I tried, I really did. I decided that I would try to upgrade my look from t-shirts and jeans to something more en vogue and stylish.
I grabbed a friend and we headed off to the Gap to buy, well, jeans. But the fashionable kind, with the dropped waist and flairs. After trying on lots of permutations we found a pair that fit.
Flatteringly, and frighteningly, the pair that fit was a size two. If I'm a size two, then several women I know are a size -12. But I guess that's what all this was about. As I near 30 it's nice to have a figure that can fit a size two. And the thing about this particular fashion style is that it's all about showing off that figure.
But on retrospect, I am not comfortable with this. To wear clothes whose purpose is to show off my femininity - it's absurd. That to be fashionable I have to objectify myself? I refuse to vacate my senses, my judgment, my intellect, my self-esteem, even if that's what it takes to be fashionable. I thought about myself walking around in my new clothes. First of all, I don't believe in wearing anything that would prevent me from kicking up my feet and running down the block if the whim should strike me. This is one of the main reasons I don't wear skirts. Looking nice doesn't trump mobility in my book. So these jeans appeared to be a workable fashion for me because they were jeans, and not stride-inhibiting skirts. But like most women's clothes, they were not the practical devices that they might have at first appeared to be. They are so tight that mobility is contricted, with waists so low that bending down becomes something only for exhibitionists. What happened to all the practical value of plain old blue jeans?
Suffice it to say, I did not keep them.
Edit 1/18/04 - I actually wrote this post last fall but for some reason didn't post it. Since entries have been sparse so far in January I thought I'd throw it up there with a date that would sort of spread these things out. Yes, I really should be posting more and in a more timely manner. I blame the food poisoning...