As I cringe upon reflection I do remember how exhausting it was to find clothes that fit during that time.  Perhaps I had just given up all style sense in lieu of something that was comfortable. In all the pictures of that time I appear to be oblivious to my fashion faux pas.  I look blissfully happy, regardless of the bad outfits.  Imagine that?

Fast forward to today, I sit here typing in a pair of patched up hippie jeans with worn out knees and thighs.  I have patched these holes with brightly colored 60s inspired patches that say “love,” and “peace” and of course I have a  smiley face.  It’s just a matter of time before someone mistakes me for an old hippie.  I have been wearing these jeans consistently at least 4 days a week for over a year now.  They are threadbare.  Surprisingly, it feels good to have worn, and I mean really worn, something to the point that its life as a piece of clothing is nearly over.  May you rest in peace come September 1st.  I am certain that the future for these well loved, well worn and well traveled pants lies at the bottom of a recycling bin.  Like my pregnancy pants they are not hand-me-downable anymore.

Though I am wearing less than desirable clothes these days I am certain that I will look back on my TGAAD year with fond memories—the year I focused on what I was doing and not what I was wearing.   But unfortunately for me we have been digitally documenting our son’s 8th year with rabid enthusiasm, hard evidence of the bad fashion decisions I have been sporting this year.  One day I will look back at these images of my son, sitting on my patched up, well worn lap and wonder…what the hell was I thinking.

Some of the most astounding creativity, the part I wasn’t there to officially critique but naturally did given my interest in sociology and design, was in the tattoos and piercings I saw on display. All but two of the young women I met with were either pierced or tattooed or both. Not just a little nose ring here or a dainty butterfly there. I’m talkin’ full on graphic novels from shoulder to wrist; chest tattoos covering cleavage and clavicle, elaborate license plates aka: trampstamps peeking out of low cut jeans, eye brow piercings, tongue piercings, nose, lip, cheek, you name it, I saw it and it was tatted and pierced. Let me restate once more, these were lovely young women with gorgeous skin, nice figures and beautiful hair. The same girls, who in my day babysat for extra money, ate Sunday dinner with grandma and wrote thank you notes with smiley faces—regular, girl next door girls with modern day fairy-tales and cheap jewels adorning their nubile bodies.

At first I had a hard time focusing on the work in the portfolios, I was distracted by the colorful narratives decorating forearms, knuckles and neck napes. A woman talked enthusiastically about her work and all I could see was the jewel above her lip moving in sync with her expressions. “That must hurt,” was all I could think. “How does it stay in place I wondered? Is there a back to it, like an earring? What happens if it gets infected?” I worried. “And if she gets bored with the piercing or suddenly finds it inappropriate will it haunt her with an unsightly gaping hole?” These were the things I pondered while this woman—this talented woman was presenting the work she had labored over for two years.I tried to focus. I told myself I was dated, old; a fuddy-duddy but I couldn’t take my eyes off the jewel bobbing above her lip.

Another woman, a Natalie Portman look-a-like had a goolish story sleeve on one arm. It made me wonder if the other arm, the one without the tattoos, got cold sometimes. “What will happen,” I projected, “when her arms get flabby and the stretched out sleeve starts to pill? Clearly there will be a cosmetic remedy for that? Maybe a business idea for me?” Finally I focused. I forced myself look at the work. I was impressed again and again. Eventually I lost sight of the tattoos and the piercings and began to see the work for what it was…fresh, pure, skilled and original, not unlike what I saw on lips, chests, calves and wrists.

Later that evening when I got home I dug the business cards out of my purse that I had collected from the group of hungry budding photographers. I wrote notes on each card to remind me about who did what and what I liked about each of their portfolios. I chicken scratched details of what each person looked like so I could put a face to the work. Naturally I noted who had what tattoo and who had what piercing—clear markers to help me identify each one.

This got me thinking….what are tattoos and piercings all about anyway? Is it a generation’s attempt to create their individual identity? Is it a form of promoting a storyline like people do on Facebook and twitter? Has this culture of ours become so generic in our Gap and Old Navy fashion that we can no longer make a statement with our clothes and instead we are moved to stand out on the canvas of the skin? Or are tattoos just modern day war paint signifying the battle of a homogenous conformity? Or simply this generation’s attempt at anti conformists conforming? I asked my fifteen year old stepson what he thought tattooing and body piercing was all about. I ran a couple of my sociological theories up the flag pole with him. He shrugged and said “you’re over thinking it, sometimes a tattoo is just a tattoo. It’s like art, you buy a painting you like and you hang it on a wall. It’s no more complicated than that.”

But I don’t agree. Like shopping, when shopping is never really about shopping, piercing and tatooing are never as simple as just hanging a piece of art on the surface of your skin; it’s so much more than that. If there is one thing I have learned from The Great American Apparel Diet it is that presenting oneself in the sea of people is vastly more complicated than getting dressed in the morning or buying a new ensemble in a store. Self expression, regardless of your medium, is an attempt to prove you matter in a larger world. Tatooing and piercing, I am conviced, is just one other form of doing that. These artists are once again trancending their medium and expressing themselves in anyway they know how–there is real beauty in that.

I loved my girls on the big screen; I loved their fashion, their raunchy talk and their touching conversations (sometimes motherhood just sucks).  I say “back off boys” and suspend disbelief because this movie rocks, especially for those girls jonesin’ for a fashion pick-me-up!

Earlier in the month I met a spunky, modern girl at the reception desk at one of my client’s offices.   Hovering on the young end of her twenties, she had great hair, an age appropriate earring in her nose and a cute tattoo, the kind she will hate when she is 47.  Compelled by her flawless youth I asked, “Hey, where’d you get your hair done.”  Flattered and excited to be giving a woman like me fashion advice she told me  “my guy downstairs is amaaaaaazing.”  After a little TMI she scrawled his name down on a business card and handed it over to me.  Last week, in my moment of needing something “different,” I dug her lipstick soiled guy’s card out of the depths of my handbag and called him.  I booked a 2.5 hour appointment for haircut and color.   Certainly, I told myself, he could do something Fresh-ish!  

Can you say hair debacle!  Yikes.  He told me “I’m not sure I like you in short hair” (that should have been a sign).  He said he wanted me to “grow it out.” I won’t drag you through the details of my afternoon with the long-hair-loving stylist, other than the fact that it cost over $200 smackers and I came away with a beige poof job.   The guy used a round brush on my hair…need I say more?

When I got home my husband, who never notices when I get my hair cut, asked me if I was going to coin my new look  “Carol Brady Returns.”  Later that night at writing group my fellow writers told me, “That’s the worst haircut you’ve ever had.”   

Upon waking the next day I made a phone call and scheduled the “fixer cut”.  It was time to go to the renowned Super Swank Salon that I had been avoiding for years, (though it came highly recommended).  It is one of those places that  people name drop, it was so cool that it was so uncool in my mind I had refused to go.  But now, the only thing that could remedy my situation was something upber cool.  

I entered the swank, shiny, chic Salon—pronounced “Say-lawn,” complete with espresso bar and cocktails, and was immediately comforted by the modern haircuts all around.  I had to ask myself, “why haven’t I been here?” I checked my coat, grabbed a sparkling something or other and met with my short-haired, funky, stylist.  I was in good hands.  An hour later and another 100 bucks sunk I had a very short but very cute hair cut.  The only problem was….she cut off $100 worth of color (from the day before) and now I looked like a speckled bird.   My super chic stylist offered to color it but at that point I wasn’t about to “pay more.”  Plus it just felt wrong coloring my hair two times in two days.  The last thing I needed was for my hair to fall out.  

I feel like I need to say this,I am not high maintenance.  I am the kind of girl who wears her hair super short so she can get ready super fast.  Really.

At home my husband laughed at my hair.  He said, “now you look like an exotic bird from that Planet Earth video”.  If he knew how much I had paid at that point I am certain his attitude would have been different. 

The next day, at the end of the day and certain that the hair was not getting better, I made yet another call to a non discript,  local hair dresser a few blocks away from my house and two doors down from Safeway.  I told her in a panic “I am on my third day of a bad hair fiasco that needs fixing right away.”  She calmly made an appointment and assured me that it wasn’t the first hair mistake of the day she’d fixed (good to know that hair disasters are alive and well all over the place).  $100 dollars and another two hours later  I had my hair the way I wanted it.  Short and blond, sans speckles. 

So why am I telling you this story?  My hair story?  Because if I had been buying clothes I would have filled my car with new items, gone home, tried them on and then returned most of them.  I would have tried on different styles, studied myself in the mirror and then made some decisions.  No dobut I would have wasted a lot of time making a few trips to the store, to buy and return.  But in the end I probably would have spent $200 instead of $400.  I would have clothes in my closet and not hair on the floor.  Now, I’m not saying I wish I could shop, but last week it would have saved me some money and several hours in the salon chair.  Sept. 1st cannot get here soon enough!

 ”Our lives evolve and often our wardrobes do not…books like this help us relax and enjoy who we are, giving us permission to be stylish, feminine and sexy at any age.”   Sigrid Olsen, artist and Designer.

After I left the gym I went to my local bookstore and bought the book.  I just finished it…It was great!

The book is never bossy or pedantic like you might suspect a “style maven’s” book to be.  Instead Kim Johnson Gross is a friendly voice, one that is more apt to empathize than admonish (not like those Skinny Bitches).  As a vetran of the unforgiving fashion industry, Johnson Gross weaves her own tale of a mid-life bodychange that challenged not only her wardrobe but her sense of self.   She gives great advice to fellow aging fashionistas and offers up practical soloutions to “closet problems.”  Chapters include: Closet Betrayal, the Lying Mirror, Shop Smart for the Rest of your Life, How to Wear a Shirt When You No Longer Have a Waist and Other Closet Dramas. 

I was grateful that this book found me as I was sweating off the extra glass of wine from the night before and pouring over the news about Sandra Bullock’s new baby.  I can truly say that it was meant to be, particularly as I contemplate my new spending, apparel wearing, and shopping habits that are set to resume soon (121 days).  Hopefully the author’s advice, reflection, humor and stories will help to inform my new and improved ways. 

A solid thumbs up.  A keeper.  This is not your standard fashion advice book  I only wish I would have written it myself!

Last night I was out with a good friend I haven’t seen in a while—it’s a schedule issue really.  My friend, she’s fabulous.  She’s married, no kids, big corporate VP job with all the accolades, notoriety and wardrobe that go along with the job.  She picked me up wearing a chic skirt, which later I learned she bought in London while on a four-city whirl wind business trip.  She had on the latest laced knee high boots and a super snappy pancho that she could pull over her head when she felt a drop of rain. 

Flash to me, older mom barely holding it together and deprived of a “new wardrobe.”  For a living?  Well, I manage to piece together a paycheck as I toggle from home to the office to school.  I am not above taking conference calls from the bedroom closet, (lest my clients detect that I am home with kids and two rambunctious cats), or writing marketing plans in the doctor’s office or from the bleachers of a baseball game.

I greet my friend at the door wearing the same jeans I have been wearing for the last 5 days (and by the way they have gotten a little baggy from the wear which somehow makes me feel thin).   Under last year’s black wrap-around sweater coat I wear a stained oatmeal colored crewneck sweater that has seen better days.   On my feet I wear my favorite pair of black Dansko clogs because everything else just hurts.  The good news is I have a fresh application of lipstick on . The bad news?  it’s  all the makeup I have on.  Upstairs, before the doorbell rang, I gave myself a cursory glance in the floor length mirror that hangs behind the closet.  I could have sworn I looked good, but once I see my friend on the doorstep it becomes painfully clear that I do not.

My friend smells good.  She has her fancy rings on her fingers and the latest watch on her wrist.  I notice her bling as I reach up to my ear and realize I forgot to put my earrings on all together. My friend says she had to “Escape from work.” In her words, “They will just have to move forward without me.”  I long to be in such hot demand from someone taller than my shoulder.  My friend told her people that she had a prior commitment and had to leave the office early.  No corporate mukety muck would understand the point of going out with a girlfriend at 5:30pm on a Monday night.  But my babysitter has a curfew and I have to be home by 10pm at the very latest.  This is standard operating procedure for me and my mommy friends who are often buzzed by 7pm and in bed by 10pm. 

When I am with my friend sans children and the big career I feel like The Great American Apparel Diet is stupid.  Like I have set myself up for frumpsville.  I feel like my career of juggling kids, a business and the occasional trip to the gym is just an excuse for a distracted and sometimes unattractive scattered existence.   What I wear is a long way down the  list of things I worry about these days, partially because I have taken up the new and brave effort to consciously consume or simply to not consume.  Seeing my friend makes me want to go to Barneys and spend like Katie Holmes.  I am moved to buy things that I know I will hate in a year, clothes that are conspicuously fashionable and expensive and well beyond my credit line.  I want clothing that says “she’s a risk taker!”   Clothes can do that you know. 

My fashionable and important, high profile friend and I  had a good time noshing on sushi and sipping saki. We skipped the movie in lieu of conversation and caramelized bananas.   I eventually forgot what I was wearing and I stopped coveting my friend’s outfit.  We discussed cancer, death and dying.  We talked about her and her husband’s effort to adopt a child, about my ever changing career and the shifting sands of the advertising business. 

After dinner my friend drove me home  just in time to relieve Rachel the babysitter (before she morphed into a winter squash). We hugged in the car and promised to get together “sooner than later.”  

Inside I chatted with Rachel and paid her in cash for watching my proidgy.  As she loaded her backpack and put on her shoes she said, “Hey, I like your sweater, where’d you get it?”   It made me laugh.  “It’s from last year…Nordstrom,” I offered, knowing that she’d never find it this year and glad that someone was coveting my wardrobe.

If you’ve never been lucky enough to witness such an event please, you’re welcome to play the role of spectator at our house. Your first time is free but don’t expect to get fed.  Three times a day the ravenous contenders step into the ring hoping for a comeback title or a TKO.  As the only woman in the house the role of referee naturally falls to me.  You see, I am less inclined to draw blood in a contest for the last piece of something-or-other. 

We have some serious heavy weight champions among us.  But the fiercest and most stealth is Kai Hoyt, a quiet but intimidating opponent. KH, has been known to fill his plate with six pieces of pizza to ensure his take of the prize, lest his younger brother Kalen, weighing in at 200 lbs. and 6’1” throws him a hook and steals the goods.  Cameron, a light weight but ferocious amateur has controversial behavior both inside and outside the ring—screaming obscenities (Mooooommmmmmm) and calling out for help, (Daaaaaddddddd).   Using mind games and unprecedented strategy the small boxer is often disqualified and sent out of the ring.   “That kid has a future,” says four time champion Kalen Tindall, “with maturity, growth and training he’s sure to master his talent and become a formidable challenger, a regular Evander Holyfield.  But until then, what the kid leaves unguarded on his plate is fair game.” 

Care to join?

When I say I work on middle earth this is what I mean. I have my own business that requires me to occasionally meet with clients in various cities around the country. Day to day, however, I shuttle from home to my little office in Fremont to my son’s school up the block. I spend a fair amount of time working in my car or at my son’s soccer practice when my blue tooth cooperates. I think a lot of women, at least a lot of the women I know, work on middle earth too. Corporate America does not tend to be (there are some exceptions) conducive to mothers or father’s who need flexibility. So many of us women/moms have traded in our office jobs or careers for middle earth—a strange but more accommodating place.

But the pressing question for me is not how to juggle it all on middle earth but more importantly, what to wear while there? This question, this quandary is largely responsible for my overspending and unending confusion when I glance into my overstuffed and mismatched closet. I am left wondering what the appropriate wardrobe is for middle earth. I know it is somewhere between pajamas and a suit. The vast divide is difficult navigate.

I’m not quite sure what the Ann Taylor suit is doing in my wardrobe but it’s there…in case? Those up-tight but fabulous looking pumps at the far end of the shoe rack—definitely not for middle earth but maybe, just maybe appropriate for the next business trip to New York.

When I mention the middle earth concept to my husband he starts rattling off these terms as if to remedy my confusion. Business Casual: casual but no denim. Casual Friday: jeans allowed (in Seattle this includes shorts and Birkenstocks with socks). Business Formal: jeans? Don’t even think about it. Tie? Probably.

On middle earth it’s more like this. Casual Friday: Pajamas until noon. Business Casual: bra, clean jeans, a presentable t-shirt or blouse, hip jacket and clogs. Business Formal: Panic! Yikes! Go buy something new! And that’s when a sales girl takes advantage of the casually dressed vulnerability of the middle earth inhabitants. They, the middle earthians, invariably walk away with an expensive suit or a stiff blouse that they will never wear again.

Where does the middle earth population get its fashion inspiration? It’s certainly not in the fashion magazines. The glossy rags are still promoting the street-walker look for the evening and suits or dresses for the workday. The idea of shuttling back and forth from work to home to my son’s school in a dress is laughable. I often look at the well dressed, well pressed and perfumed women at my son’s school with envy. That used to me with a corporate job and a dress code. They look so put together and inspired to “change the world.” Me on the other hand, in my ripped jeans, butchy Frye boots and denim jacket look like someone who could be holding the yield sign at a construction site. Welcome to middle earth girls

Check it out: www.thegreatamericanappareldiet.com.