My Retirement - Fashionista

Warming up and doing OK

Style is my middle name.

How long do you keep clothes?  Do you still have outfits that you have only worn once or twice that you save because you might have other events where you could possibly wear them again, but you never will?  One problem is that they may no longer be the right size.  They have shrunken in the closet. Possibly this happened due to the darkness or lack of moisture, I'm not sure, but we still do not want to part with them.   I hear ya.

Trolling through my closet, trying to sort out what I am going to give to Goodwill, I came upon quite a few of these lovely garments that I once had to have.  Some are easy to pass on to a charity, but others I look at and have a certain level of anxiety about giving away.  I am not talking about recent items I have bought, I am speaking of "vintage".  I have gotten rid of most of those "wedding/special events outfits", but a few remain.  There is no legitimate reason for this, I will never wear them again, but I look at them with a certain longing.  I once felt good in these; they were a size I starved myself to get into, or it was for a very special occasion that I am nostalgic about.   Then there is the thought that I keep holding onto, that I will wear them again someday, even though I know they are no longer age and body appropriate. Time might have stood still in my closet, but time has not been as kind to me.  I think I might be at the point in my life where I should just consider wearing boxy outfits that are black with big flowers.

I am not a hoarder, just a sentimental old woman.  I will confess that I still have my going-away dress from my wedding almost 44 years ago, another dress that I wore on my honeymoon (and only one more time afterwards), and a really cool dress I wore to a New Years Eve's party in 1970.  I do not have my wedding dress; that was in the attic of our home that we moved from 10 years ago and hubby said that after being in that crawl space for an hour trying to find it, he gave up looking   This was definitely a one-occasion dress though, and once is enough for that.  It was possibly eaten by the four-legged critters that we would hear running around up there for years.

Hanging on to clothes is not only a woman's thing, as hubby has a bright-red ice fishing jacket that he has not worn in over fifty years still hanging in the wardrobe in our basement.  Add to this, his Air-Force outfit (got out of the service in '67), and countless shirts and ties that have laid untouched for years.

My daughters have been the recipients of some of my "fancy" clothes. They have worn them as costumes for "Back to the 80's" parties they have given.  I have not taken offense as I am sure they were celebrating my good taste even though the word costume does denote something funny. Let me just say that one was a long, gold lame` Cleopatra-type outfit with a split all the way up the side of the leg and the other was a floor-length purple, 100% polyester number with floppy sleeves. Oh, what a fashionista I was!  Today, I could not get one leg or one boob in either of them. Again, as I stated, the darkness or moisture of the closet shrunk them.

Now I have granddaughters and I took out that 70's New Year's Eve very short dress to show them what the styles were many years ago. The tag inside this dress says "Wendy of London", and because of the Beatles and the fashion they inspired, we were very into anything British during those times and I had to have it.  It probably cost all of $50, but that was a lot of money back then. It is gold threaded on a snake-skin pattern silk material with buttons down one sleeve.  I still think it is kind of neat and I will have to put it in my will for one of my three daughter - so they can keep it in their closet for 40 or so years.

I wonder why I threw away that red polka-dot hot pants outfit that I actually wore to a wedding.  They just don't make clothes like that anymore.

 Memories, from the corner of my mind, misty water colored memories, from the way we were.