A friend of mine is planning on launching a lifestyle/fashion page/blog. I was looking at her "About Me" statement today in which she talked about her life-long love affair with fashion (it has really been life-long - I have been privy to all the naughty details). It got me thinking about all the fashion faux pas that I have committed in the past. The stories I remember are really, really cringe worthy. I am just glad to have reached a point where I have some semblance of normalcy in my sense of style. It's basic and conservative, but it's a far cry from the precocious and embarrassing fashion escapades of my childhood.
Whenever I recall all the weddings I attended in my childhood for which I wore dark lipsticks and bold eye-shadows, I keep thinking, "But where was my mother?! Why didn't she tell me to wash my face? Why didn't she tell me I was not allowed to wear that much makeup?" The truth is she probably did, and I probably threw huge tantrums and drove her to the point of giving her exhausted assent for me to do whatever I wanted. My oft-employed obstinate responses, as far as I remember, used to be, "It's my face! I will do what I want with it." My poor mom.
My husband and I have known each other all our lives, but we reconnected as adolescents at a wedding after a long hiatus during the in-between years (also known as The Unfortunate Years or The Dark Years or The Ugly Duckling Years in my personal journals). We started dating shortly after that wedding, but he still remembers how I had done up my face for one of those events. He likens me to classic icons, like The Circus Clown, or ones that he's made up, like A Cross-Dressing Alien. I really needed an intervention back then.
Tonight, thinking about those horrible days of shocking pink lipstick and rust-golden eye shadow or dark brown lipstick (seriously - it made me look like I was lacking a vital organ, like a heart) and bright silver eye-liner, I am so full of dread and regret that I am sitting here at 12:40AM writing this instead of sleeping!
I have decided, however, just in the short amount of time it has taken me to write all this, that I am going to simply accept those fashion/make-up mishaps. They were in the past (yes, including the time when I wore a lehenga to a friend's birthday party, where to my horror, no one else was wearing a lehenga!), and I actually have really nice clothes now with a reasonable sense of the kind of make-up I should wear (or I just go to MAC or Sephora and ask them to sell me the things that look good on me). And maybe in ten years I will look back and think, "Damn, I really shouldn't have worn the MAC Russian Red lipstick so often when I was twenty-eight." But, you know what? I love wearing that red lipstick, and I think it looks pretty damn good. And there's something to be said about feeling pretty, OK? All those years ago, in those funny outfits and that horrid make-up, I felt pretty. So, from now on, I will acknowledge that my choices at that time were unfortunate and highly questionable, but I made them and felt happy. That's what really matters, doesn't it? So, really, what is the point of harboring resent for the-young-and-stupid-me?
I should just let it go and enjoy my present Russian Red era. Letting it go, now, letting it go. Sorry, though, no photos from that time. I don't have any. You get three pictures from The Cute Years instead circa 1987ish.
Whenever I recall all the weddings I attended in my childhood for which I wore dark lipsticks and bold eye-shadows, I keep thinking, "But where was my mother?! Why didn't she tell me to wash my face? Why didn't she tell me I was not allowed to wear that much makeup?" The truth is she probably did, and I probably threw huge tantrums and drove her to the point of giving her exhausted assent for me to do whatever I wanted. My oft-employed obstinate responses, as far as I remember, used to be, "It's my face! I will do what I want with it." My poor mom.
My husband and I have known each other all our lives, but we reconnected as adolescents at a wedding after a long hiatus during the in-between years (also known as The Unfortunate Years or The Dark Years or The Ugly Duckling Years in my personal journals). We started dating shortly after that wedding, but he still remembers how I had done up my face for one of those events. He likens me to classic icons, like The Circus Clown, or ones that he's made up, like A Cross-Dressing Alien. I really needed an intervention back then.
Tonight, thinking about those horrible days of shocking pink lipstick and rust-golden eye shadow or dark brown lipstick (seriously - it made me look like I was lacking a vital organ, like a heart) and bright silver eye-liner, I am so full of dread and regret that I am sitting here at 12:40AM writing this instead of sleeping!
I have decided, however, just in the short amount of time it has taken me to write all this, that I am going to simply accept those fashion/make-up mishaps. They were in the past (yes, including the time when I wore a lehenga to a friend's birthday party, where to my horror, no one else was wearing a lehenga!), and I actually have really nice clothes now with a reasonable sense of the kind of make-up I should wear (or I just go to MAC or Sephora and ask them to sell me the things that look good on me). And maybe in ten years I will look back and think, "Damn, I really shouldn't have worn the MAC Russian Red lipstick so often when I was twenty-eight." But, you know what? I love wearing that red lipstick, and I think it looks pretty damn good. And there's something to be said about feeling pretty, OK? All those years ago, in those funny outfits and that horrid make-up, I felt pretty. So, from now on, I will acknowledge that my choices at that time were unfortunate and highly questionable, but I made them and felt happy. That's what really matters, doesn't it? So, really, what is the point of harboring resent for the-young-and-stupid-me? I should just let it go and enjoy my present Russian Red era. Letting it go, now, letting it go. Sorry, though, no photos from that time. I don't have any. You get three pictures from The Cute Years instead circa 1987ish.