Last week I mentioned that I was not buying any clothes for a year. (On October 1, 2010, I plan to walk out of my house shedding the tattered remains of my dignity, drive straight to Nordstrom Rack, and buy whatever clump of garments I find closest to the door. If you see me standing at the register with an armload of ill-fitting sleeveless turtleneck sweaters in sherbet tones and crystal-studded capris, have pity. I'll probably knoweth not what I am doing.)
Ironically, one of the books I received at the Broad Summit weekend last month was an InStyle magazine book on how to dress. I sat down and looked at it the other day and realized a couple of things.
1. I have never bought into the whole flesh-toned pumps thing.
2. There's no real advice out there for women who want to dress their age. It's like life stops at 35, and after that it's either Chanel suits or a barrel held up by suspenders.
3. I had a whole bunch of not-terribly-flattering clothes in my closet, bought for the simple reason that I had no idea how to minimize this and play up that, bought because they were half-off, or bought because they looked good on someone who didn't look anything like me.
Oh, what a fool I'd been. Forgive me, Halle Berry!
Since I'd been filling up donation bags with Jackson's outgrown stuff anyway, I filled up three bags with puckering shirts, unfortunate trouser choices, and dresses that showed parts of my legs I need to pretend don't exist anymore. The bags are still in my trunk, waiting for me to figure out where to leave them since the Salvation Army closed and I don't seem to know how to work a Yellow Pages, or Google.
So now not only have I vowed before God and everybody not to buy clothes for a year, but I have even less of them to cover my sagging frame than ever before (which is to say, 4x as many as your average elegant Eritrean). My two remaining sweaters are looking at me very nervously, as are three bras, a Jorge Posada Yankees jersey, and some crumbling Birkenstocks.