shuttering p&pg

A quick note to those kind folks who read my musings -- I'll be shuttering the blog for a while, maybe permanently. It's unfortunately ended up on the "things to worry and feel guilty about" list, which I am working hard to reduce to an absolute minimum. Thanks so much for reading and commenting over the past two months!

AB

In preparation...

On Wednesday, my loyal and intrepid friend Lizzie is joining me at J Jill somewhere in suburban Philly for a marathon try-on session. This will be a sort of pre-audition -- I'm auditioning J Jill as the preferred or perhaps sole designer/store/catalog to take over my closet in 2010. This will of course mostly be a totally fun adventure with Lizzie, particularly as it will be void of any pressure or even possibility of buying anything (please, if you know the salespeople at the English Village J. Jill - don't say anything!). And yet.

And yet, I find I'm still anxious about doing the retail store, live-and-in-person, look-at-stuff-on-the-racks-and-then-try-them-on thing. I'm pretty good at a lot of things (standardized tests, making popovers, reading Jane Austen aloud in a kick-ass British accent), but I'm just so bad at shopping. I'm hoping to take Mindful Me along with Regular Me and try to examine this reluctance and insecurity more closely. What's there to be scared of?

Well,

1. Snooty salespeople who make you feel like a grungy and unworthy teen pawing through the racks.
2. Exuberant overly helpful salespeople who really, really want you to buy something.
3. The prices.
4. Not knowing what looks good on  you.
5. Knowing that nothing looks good on you.
6. Uhhh..... color? Fabric? Style?
7. Three-way mirrors + fluorescent lighting in the dressing rooms.
8. Buyer's remorse, which for me sets in before I've even decided to buy something. If I somehow fail to actually have buyer's remorse, then I inevitably stain the garment the first time I wear it.
9. Again, the prices.
10. The creeping, persistent, back-of-the-mind realization that clothes aren't actually transformative. They can't change your life. They don't get your work done for you, or make new friends materialize, or take you out for fancy dinners, or find three extra hours of sleep. At their very very best, they can make your butt look a little smaller, bring some nice color to your cheeks, let you pretend you're a little different from your usual self, feel good against your skin. They can be reliable, comfortable, fun, well-made, creative. But not transformative.

So, on Wednesday morning I will gather up my courage and my good friend Lizzie and we will go see what J. Jill has to offer. I will not look only at the sale rack. I will try to find a color or two that I've never worn before. I will try on some skinny jeans. I will try on things that cost more than $200. Okay, $100. I will let the salespeople accessorize my outfits, and I will let them bring things to me in the dressing room. I will leave empty-handed, for now, but maybe tumble into 2010 with a little more shopping moxie.  A little less fear.

Any advice is welcome.

Today's outfit: Fuzzy stretchy black scoop-necked sweater (some non-QT thrift store, c.2007) & the closest thing I have to cool jeans. Big fuzzy black wool (?) socks.

Oh - and what's the best "trying clothes on for a few hours" outfit? Tights? Pumps? Strapless bra? Elastic-waist pants? white t-shirt? Nude cami? Help!?!

What I really want.

After a year of buying no clothes, what I really need, and yearn for, are some new socks. My entire pathetic sock collection now fits easily into a little 12 X 12 drawer organizer thingy from Ikea. I've been ruthless this year about throwing out any socks with holes, and any orphan socks. I didn't have a stellar sock collection to begin with, so the pickings are super slim. Most of the intact, matched pairs are running peds from my brief marathoning phase in 2007-08.

So, when the purchasing ban is lifted in 2010, I'm going here, and here, and maybe here. I want funky socks, comfy socks, durable socks, fun socks, dressy socks, sleeping socks, funny socks. Lots of socks.

Check out these beauts:

And these:

and, finally,

Related problem: The tights collection is also getting tired. I know there are Spanxx fans, Hue fans, MP fans, folks who swear by their H&M, those who just buy their tights wherever they happen to be (Target, Talbots, Title9).

My hosiery questions:

1. What are orphan socks called in your house (Paul's family always called them "Leppies") and are their rules about retaining or disposing of them?
2. Can adult women 40+ wear striped tights? To work?
3. Should socks contain polyester? What about nylon? What about spandex?
4. Wool socks: Good idea?
5. Knitting one's own socks: Good idea?


Please send links and recommendations and pictures of your favorite socks.

Today's outfit: J Jill yoga pants from the recent clothing swap. J Jill brown cami tank (purchased retail, I believe), gray fleece hoodie from QT. Bliss.

Making it Stickk...

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Eileen is Queen (Guest post!)

A guest blogpost from my sister Jennifer Eremeeva, who just launched her own blog on transatlantic living called Dividing My Time 

According to a recent article in the New York Times, Nora and Delia Ephron’s new play Love, Loss, and What I Wore,” a character muses, “When you start wearing Eileen Fisher, you might as well say, ‘I give up.’ ”

Nothing could be further than the truth as far as I am concerned. 

I purchased my first Eileen Fisher “piece” (not “jacket” or “cardigan” or “perfect black pants” but “pieces”) online in 2002 in a moment of abject panic.  I was organizing a corporate event in New York for a bunch of bankers, and in a moment squeezed between a serious debate on the relative merits of salmon cerviche versus foie gras in phyllo dough, and a polite, but firm conversation with the Events Manager of a Prominent Venue, I realized I needed something to wear to the event.   I was in Moscow, Russia at the time, where they don’t sell anything remotely suitable for Prominent Venues …well, not in my size anyway, so popping out during the lunch hour was not an option.   I can’t recall exactly what made me think of Eileen Fisher, but I quickly honed in on exactly the item I needed: an ivory silk jacket with tiny horizontal tucks and a wide flattering shawl collar.   Perfection. I have since worn it to eight weddings, one funeral and an amazing dinner at Buckingham Palace’s Queen’s Gallery.    

If you find something that works, you stick with it, so I bought more items – or “pieces” as Eileen calls them.   Note that Eileen has done such a service to womankind, that she has been elevated to the rank of using Christian name only, in the manner we refer to Mrs. Child as simply “Julia.”  I became a devotee and then a disciple.  While there are a lot of imitations of Eileen’s unstructured, flowing and flattering designs, none of them can really match her wonderful cut, clear strong colors and beautiful natural fibers.    Very soon, I adjusted my closets appropriately. 

Unlike the author of “Peacock and Poison Green,” I do my purging in bi-annual marathon seasonal spurts: each spring and autumn, I spend one day ruthlessly clearing out my closet: if I haven’t worn it in a year, it leaves the house that evening, so by the Spring of 2003, I’d got rid of everything except my wonderful “pieces,” and I now adhere completely to Eileen's system.  Recently, I started dividing my time between two cities, 5,000 miles apart.   I simply split my Eileen wardrobe into two and now I travel with hand luggage only, since everything on one side of the Atlantic goes with everything else on the other.  Bliss…

I relish the ease of my Eileen-only wardrobe. Each morning, I don the “uniform” base layer: on the bottom, a pair of Eileen’s great gift to womankind: the washable silk crepe trousers: which come in various lengths, and styles: palazzo to leggings, which come in stock colors: black, brown, graphite, white and blue.   You wash them in cold water and they travel very well.   On the top, I put on one of Eileen’s beautifully cut tank tops, in cotton, wool or a longer tunic in silk jersey.  Depending on the day’s activities, I then choose one of the top layers: a long cashmere cardigan or wrap for lunches with my friend Henrietta, a silk jacket for dinners out, or a cotton cardigan or sweatshirt for just hanging out.  In this way, I live Eileen’s promise of being able to go from yoga to dinner, by keeping on my base layer and swapping my tops.

Each month, Eileen introduces specific colors and a few new styles, in addition to continuing the base layer tunics, tanks, camis and the irreplaceable washable stretch silk crepe.    The key thing is this: each piece you add to your Eileen Fisher collection will work with everything you already have, so that means your wardrobe expands exponentially, and, since Eileen’s pieces are very timeless classics, nothing really ever goes out of style. 

Nora and Delia, who are right about so many things, have got Eileen completely wrong.  Closing, I quote a close family friend who describes getting really dressed up as “putting on three entire layers of Eileen Fisher.”  I couldn’t agree more.

Jennifer Eremeeva divides her time between Northampton Massachusetts, (where there is an Eileen Fisher store), and Moscow, Russia (where there isn’t).  She writes about it on her blog “Dividing My Time,” (link to http://web.me.com/meeva101).  She is at work on her first book.

Strong enough for a man...

So, I was getting dressed for Day #1 of  a big conference today, and, as I often do, contemplated the antiperspirant/deodorant situation in the medicine cabinet. I've had this horrendous "stick" of some vanilla chai scented gel (the kind you turn a little crank to dispense, hence "stick" in quotes) for the last 11 months or so. It will not get used up, as hard as I try. It's kind of gross.

Next to said offending stick, was the faithful Old Spice belonging to spouse. Of course, as those of us who spend a lot of time in the underarm maintenance aisle of CVS know, most men's deodorant is *just* deodorant, and most women's deodorant is *also* antiperspirant, and thus has all the gloppy stuff added that plugs up our pores. (I'm not going to weigh in here about the alleged health risks of this pore-plugging process but you can see what NCI has to say about that here.)

Over the course of my underarm-sweating past, I've tried many different kids of AP/DO. The white chalky stuff that leaves skittery trails on your black sweaters. The little "rocks" that are supposed to work just as well as regular AP/DO (not). The all natural Tom's of Maine kind that smells like lavender, but by the end of the day, just smells like you. Like stinky you.  Teen Spirit. Secret ("strong enough for a man but made for a woman"). And yes, the revolting Vanilla Chai Goo That Will Never Get Used Up. Here's what I've decided: the men's stuff is better. I've often used whatever nice men's version my husband has in the medicine cabinet, unless, of course, I *can't sweat* -- like for a job interview, conference, fancy night out, or IRS tax audit. If I can't sweat, I'm back in the Glop-It-Up women's aisle with Vanilla Chai and friends, and hopeless waxy buildup and stains on all my light colored clothes.

Until today. Today, because I am empiricist, I've tried an experiment: Vanilla Chai in one pit, Old Spice in the other. And then off to the conference. As of four o'clock, having just sat through a stifling session in a tiny hotel conference room on sexual lubricant use in older age women (don't ask), I can report that Old Spice is holding its own in both the wetness *and* the odor departments. (For you empiricist sticklers out there -- no, it's not a blinded trial -- I've known all day which pit is which. I'll enlist the kids for a blinded repeat trial tomorrow).

So -- I'm chucking that $5.49 bottomless stick of Vanilla Chai goo. Be gone! I'm shopping the men's aisle from now on.  My new motto: "Strong enough for a woman, but made for a man."

Please, *please* let me know how you cope with this under-theorized but clearly crucial aspect of wardrobe maintenance and self presentation.

Today's outfit: An oft-repeated combo: The peacock blue Gap cable knit sweater that make my boobs look too big (QT, c. 2004), and the dark gray petal skirt (QT, c.2005). Black tights. Masai Barefoot Technology super shoes.

I've got drafts of both the undies and the bra posts underway -- coming soon!

Polyvore rules

Thanks to Tara for sending along this link to a fun site where you can assemble different outfits from different stores to create a "look". Apparently it's a bit addictive.

Apologies for  my long silence, and I'm still planning to do the bra post, I promise.