Fashion Week at Frugal Upstate & My Fashion Foundations

Do you know what one of the first things I did when I got out of the Army was? I bought a RED purse. In the Army women are only allowed to carry solid black purses that have no visible logo or design. Let me tell you, 11 years of boring, sensible solid black purses and I was STARVED for color. (and yes, I know I could have changed to a different purse on the weekend, but honestly-I would have wound up heading out of the house on Monday morning with my black purse sans the wallet which would have been left in a different purse. A single purse was MUCH safer).

Add on to that an early fashion experience that made an indelible impression on me (and all my sisters-they will know instantly who I am talking about). My younger brother had a friend from school whose mom was a very attractive, slim, well dressed lady. She was the sort of lady who always had her makeup done and never had a hair out of place. She was an actress and appeared throughout my childhood and teen years in some local TV commercials (for the Mall and such). She always was nicely put together and attractive—but looked for as long as I knew her like she had just stepped out of the late 1970’s.

It was glaringly obvious to me, a total tomboy with my nose constantly stuck in a book, who couldn’t have cared less at the time about clothing or fashion, that she was totally stuck in a FASHION TIME WARP, blissfully oblivious that time and fashion had moved on beyond blue frosted eye shadow, student cut dark blue jeans (in an age of acid wash-I’m dating myself now)and thin plaid cotton oxfords with PEARL SNAPS and PIPPING. Her sense of style had frozen somewhere in her college days and there it had steadfastly remained. I made a solemn PROMISE to myself, at that tender age, that I would never, ever, ever let that happen to me.

I saw this happen again in the Army, especially with the male officers. They would enter the Army directly from college and start wearing uniforms every day to work-AND NEVER UPDATE THE REST OF THEIR WARDROBE. They would be in 10 years, and still wearing the casual clothes after work that they had worn in college. Now you all know I’m a big one for saving a dollar, and I’d be the last one to throw something out that was still worth using—but most of these clothes were far from classics when they were originally wearing them, and they hadn’t aged well!

Plus, since they wore “civies” (the Army term for civilian clothing) so infrequently they really hadn’t kept up on the little details-things like whether or not it was totally dorky to have your athletic socks pulled all the way up to your knees or not, or to wear dark socks with shorts (OK, that one has always looked silly-they just never got a clue on that one). They were lost, and it was obvious. Avoiding that wouldn’t have cost much-in some cases it wouldn’t have cost anything (heck-in the sock case you could have just pushed the gym socks down and not looked like such a dork) Again I said to myself “That will never be me”.

Fast forward to now-being a stay at home mom. Lets face it-when your entire job in life is staying home with the kiddos you could spend every day in a Tigger sweat suit (and many moms do-Side note: My sister Bick, who has no kids yet asked “Why do so many women feel that when they have kids they have to start dressing like kids?”).

I feel that how you dress affects how you feel about yourself and how others treat you. This may not be “Politically Correct” or fair, but I happen to feel that it is true. Hey, no one ever promised life was going to be fair! Because of this I have tried from the beginning of my career as a SAHM to dress fairly nicely, at least 85% of the time. Dressing well also helped a little to combat that feeling of “losing my identity” that happens when you go from being a working woman who is defined by your career and accomplishments to a SAHM who is not considered to be “working” by many people.

Since I was used to being treated as a professional while I was an Army Officer, I admit that I try to dress so that people treat me with a certain amount of respect when I am at various volunteer activities and meetings. (I was at a meeting once where someone asked me what I did and I answered I was a SAHM, and they were very surprised and asked me what I did BEFORE that-then nodded their head sagely when I answered that I had been an Army Officer for 11 years—I guess between my dress and my bearing I threw them off from their expectations of a SAHM!)

Even on the many days when I am at home, when I am dressed in an outfit that I feel makes me look nice and is coordinated my mood and outlook seem to be much better than on days where I’m wearing a grubby t-shirt and sweats. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I dress to the nines every day, I’m just saying that a top in a nice color that looks good on me, a bit of makeup, doing my hair and a pair of earrings really make me feel like a different woman even if the only people who are going to see me all day are Princess and Buddy.

Now, I know that for the most par that this post has been pretty philosophical, and only loosely related to frugality-so let me state that of course anything I do fashion wise I’m going to want to do in a frugal fashion! Things that I don’t do frugally I have a good reason for, like my 80 dollar Dansko clogs that I feel are a wise investment for the health of my feet.