Fashion Woes Part 7,038

It was recently brought to my attention that the horrific 90’s trend of super-low rise jeans is back, which confused me because I thought that high-rise jeans were all the rage now. Either style can only be worn if you have an iron-flat stomach akin to a Mobius strip, so I won’t be running out to snap them up any time soon, but it did remind me that I am perpetually in a fashion crisis that I never really get full on top of. I have a scarcity mindset when it comes to clothes, and I am loathe to throw anything away if it even slightly “works.” I have convinced myself that finding an item of clothing that fits my tall, outlier-shaped body is like finding gold and that once I have it in my possession I am morally obligated to wear it until it crumbles to dust and falls off of my body. This tendency has only gotten worse since the pandemic, during which I have been enabled to double-down on my worst fashion impulses because I am mostly locked away in my private office at work and haven’t been to a face-to-face meeting in two and half years.

I currently have a total of three pairs of jeans, none of which fit anymore, but I don’t want to get rid of them because I bought them at Cabella’s and I was so thrilled at the time to find jeans that were long enough. I need a new swimsuit now that the pool is open again, (finally!) but there are no brick and mortar shops for swimwear anymore and the thought of ordering one online fills me with existential dread. I finally threw out five pairs of shoes yesterday, most of which I held onto for an absurd amount of time because I convinced myself that sandals and dress shoes that fit my giant feet are almost impossible to come by. And let’s not even start with the hair situation. I am going through the grueling process of growing out what was once a very cute, highly-stylized asymmetrical pixie cut and it ain’t pretty, folks. I don’t know if I’m going to make it. Each day I’m seconds away from screaming “uncle” and speed-dialing my stylist. On top of it, one of these days I am going to have deal with my workout clothes situation. I’m not one of those slinky chicks who works out in revealing Gym Shark regalia (kudos to them in all sincerity; they look adorable), but I need to replace the ratty stuff out of pure self-respect. Sometimes it just astonishes me how anyone has the wherewithal to keep up on looking presentable at all. It’s exhausting.

Despite all of this, I remain irrationally optimistic that one day I will hit some sort of wardrobe sweet spot, where all of my garments are on-trend yet also somehow fit me, my jeans are a reasonable mid-rise and long enough, and my hair is in a state that doesn’t require sixteen barrettes and half a bottle of hairspray. A girl can dream. In the meantime, I comfort myself with the thought that there is one tiny, niche area in which I do have my sartorial game together: Summer nightwear. Last summer, there was a horrific and highly-unusual heatwave in Seattle, and I went a bit crazy in my delirium and bought eight pairs of silky, richly-colored nightwear sets (some even have lace trim!) so I will look like a proper feminine-type woman on summer nights, instead of a lumberjack like I do now. So at least in one area I’m not a complete disaster.

Since the world is a sad and scary place these days, enjoy this hilarious and suspenseful clip of a Husky throwing a temper tantrum. Will he ever get out of that tub?

 

--Kristen McHenry