Style, and the lack thereof.

My husband and I took a rare trip to the mall the other day, since we both still had gift cards from Christmas burning holes in our wallets. And you know what? We didn't buy a damn thing.

Every season I find something about the latest fashions to hate. This season it seems to be everything I see.

Long, floaty, tiered skirts. Dark colors. Mod prints. Embellished jeans. "Distressed" fashions. Buttons and doodads and contrasting stitching and weird cuts. Even at Talbots, which I have long regarded as the holy grail of clothes I can wear that don't look painfully trendy.

I am not a hippie, nor am I a hipster. I am no longer a teenager. I am most definitely NOT a matron. I'm not out there selling my wares, but I'm not interested in covering them with shapeless sacks, either. I am not six feet tall and 100 scrawny pounds. I have hips.

Do you know how hard it is to find clothes for my particular fashion niche? I'd like to define my sense of fashion as "classic" but a lot of what's considered classic is also what my mother wears and I am really fighting that. It's bad enough that I'm starting to sound like her, do I have to morph into her style, too?

Clean lines, nice fabrics, basic pieces. That's all I ask. Oh, and for things to not cost a fortune.

Apparently I ask too much.

I have entered into that fashion no-man's-land of What to Wear When You're Shoving 40. Designers don't really give a shit about my age group. Nothing is designed for the "funny, I don't feel old" generation, it's all for teenagers who want to look like they're pulling their clothes out of a dumpster.

Of the dozens of things that I tried on, only one outfit, a nice navy blue pinstripe suit, really looked good on me. And it was $300.

Well, hell. It might as well have been $3000.

Is it my imagination or is everything crazy expensive these days?

As a kid, every year I would get a new outfit for Easter. As an adult, I haven't had a new Easter outfit in years. And it doesn't seem like this year I'll find anything, either.

This is depressing.




-- Mox