I'm touchy

I wish this were me, but it is not. Photo from Flickr user dovima_is_devine_II.

1/5/2006

I am a fabric freak.

I own multiple shirts that are hideous, but soft. I recently dumped an entire day`s salary on an Urban Outfitters blazer because the velvet was so luscious, it felt like it was making out with my fingers when I touched it.

My bed is a nest of satin, fur, suede, goose down, fleece and crisp cotton; I couldn`t pick just one. Or even three.

I once brought a handbag into said bed and slept with it on my cheek because the leather felt like butta. I later caught myself walking down the street fondling the purse and murmuring sweet nothings to it. I caressed it until it fell apart, and then I mourned.

Some people are crazy over colors or scents or eras. My style revolves largely around touch.
This has been a life-long thing. I still go to the same family doctor in Loveland that I went to as a kid. When I walk in the door, the nurses and receptionist start laughing.

It`s always the same: “Hey, aren`t you the girl who used to wear slips and petticoats on the outside of her clothes?”

Yes. That is me. Don`t make fun. Slips are silky.

The tale of the traveling shoe (and other bedtime fashion stories)

10/20/2005

I thought I had packing down to an art.

One carry-on, no need to check in the luggage. I planned my wardrobe on a theme. All cool colors and basic styles, as to allow maximum mixing of clothing and overlapping of accessories and eye shadow tones.

Never again.

Immediately off the plane in Albuquerque, N.M., and I busted the heel off my black pump on the airport’s faux-brick floor. The thrifty packer that I was, I’d only brought one pair.

This sent the rest of my day veering out of control, a frenzied shopping quest to replace the shoe before my journalism conference the next morning.

Three blocks from my hotel, I discovered Ruby Shoesday boutique (www.rubyshoe.com). Fell deeply in love with an Audley London pink and gray wedge. It then broke my heart with a price tag that rivaled my car payment.

I called my husband, seeking financial support, but instead he laughed, saying wedges look like cars with a drop kit, or pumps with a gob of mud stuck underneath them.

Plus, he reminded me, they didn’t match my wardrobe theme.

I decided to never again attempt to defeat the Universal Law of Travel that dictates the smaller the traveler, the larger the luggage. I’m going full-out body-bag next trip.

New Mexico has a complex culture of style. On one hand, there are the sexy Audleys.
Then there are the bright colors splashed on every painting, piece of jewelry and, yes, item of clothing. In one shop, I found a rainbow beaded denim jacket. As if that wasn’t gaudy enough, they added fringe. It was the most painful thing I’d ever looked at. Until I turned around and was accosted by an embroidered vest to match.

Then there was me. Just minutes after stepping off the airport shuttle (and onto my busted heel, ouch), a woman asked me where I came from.

I was taken aback. “Do I scream tourist?” I wondered. “And is that a good thing (a la beaded vest) or a bad thing (never seen the heels break off a pair of designer wedges)?”

Back to the airport. I understand that airport travelers are exhausted. They’re fueled by the
empty preservatives of airplane food. They’re paranoid and humiliated after having stripped off their shoes, belts, coats and – is that an underwire bra? – at the security checkpoint.

But the airport is still a public space, i.e. not your bedroom. And the last time I checked, pajamas had not leaked into the mainstream as acceptable day-wear.

On the way home, gate B6 welcomed me with slippers, sweatpants and wrinkly T-shirts. As I sat next to a middle-aged woman wearing a doggie-print PJ top and matching cotton bottoms, I began to think that embroidered vest wasn’t so bad after all.

Photo by Flickr user Jason L. Parks.

Guys and their hats

9/28/2005

Guys love their baseball caps to the point that it’s grotesque.

Apparently I’m attracted to white-baseball-cap-wearers. I don’t know what’s actually on the cap or if there is perhaps a sports team they all commonly root for. But every guy I have ever dated wore a white baseball cap. Heck, even my brother and dad wear white caps.

The white baseball cap has its own set of uniquely disgusting problems. It comes down to this: Guys do not wash their caps. They do not know how, and they do not want to.

Because of this, their nasty hats stink after a while. The odor rivals shin guards (which any soccer player well knows is a scent that can burst a nostril).

One guy actually told me once he didn’t want to wash his because it had “a good luck stain” around the rim.

I had to clarify that his “good luck” was comprised of sweat. And dirt. And hair grease. And everything not nice, and it was all rubbing on his forehead for eight hours a day.

He did not see a problem with that.

My husband has a few caps I’d like to set on fire. Instead, my mom loaned me her baseball-cap washer – some contraption you can place over the hats so they won’t lose their shape when you wash them.

Turns out the contraption doesn’t go in the washing machine. It goes in the dishwasher. Where I put my plates to get clean so I can eat food off of them.

I could imagine the hat filth swishing around the dishwasher with my forks, tainting their prongs, and seeping into the fibers of my water bottle.

Looks like my husband will continue wearing dirty hats.

Good luck to him.

Photo by Flickr user riekhavoc.

Adelaide Jane: Dressin' up

9/22/2005

My friends and I were behind dressing room curtains at Rockin’ Robin’s when tiny Adelaide Jane and her mom arrived.

It was Adelaide’s first ever dress-up party – the 2-month-old’s “initiation” into girlhood. Like when the Lion King held Simba over the cliff and the village animals sang “The Circle of Life.”
Except it was my sorority sister’s infant in a pink gingham dress, clutching her first designer purse, with “Love is a Battlefield” on the jukebox. It was so moving, I almost cried.

Adelaide, too.

Back in the ’80s, when I was the muscle-less ball of baby, my mom said she could only get me to stop fussing by dressing me up in different outfits and taking pictures.

So Sunday evening’s dress-up party at Rockin’ Robins Retro and Resale in Niwot (www.rockinrobins.net) was like a pacifier for me.

It’d been a super rough week. First, I dropped my mascara wand on a public floor and had to spend the rest of the day with lopsided lashes. (Note to self: Wake up five minutes earlier so you don’t have to get ready at work.) Then, I wore my fave vintage pumps to a family picnic in the mountains, and my heel broke off. (Note: Don’t wear pumps hiking.)

But, alas, the Fashion Goddess was watching over me. She guided me to Rockin’ Robin’s where, miraculously, I found those same pumps (and for $38 less).

I also found a chunky blue necklace that looks like one Julie Cooper wore on an episode of “The O.C.” Except mine was 45 years old. And cost $12.

I swore I wasn’t going to buy anything. I also knew I would break that promise.

Robin Abb rents out her consignment store for dress-up parties. After my devastating week, I obviously needed one. So I sent out an emergency Evite to my girlfriends. We had full reign over Abb’s jukebox, lighted dance floor and clothing racks.

We’re talking go-go boots, Kimonos, cowboy-print pants, ’80s prom dresses and even something we found called a “silver sparkle tent” with one pocket. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I doubt I ever will again.

So there we were, behind the dressing room curtains when Adelaide Jane showed up.
From stall No. 1, my friend Jenelle welcomed Adelaide to the Wonderful World of Dress-Up, looking like a silver-coated fortune teller. I left stall No. 3 sporting a tri-ruffle skirt that I think I owned in fifth grade.

Then, out came Tiffany. Sheepishly. She’d been devoured by a skin-tight red pleather dress that would’ve caused the gals on Colfax to blush. Rockin’ Robin had picked it out for her as a joke.
Tiffany asked Adelaide not to hold it against her. First impressions are sometimes misleading, Tiff said – an important lesson for any future fashionista to know.

I think I saw Adelaide smirk.

Either that, or she needed to be burped.

Photo by Flickr user ohsohappytogether.

I need to move

9/9/2005

A funny thing happened at mile 60 on my bicycle last week.

I began praising padded spandex shorts while contemplating the benefits of a fanny pack. As the sun swelled, I started to think of how I could really use a visor.

It was as if I had peddled away all fashion sense.

Maybe it was the 104-degree heat. Or a creepy survival mode to distract me from my burning hamstrings.

I was in Napa Valley on a weeklong cycling excursion. In other words, biking by day to negate the caloric toll of enough wine to intoxicate a medium-sized French village.

Just days earlier, I had composed a “negative ode to bike shorts,” swearing I would rather die than purposefully pad my bum. It seemed counterintuitive, after all the hours spent on the Stairstepper, de-padding it.

Then I dropped $80 on a black cycling “skort.” (Apparently I de-padded myself too much. Had to learn how to walk again with a numb gluteal region.)

Granted, the outer skirt concealed the 8-inch thick sponge between my Lycra-suctioned legs. But the experience of willingly purchasing spandex really pushed my fashion boundaries.

I thought I’d come back from Napa with chiseled thighs and a suitcase of fine wine.

Instead, I’m stuck with overpriced spandex and a more lenient eye for style. I don’t know which is scarier.

Photo by Flickr user Tom Olliver.

Skirting the issue

8/12/2005

I wore a jean skirt hiking at my dog’s third birthday party. Let me break down that sentence for you.

1.) “Dog birthday party” – Just because he’s covered in fur and feasts on bird poop doesn’t mean he’s not my baby. My toy poodle Quinnen’s party was themed “Take a hike.” That meant Quinnen and his doggie entourage on a Boulder Canyon trail. Quinnen sported a sailor costume. The blue complemented my outfit and his rhinestone collar. He looked extra masculine with his goatee.

You see, Quinnen is red, but the hair on his chin grows in white – obviously begging to be a goatee. He’s been wearing facial hair for about 6 months. Last week, his hairdressers at the Paw Spa in Longmont said they’ve had three other poodles come in requesting goatees. My dog is such a trend-setter.

2.) “Jean skirt during hiking” – I loathe shorts. I don’t own any. None. I work out in boot-cut yoga pants. Much cuter than frumpy, knee-enhancing shorts. (I used to joke that I could smuggle illegal drugs in the fat folds around the knees my mother passed down to me.)

There’s something about the bell shape of every pair of shorts I’ve ever tried on that just makes me feel (and look) nastily masculine. Even in middle school, I got sent to the principal’s office for refusing to wear shorts in PE class. That was during the Umbro craze. I wasn’t above ratted bangs and a spiral perm, but, still, I knew better than to Umbro myself.

Photo by Flickr user Looking Glass.

Dressing for the occasion

My style icon of the day. Photo by Flickr user Go®gO.

7/6/2005

Sometimes I feel like I have multiple personalities that hinge on whatever stories I’m going to write for the day. You see, I usually choose my outfit based on who I will be talking to. And as a general-assignment reporter, that is always changing.

Today, my look is Glamorous Geriatrics. I am an 80-year-old woman in a tan June Cleaver dress and close-toed orthopedic-style pumps. Taking it over the edge is a brown knit top I’m wearing over it, and my bracelet that looks like wood wall paneling. This outfit actually made me break out in a few new wrinkles.

I’m writing a story about a church fundraiser and spent my morning sitting with an older woman on her porch watching the stream bubble by.

I spent all day Tuesday at Penny Lane.. That meant a brown wife-beater, holy faded jeans, sandals and vintage jewelry.

I dress down for high schools, up for awards ceremonies and I pull out the designer names when I am doing fashion interviews.

Some might call it schitzo. I like to consider it versatile.