"Everything I'm wearing
today," I said to David in wonder, "is new."
Or relatively new, anyway: it had all been purchased in the last couple
of months or so. New red blouse.
New "Dress
Casual" denim slacks. New sandals. Even my underwear and my jewelry and
my knee-hi pantyhose are recent purchases. In fact, the
'oldest' thing
I'm wearing today is my engagement ring. That dates all the way back to
December.
Furthermore, everything I'm wearing today -- with the exception of the engagement ring -- was purchased by me, FOR me, brand-new ... right off the rack/right out of the catalog/fresh from my grocer's hoisery shelf.
No ugly gift sweaters, worn out of a sense of obligation. No thrift-store pantsuits, crawling with the DNA of previous owners.
Everything new. I can't remember this ever happening before.
Of course this means that along with pride of ownership -- and the credit card bills -- I also *own* responsiblity for how I look today. And since today is the very first time I've ever worn jeans to the Totem Pole Company, 'how I look today' is making me a teeny-tiny bit more anxious than usual. I'm not really a Dress Casual Friday kinda gal anymore. I'm one of those people who subscribes to the theory that it's better to dress at a level slightly above your current position -- as snooty as that may sound -- even on Fridays. Dress for the job you want, they say, not the job you're in now. And for me this means suits, suits and more suits. Suits are no-brainers. They're just hanging there in your closet, ready to go. What could be easier? (It's sort of like my approach to dieting: the less I have to think about it, the better.) Once in a while I bust out of my rut and wear something a little more daring -- I leave the jacket at home, for instance, and wear a sweater over my suit skirt -- but otherwise I pretty much stick to a fairly formal wardrobe routine.
Even on Fridays.
This hasn't always been the case. Five or six years ago, when I was working for the little phone company in TicTac, every day was Dress Casual Day. Jeans and sweaters were my office "uniform." Once in a while -- if the cute 3M guys were flying in from Minneapolis, for instance -- I would toss a blazer over the whole mess and call it a "suit." Otherwise I never bothered with pumps or pantyhose or "coordinated" anything. Why should I? I was the lone female working in a tiny office full of telephone technicians. Most of the time the techs were on the road, handling service calls, and I was left sitting in the office alone all day, transcribing my high school journals to floppy disk and photocopying my hands. Why should I bother dressing up for that?
Besides: I was always broke in those days. I couldn't afford new stuff. (At least, that's what I told myself. Interestingly, I could always seem to "afford" that Saturday night jug of cheap chablis ... but not the occasional new blouse for work.)
Things changed when I went to work at my next two jobs: first, at the doomed TicTac newspaper, and then later at The Knife Factory in Oregon. Both were essentially front desk positions, and I was required to dress the part. This meant skirts and jackets and uncomfortable shoes and absurdly cheerful dresses with cabbage flowers on them. For the first time since seventh grade, the world saw my exposed legs on a semi-regular basis. I was hideously uncomfortable and self-conscious, at first ... but after a while I got the hang of teetering around in high heels. And after a while I started to enjoy the way that dressing up a little bit for work every day made me feel. I was still "broke" most of the time -- acquiring most of my work wardrobe from the thrift store, or from the "fat clothes" side of my mother's closet (which she couldn't wear anymore) -- but it still felt like a big improvement from my telephone company days.
By the time I landed here in the Bay Area ... newly sober, newly employed at the Totem Pole Company, newly *self-actualized* ... not to mention newly solvent ... I wanted my outside to match the groovy new way I felt inside. This was especially true once they yanked me off the reception desk and booted me to the top of the Totem Pole to work for Franz. All of a sudden it was very important to me that the way I look the way I feel: successful, healthy, comfortable, happy with my life, happy with myself ... and appropriately dressed, for a change.
And it's sort of been that way ever since.