Friday, August 17, 2012

my girly side

There are some who would have you believe that I don't care about girly things like fashion - my daughter, for example and her friends went so far as to describe me as "butch" - and they are lesbians.

But actually I do like fashion, I just don't care about it as much as, say, the women on Sex and the City.

And I really like men's Regency period clothing - which I don't know if that counts as "fashion" being more of an historical and somewhat (ahem) fetishy predilection.

Mainly though there are two factors that have prevented me from being fashionable most of my life. One is the lack of disposable income. I've had a few brief time periods when I've had money but most of my life has been spent in debt and that includes now - I still have to pay the parental student loan I took out for my daughter's college education, plus the lamentable long-term results of irrational exuberance I suffered during my JANE EYRE production five years ago(!)

And then there's the fact that I am very particular about what I think looks good, and fashion designers and I for the most part disagree on this issue. For example, I think that wearing high heels is utterly pointless unless they will help you get laid.  I was just silently critiquing some woman's shoes on the subway this morning - they were peep-toe snake-skin high heels and I don't know if they were just too small or they were supposed to look that way but they were hideous - and not just for the snakeskin but because her ugly big toe sticking out of the front and the toe cleavage where her foot was jammed into the shoe, and the way the veins popped out of the top of her foot. I'm gagging now just thinking about it. Although she was with what I assume was her boyfriend and they were pretty lovey-dovey, so maybe they do help her get laid, but still, it's kind of a steep price to pay, in my opinion.

And I absolutely hate that one-shoulder asymmetrical look that is currently the rage. And I have been actually nauseated by some of the hideous patterns and colors that are used for women's dresses. And don't even get me started on those big ballony white sneakers that tourists, especially, love to wear. They should be outlawed.

But when I see something finally that I like - take these shoes that Joni Mitchell was wearing at the Newport Folk Festival in 1967 - I have been hankering for a pair of these shoes for literally years. I just can't seem to find them. You can't see in this photo (I can't find the original photo that inspired the craving so I had to use this one where she's hugging Leonard Cohen) but they are sling-backs with maybe inch-high heels. Ideally I will find a pair in black but as I said, fashion designers and I have very different ideas of what looks good and I can never find them in any color. But at least this is proof that I'm not entirely butch. Just "butch like Diane Keaton" as the lesbian fashion terrorist brigade proclaimed.