Frivolous Post no1

Can I do this? Probably not, but let's give it a try.

On clothes: You need them, sadly. The ones for sale for women are too often of two types: Really crappy, poorly made and cheap and then really expensive, beautifully made and inappropriate. I don't go to dinner parties that often and when I do people wear jeans and not those long dresses which somehow stay up without shoulder straps. Do you inhale and hold the breath or do you glue the thing to your sensitive bosom?

My favorite dress ever was one I got when I was little. My mother and I had gone out to buy the material and I nixed every rational choice until my mom's feet hurt and night was falling. Then she agreed to buy some forest-green velvet for the dress! The green of dark pines thinking mysterious thoughts in the silent whiteness of winter!

The dress was beautiful. It had angel wings for sleeves and the color made my eyes large and mysterious and forest green, too. I grew out of it in about a week, though. But no dress has ever matched that one.

In general women's clothes are poorly made and the sizes on them mean nothing or everything, depending on your point of view. The change in fashions means that you can either follow them, spend lots of money and look ridiculous some (well, most) of the time, or you can ignore them, feel virtuous, save money and be seen as a woman who doesn't know what's in fashion, one who probably doesn't shave her armpits or her Secret Garden of Delights, either.

The other major problem with women's clothes is that they Have Messages! Men's clothes have some, too, such as the one pin-striped suits carry (I Am Important!), but women's clothes have more messages and loads of them seem to be f**k me. Even when that's not the message you want to wear the stores may not offer many alternatives.

See? I told you I cannot do this. But I actually love some clothes! It would be such fun to wear a medieval outfit or a Warrior Princess Xena outfit, with golden snakes writhing around my humongous biceps (they would be humongous, I'm sure). I'd also love to wear a white coat and a stethoscope or a police uniform and so on.

And I do own a 1918/19 going-away dress (the one you wear when leaving the wedding ceremony in old movies) which is beautiful. It's made out of dark blue silk, has several layers of skirts with asymmetric hemlines and a top which is studded with sequins. It should be in a museum but the museums here won't take it because textiles are so hard to maintain and it wasn't made in Paris and it is transitional between the Gibson Girl look and the Flapper look.

What I actually wear, naturally, is pajamas. Everybody knows that bloggers blog in pajamas, bare feet and some emerald earrings. Mine are shaped like snakes with green eyes.