Wednesday, September 18, 2013

What will I wear?


There are not a lot of photographs from the very early years of our marriage.  A number of them have emerged among the digitized slides.  But I seem to be wearing the same striped tee shirt in quite a few of them.  I'm wondering if they were all taken on the same day?  Or was that the only shirt I owned?  Or was it just a fave I wore a lot?

I suspect it's a little of all three, but there was a time when I - and many others - owned a lot fewer clothes than people own now!  I distinctly remember my mom having two maternity outfits - one for every day and one for Sunday - and doctor visits!!

I purge my closets and drawers on a regular basis, and I don't think of myself as a clothes horse, but the items seem to pile up.  It truly has not always been this way - not sure what decade it was when "excess clothing" came into being.  

But I remember after Bonny was born, not going to church until something fit me - we just didn't have the resources to go get new clothes - and I refused to wear maternity clothes when I wasn't pregnant!

And when I went home for Christmas with my one pair of shoes, my mom took pity on me and bought me a new pair of Sunday shoes!!  And I was thrilled.

I also sewed for Bonny and used remnants my mom gave me.  She didn't have lots of clothes, but I had fun constructing her little wardrobe!  On the other hand, after Phoebe was born, I have distinct memories of shopping often for her and indulging all my little girl fashion fantasies!!

Someone has written a dissertation on this phenomenon, I am sure.  And the book The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion addresses the issue very well.  

I just think about it now and then.  And I do believe that most women wear 20% of their clothes 80% of the time.

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