when you're alone because they're so comfortable? Yeah, right. The argument is bullshit and flawed.
Please, just dress your age, dress appropriately for the setting you are in and the type of body you have. If you find that viewpoint offensive, stop and think for a second before you get all huffy and fire off an incoherent email. What if I apply this same logic to men? Wouldn't you agree that you don't want overweight men walking around wearing tight jeans and shirts that show their bellies hanging over their belts? And wouldn't you agree that a 50 year old man wearing baggy shorts and a backwards baseball cap looks like a pathetic fucking clown? If it's true for men, it's true for women. Out!
- crocoPuffs
Date: 12/15/2003 From: lynhamp92 Subject: N/A Hey, I just wanted to comment on your article about age appropriate dressing. You left out a group of people, namely those of us who are 35 - 40 and look young and therefor don't want to dress "age appropriately", which in our minds is a euphemism for dressing like a grand mother. I know I avoid the misses section in the department store because frankly the clothes are shapeless and ugly. It's as though designers are saying once you hit a certain age you should forget you were ever a sexual being with a sense of fashion. Granted, no grown person should dress in the more outrageous trends, but if you have a decent body and are relatively young, what's the matter with wearing a low-rise boot cut jean, for example? And by the way, I wear capris, ankle bracelets and toe rings in the summer and get nothing but compliments. Then again, I'm not 65 years old, 350 lbs or sagging like a sharpe. My philosphy is dress fashionably on the conservative side of the trends, dress appropriately for your body type, and avoid tacky excess. Saying "dress your age" is ageist and denies a person his/her individuality and who the hell knows what it means beyond not dressing like a goth or skater boy? Well, aren't you just cute like a button! I'm glad you let me know that you get nothing but compliments. That's nice. I might downplay those compliments if I were you. Lonely men always compliment chicks who look easy. Pardon me, who look like "sexual beings". Funny, you said "who the hell knows what it means" one sentence after saying "dress appropriately for your body type". Ummm ... maybe you should read this article one more time. Dressing appropriately is the WHOLE FUCKING POINT of what I wrote. Did you skip the reading comprehension courses in grade school? Seems like you did. You got too caught up in your perceived age persecution to catch the overall gist of it. And by the way, you are not the best judge of whether you "look young". I've seen too many people who THINK they look young and dress ridiculously because of that misconception. Send me a photo and I'll be the judge. Date: 12/12/2004 From: lynhamp92 Subject: Re: dressing appropriately You're awfully cute, too. Who said I dress as though I were easy? And anyway, male attention is exactly the point for a gal my age, for a gal any age, isn't it? Just what is it, I wonder, about a femme d'un certain age looking like the sexual being she still is that threatens you? I did read the article, sweetheart, and since dressing appropriately is the point, why then do you feel the need to obscure that point by approaching it from an ageist point of view? True, I am not the best judge of whether I look young. I rely on the people who consistently mistake me for a 20ish woman to do that. The bashful are always aggressive at heart. - Charles Horton Cooley I'm not at all threatened by a sexual female looking sexy (by the way, you may find parts of this article interesting). Hell, I'm the first one to applaud a hot looking woman. But the article did not address those women, it addressed the women who THINK they are hot and end up looking foolish because of their misconception. I felt the need to approach from an age-ist point of view because an awful lot of what I see is old women wearing clothes intended for young women and they look absolutely ridiculous. These bitches aren't smart enough to figure that out for themselves, which puts me in the position of having to call them out. If I didn't specifically write about old ladies wearing little girls clothing, said old ladies would read the article and think, "he doesn't mean me." They're in denial, kind of like you. While you took the time to reply, I can't help but notice you declined to send a photograph. Makes me wonder what you're trying to hide. Clearly you're not interested in me discovering the truth. |