adieu, common reader
Damn. A Common Reader, the best book catalog ever, whose company Akadine also reprinted deserving titles, has filed for bankruptcy.
summertime
I am watching "Summertime" for the first time. I had feared it would be technicolor and sappy but it's sweet. When Katharine Hepburn loses her gardenia in the canal, RDC said, "So she'll always known where it is" while I said "Tomorrow I'll steal you another." If he quotes "Harold and Maude" when I can manage only "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," then he is more romantic that I am. But he's still the one calling flowers the amputees of the plant world.
patience and sarah
Isabel Miller. A lovely book, and a good companion for "Summertime" because the women finding love and sexual freedom (and for Patience and Sarah, social freedom as well) are not punished for their wantonness. I didn't know it was inspired by historical figures until the afterword.
what to wear
My mother-in-law laughed and repeated aloud the question her visiting friend had just whispered: "Helene just asked if your boobs were real." MIL and I cracked up because we both know what kind of alternate universe it would have to be for me to do that to myself deliberately.
The next evening RDC's sister, modeling the outfit she was going to wear out, finally drew my attention by calling my name: "Lisa, you're honest. What do you think?" And I was stymied, caught between honesty and unkindness. I vacillated, saying--truthfully--that our tastes were so dissimilar, and--I thought truthfully--that since I don't wear anything that tight, I couldn't tell whether that was the look she was aiming for.
Helene piped up: "'Not that tight'? How about what you wore last night?!"
I am even more emotionally than rationally opposed to having, let alone continuing, any similarity with RDC's sister, and my first thought was that I should burn that shirt. It doesn't take an exceptional eye to notice I am overly endowed, but if the friend asked her question not because they're obviously big but because they're unnecessarily prominent, then I must have looked like a tacky whore.
When we were alone I put the questions to RDC--whoreishness? should I not wear that shirt anymore? He said not at all and the two outfits had nothing in common. My outfit was pretty and suitable and flattering, not demure but certainly not immodest. Which is what I had thought but wanted a non-Florida opinion about. The shirt that had elicited the question of augmentation and possibility of similarity was sleeveless, because I like my broad shoulders and strong arms, and a pale salmon-peach color like this one, which works well with my skin tone, and slightly stretchy so it skims my torso without clinging; plus I wore a long straight "undyed" linen skirt. In contrast, the outfit I would never wear involved skin-tight jeans that fought viciously against a protuberant belly (she is regularly asked if she is pregnant; an intrusively rude question but often asked by the intrusively rudely well-intentioned) and gave a denim water-tower effect; a black tank top; and a sparkly mesh shrug that, as shrugs do, emphasized the belly, which didn't need any emphasis. The paving of eyeshadow matched the maroon yarn of the shrug.
It's true that the barrel is my least favorite body shape. Some people are forced by genetics toward it, but it can be balanced by developing some muscle in the limbs instead of idling into flabby toothpicks and with good enough nutrition to minimize fat stored at the waist. At the very least, if you've got that shape, your belly is not what you should draw attention to.
That incident, plus late-night watching of "What Not to Wear" in the hotel (yes, I'm ashamed) led me to think of my own sartorial rules:
The two universal basics:
You will always look better dressed for the shape you are now rather than contorted toward a shape you don't have.
Don't sacrifice practicality for pretty for everyday wear.
Also:
Wear your bosom midway between shoulder and elbow and without bounce.
If your bust is extremely large, I hope for your back's sake (and, less important, aesthetics' sake) it can be contained atop the ribcage.
Hair drawn up off the neck is sexy.
Shape your eyebrows.
Teeth and scalera should be clear white.
Teeth are a better investment of funds, no matter how limited, toward your image, than cars or jewelry or hair or nails.
Anything you wear should enhance and complement you, who are more attractive than any clothing, jewelry, or cosmetic.
The only parts of you that should be restrained at all are those bits that have no muscle--breasts, genitals, hair, and nails. Legs through the hips, arms through the shoulders, neck, back, and waist should have free range of motion.
If you have a large or droopy belly, do not belt your trousers under it. Wear suspenders: much more comfortable! (Unless a belt gives it some support, the way most of a bra's support should come from the band? I'm sorry.)
Beware of how illusion can become dishonesty.
Everything else is idiosyncratic. Well, idiosyncratic in that they are my personal preferences, not that I have committed these offences (recently):
Keep your hair out of your face. The occasional flirtatious or escaped lock is allowed. Bangs are permissible.
Keep your short hair off your ears unless you are quite, quite certain that that hairstyle is flattering to you.
Especially keep your hair out of your eyes and not stuck to your mouth.
Wear your hair short or long, not both, as in a mullet.
Pierce only spare flesh, like earlobes and the side of the nostril. And not even that.
If your ponytail is thinner than your thumb, your hair is too thin to be worn so.
If your skirt is wider than it is long, it is too short.
Your shorts hem should be below where your thighs stop touching. If you flout this rule, the shorts' legs will ride up and be higher inside your legs than outside, and your legs will look flabbier than is unavoidable.
Manicures and pedicures, insofar as they involve massage, are good; when they involve cosmetics, they are wrong.
Don't allow your manicure to interfere with basic human processes. Inserting an OB is more important than sporting talons.
Wear contacts if you can, so we can see your face.
Wear inconspicuous (but durable) eyeglasses that complement the shape of your face, your eyebrows, your bone structure, and your coloring.
Horizontal stripes are almost never flattering. Are you taut even at rest? Do you really want to broaden your waist or your hips? If you feel compelled to optically increase your bust, on your head be it.
Diagonal stripes and seams and fabric cut on the bias can give good illusion.
Whoever said not to show skin before six or after 40 is dead. Dance on that grave.
For women: if you can't run in your bathing suit without your breasts bouncing out, don't wear it.
For men: I don't care if your full-body racing suit shaves seconds off your time. I want to see especially your hipbones and that fold of muscle above.
Do not match your cosmetics to your outfit. If you must wear cosmetics, complement and enhance your eyes, not your garments.
Any process you inflict on yourself requires maintenance or will look worse than the unprocessed original state, which probably was better to begin with.
The lower back is so lovely that a tattoo cannot but detract from its beauty.
A slight suggestion of tush cleavage can be alluring in evening (though not formal) wear.
Do not mistake a suggestion of tush cleavage with buttcrack, which is always tacky and never acceptable.
If you can pass Ann Landers's pencil test, I don't want to see where your breast joins your torso, and a properly fitting and supporting bra will cover the join anyway.
Do not wear white hose or white leather unless you are a nurse on shift.
Do not wear hose darker than your shoes.
Avoid hose.
Skirts are wonderful.
A skirt should permit a full stride by being short, full, or slitted.
A skirt should not be short unless the legs are toned.
Your skirt should not be so short you cannot sit in it.
Seize any opportunity to wear a skirt with a train.
Sparkle and shimmer--sequins, beads, metallics, glimmery cosmetics--are extremely tricky. They are for evenings and very formal occasions like weddings.
I have seen extremely few Caucasians who could wear orange, lemon yellow, or grass green against the skin of their necks and faces without looking jaundiced or sallow. Chances are you are not one of them.
Balance the general rule that the more seams, the lower the item's quality, with the fact that additional seams allow for a more precise and probably more flattering fit, as with darts in a bodice.
Remove gloves to greet people or to eat or drink.
Almost all oranges and most aquas are terrible colors and should be restricted to fruit or tropical water. I don't know why this is, when oranges are second only to blueberries and nothing is better than ocean. The only non-fruit orange allowed in my house is on my cockatiel's ear-coverts.
From my observation, a shrug cannot be flattering.
Ponchos: hideous when the trendy color for appliances was avocado green, hideous now.
Thonged shoes look hideously painful.
Thonged shoes with thick soles, with all that weight suspended from between two toes? No purpose.
Thonged shoes are not appropriate wear for the White House.
Any man from a kilt-wearing tradition should wear a kilt. All the time. Please.
Any non-Scottish man confident enough to wear a kilt should.
Kilts are hot. I am enough of a sicko about kilts that I find even Prince Charles attractive in one.
Since tattoos must be protected from the sun to preserve them, tattoos are silly and probably tacky. Unless you have absolutely magnificent soccer or rugby or bicycling thighs, in which case a band around your thigh might make me gasp. I should find some Highlands games to attend, because a caber-tosser with a thigh tattoo winking from under his kilt would probably make me collapse.
Neither public ink nor non-ethnic facial metal is appropriate for the professional workplace.
Minimize the crap on your face. Your face is really very nice all on its own, yes, even yours. Do not overwhelm it or distract from your eyes, jawline, and neck, which are everyone's most attractive parts, with more eyewear than necessary or with headphones, jewelry, or hair.
Do not wear stretch clothing stretched to the point your underwear is visible. Especially, please, when the underwear is a thong or, worse, absent.
Do not wear white pants. Do not wear white stretch pants. Do not wear white stretch pants over visible undergarments.
Do not wear stretch pants. Do not, I implore you, wear "feminine hygiene" pads with stretch pants. Most particularly do not lean over while wearing stretch pants and a pad. (The horror of this vision, from fall of 1994, has not yet left me.)
Do not wear predominantly black to a daytime wedding.
Do not wear solid white to any wedding (in this culture).
To a funeral, wear only dark, somber colors, and no patterns other than perhaps a subdued pinstripe or herringbone. And no décolletage.
Black is a tedious color for evening. Don't be a sheep, because in this context a black sheep is just another sheep.
And for pity's sake don't use your usual bright or whimsical umbrella at a funeral. Unless you are Maude, in which case you can do any damn thing you want. Black or dark gray are the only acceptable colors. Umbrellas' only purpose is to poke my eyes out. They give me the shivers.
Similarly, have or borrow a dark coat for winter funerals. The morning of my grandmother's frigid graveside service, my mother showed me a coat, tan with a bright faux Native American print and asked what I thought. Was she merely showing me a new acquisition or vetting her funereal garb? No way to tell, and I said, "It's pretty," because I thought it was, and "but it's not black." She wore a black woolen overcoat to her mother's funeral, possibly only because I'm such a hard-ass.
Children are excused from wearing black to funerals because children should not wear black. Navy or gray or brown or even dark green is fine.
Infants should be kept in peapod or star-shaped sleepers until they are old enough to be embarrassed about it.
Small children should wear more overalls.
Little kids should wear smocked dresses with flower appliques.
Grown people should not wear smocked dresses or appliques. Sad, isn’t it? Being a grown-up sucks.
If you wear your trousers so large you must hold them up, please keep doing so. I love to laugh.
I cannot imagine how I ever could perceive clothing with writing across the tush as other than trampy.
No one should wear clothing with writing on it unless they attended that school, have a strong affiliation (stronger than tourism) to that place, belong to that association or sports team, or understand and wish to promote what they are promoting. Any for-profit organization should pay you to promote it, not the reverse. Are you, in fact, Michael Jordan? Why then do you wear his jersey? Do you believe in him more than in yourself?
This isn't really a fashion thing but along the same lines, the faux Jordan jersey is (I am sure) much lower quality than his actual uniform, and the faux One Ring is only 10 carat gold (besides the actual One Ring being evil and having been destroyed, and fictional). Why wear what is obviously a cheap knock-off?
Present yourself at your best especially while traveling, going to museums and cultural events, schools, lectures, and downtown.
Eschew low-rise waists that make even slender people with healthy flesh look constricted and flabby.
If your waistband is so low that when you sit, you sit actually or nearly on the waistband, don't sit but rush home to change.
If the slash pockets just under the waistband of your trousers gap, the trousers are too small for your hips' circumference.
Match, or at least coordinate, your accessories, shoes to bag to belt to watchband.
Mix patterns and plaids before mixing seasons: do not wear furry boots with short skirts and bare legs.
But don't mix patterns and plaids unless you really have the fuck-off attitude required to do so successfully.
Don't wear metallic shoes unless you are--forgive me--brazen. And probably not even then.
No short sleeves shirts with ties. Either it's formal enough for a tie (and you can roll the sleeves) or it's informal enough not to wear a button-down shirt.
If you wear a wrap shirt that is meant to contain each breast in a seamed- or stitched-off partition of fabric, make sure those partitions are big enough, else the bust will look even bigger, and worse, ill-dressed.
Do not overestimate how much the diagonal line from breast to waist given by a wrap shirt can mislead even the casual glance.
Real fur is unnecessary and impractical. Faux fur is tacky.
Animal prints are almost always tacky. Colored animal prints--blue zebra? red leopard?--are always tacky.
Seamed stockings are foxy; ankle straps are slutty; seams plus straps equal tacky. Haitch demands either explanation or retraction of this point, so: Slutty is not necessarily a bad thing! If you wear them embracing your inner slut, good. I deliberately didn't call them tacky.
Expose as much cleavage or décolletage as you feel comfortable with and as is appropriate (which trumps your comfort), and keep the breasts properly supported and restrained.
Being able to zip a tight pair of jeans does not mean you are those jeans' size. If you are a 10 and zip yourself into an 8, you’ll look like not an 8 but like an uncomfortable 12. Wear a 10.
If you're think you're too tall or too short or too scrawny or too plump, maybe you are; but you should accept that there's only so much illusion you can manage before you look clownish. Clowns are evil, not least because they wear pancake makeup and don't know where their liplines end.
My personal rules:
Don't dye or bleach or perm your hair. If my hair goes gray instead of silver or white, I'll drop this fast.
A crewneck changes my strong neck from a treetrunk to a bull's neck. V, scoop, boat, square, mandarin and sweetheat necklines are best.
No short sleeves, because they form a horizontal line with the bust and therefore widen it. Either longer than elbow or cap to shorter.
No print against the face unless it's a dress.
No dishonest doohickeys like the one-piece twinset.
No nonfunctional "decorative" bits like the watch pocket when I don't carry a pocketwatch.
Many of my favorite outfits are white above, khaki below. Updating my white shirts to be fitted instead of man-tailored was a big improvement.
Skirts are cooler, pants are warmer. Summer is no time for trousers.
Acceptable writing on clothing: my college, my town, and my past and present employers, because poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
George Orwell said of his own rules for written English, "Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous." I am not that reasonable. Break any of these rules (except about weddings and funerals) to be yourself, as long as as you don't break my eyes, and are no tackier than you must be.
