FashBlog.com

Sometimes when I watch movies I marvel at the actors. I think about how their characters' clothes always look the part of the character, too. The bohemian sex therapist wears amazing beads and broom skirts. The ambitious urban dweller dons tailored business suits and pumps. I am amazed by how put together they look. Okay, I’ll admit that I do it in the grocery store sometimes, too.

I have never possessed this savvy for putting together a wardrobe. Don't get my wrong. I have some really cute clothes. I have had power suits with cute little blouses. I have flare-legged pants. During my more radical days, I could be found sporting hippie fashions from vintage shops in Atlanta's Little Five Points District. What's scarier is that I had all of these clothes at the same time. My closet looks as if it belongs to a schizophrenic with a clothing problem. There is no rhyme or reason to the clothes, but I can chart when I got them based on what was happening in my life at the time. There are grad school clothes, reporter clothes, and Mommy clothes, among others.

I have never been trendy, but I have never had a style either. I sometimes wonder if people typecast me based on the clothes I'm wearing. I do it to others: "oh, how Republican." So I am certain they do it, too. We make assumptions based on people's clothing choices, and I often stare into my closet wondering what, exactly, it is saying about me.

I must admit, all pop psychology aside, I blame a lot of it on my mother. She tried hard to impose her idea of my style on me. I wore what one of my college professors called "Baptist dresses," ankle-length dresses that button down the front. I wore flat shoes and clothes that suggested I was serious. Then I went to college. And I rebelled. I wore clothes that made my mother cringe. I wore clothes that made other people think I was mysterious and a little scary, quite frankly. None of them were me.

It is not that I don't know who I am. It's just that I don't know the right clothes to say it. I have days when I need the high-powered slacks and jacket because I have an important meeting or something to do where I need to show my aggressive side. Then there are days when I want to reconnect with nature and myself, and a broom skirt is the perfect choice for those days. And over the past year, while I have worked at home and taken care of my son, many days are yoga pants and tank top kinds of days.

I think the reality is that I have never in my life cared about clothing long enough to pay attention to those details. While I will ponder other people's clothing choices and look to my closet for answers, I do not make clothing choices a consistent part of who I am. Shopping clearance racks doesn’t help either. I have some of everything, and most of it was on sale. I am so frugal, in part by choice and in part by necessity, that I gave up long ago trying to buy a wardrobe that would only need to replaced next year. I cringe at the price of clothes, even on clearance racks.

I have decided to take back my wardrobe. A few nights ago, I went through everything I own. I made my husband sit through this painful process with me. "Nothing frumpy," I said to him, which includes many of the items I have been given as gifts. "Nothing that doesn't say ME."

We tossed about seventy-five percent of what we found. My half of the closet is now almost empty. I am excited but sad to see all of the clothes I had bought go away. My wardrobe phobia is wearing away. I am looking to magazines and other pop culture media as a way to re-invent, or rather, invent my wardrobe. I am learning what every American girl learned at 15, wonderful tidbits like what gauchos are and what my hair says about me. Sometimes being a wardrobe phobic was easier.


By Julia Mercer