Of Dotage

So I work in a nursing home.  I like my job and I love my residents, so please believe when I tell you I write this not to complain but because it's simply true: nursing homes are to fashion what black wholes are to the universe.  Full as they undoubtedly are of a splendid cross-section of society, and vivid as the people in question may be, if fashion is matter then nursing homes contain the blackest anti-matter known to humankind.  And like black holes, nursing homes embody the inevitable truth into which we are all inexorably being pulled.

Seriously, long life is not all it's cracked up to be.  We may wish it for our beloveds, especially when candles are involved:

...and pray in our darkest moments for deliverance - in whatever shape that may take - from the unknown and the unknowable.  But just quietly, extreme old age is another kettle of fish.  Dear friend: may you slip into oblivion somewhere before panic and confusion, but somewhere after you get to wear trakkie daks all day and refuse to eat anything except hand fed desserts and fun-sized kit-kats.

Like my sweetheart clients.

Not that the nurses are any better!  Even if in, private life, they are sartorially gifted, there's very little opportunity to express this on the wards.  Firstly, any nurse worth her salt wants some thick-soled shoes.  And tailored trousers are for pen-pushers...  What any decent health professional needs are some wide, comfy, stain-resistant, polyester pants.  Unfortunately most of those pants answer to the title 'slacks' and have a perma-crease ironed down the middle.  Secondly, time is, like, a pretty big deal?  So a patient doesn't get, like, a triple does of Endone in an hour and go rampaging through Saks like Winona Ryder?

Haha, I love Wino forever but that girl was seriously interrupted by her immoderate consumption of barbiturates...  So, timing is, I'm sure she would agree, everything.  Hence nurses favouring the perennially awful 'watch-brooch'.  For some reason all modern fobs are rubberised, functional and day-glo, and dangle from our (practical) shirts like loveless tamagotchis.  So I simply cannot bring myself to call them fobs.  To paraphrase Mick from Crocodile Dundee, "That's not a fob!  This, is a fob":

Sigh!  Anne of Green Gables!   I think an entry dedicated to her fashion is just around the corner... and maybe Winona in Heathers while we're on the topic:

But I digress.  The point is: gasp, the sexy nurse myth is totally a porn thing!  It makes for cute Halloween outfits (and attractive blog pics):

...but it bears no resemblance to my reality.  So surrounded as I am all day by Tena stay-ups, practical singlets and flannelettes of questionable origin, you can imagine how delighted I was to discover this stylish blog.  Now, I'm not suggesting that these elegant women are of a one with my darling dementia-sufferers, gosh no.  I'm simply noting that as long as you have a sense of self, you can have a sense of style.  These women are an inspiration and I hope to one day hold my head up high amongst their ranks.

Somehow it got around to shoes again

Well there I was, searching for images to illustrate the visions I had for a blogpost on Librarian Chic, and three Duke Ellingtons and a cheeky scotch later, I stumbled upon this lovely blog!  The woman (sexist!) behind it remains rather elusive, but I imagine her to possess infinite style and not a mere modicum of taste. Mostly because I love and agree with her shorthand assessment of what constitutes Librarian Chic...

Firstly, cat eye glasses.  Now I prefer the rounded 80s-meets-40s look:

But I've been known to succumb to a sharper 50s look if the situation demands it:

...and I couldn't possibly quarrel with her next selection of brogue heels, seeing as how they constitute a near exclusive hold over my shoe collection:

Duffle coat, cooured ribbed tights, pincurls... do you ever get the feeling you are really predictable?  Oh, just me then?  Tee hee, fine.  At least I have these shoes!

But upon reflection, do you know what I secretly wish for?  THESE:

I do try to at least cultivate virtuous thoughts about worthy shoes.  I'm not immune to the charms of the SATC-set, and comprehend the elegance and glamour of a trophy stilleto...

...but what I really want is (looking at the shoes!  looking at the shoes!) this:

Homy ped is HAWT!!  I can't wait 'til nana-status so I can stomp around in thick-soled, comfort-built, made-to-last, shit-starters like all the cool grans on my block.  Spark up the lamingtons and hide your meds... the nana's are coming to town!!

Phoenix Writing

My, I'm tardy!  How I've neglected you!  I should apologise, but my friend Mark told me I need to stop apologising for things.  And he is right. I am too apologetic (this is where I'd usually say sorry for that).  I think it's common to many women who, as girls, received positive feedback for being 'nice', 'polite' or 'easy to get along with'.  Glowing with the relieved approval of teachers and parents ('thank heavans this girl isn't any trouble'), and bursting with joy at receiving each gaudily triumphant birthday invitation, I learnt early that nice girls finish first.     Yes I can cannot come to your party!

I become addicted to approval.  Now, at 31, I'm trying to break the habit of a lifetime.

So, to honour this decision, I will dedicate this entry to all the women who have recognised something they didn't like in themselves... and changed.  This is not going to turn into a motivational poster, I promise!  That kind of self-lacerating self-improvement (or self-hating self-love) belongs to a darker part of the soul than many care to acknowledge.  I LOVE a makeover, but I don't believe beauty is an ends in itself.  For example, by taking a bright, happy young girl with intellectual curiosity, imagination, and a kick-ass best friend:

...and gussying her up to resemble your standard issue glamazon:

...you'd be forgiven for  concluding that the next stage of the project should be somewhat more extreme:

Yes!  I'm aware that I'm being a little overly.  Am I suggesting that hair-straighteners and a modicum of eyebrow grooming is similar to a lobotomy?  Or that the fresh-faced Anne Hathaway of Disney vintage is similar to a vapid sexbot programmed to ape the behaviour of the butchered woman she resembles like some sort of zombie Martha Stewart?  No.  

Well maybe a little.  

Because these sorts of makeovers have a sort of brutal superficiality, a kind of self-erasure.  What excites me is seeing the woman within more profoundly expressed without.  So without further preamble, here is today's LOOK:

I just saw "Batman Returns" last night, and I loved it!  And god Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman is fantastically dressed.  I wasn't expecting such an awesome look at all.  After missing it as a kid, and later becoming a huge fan of Chistopher Nolan's contributions to the series, I developed a groundless mistrust of the earlier films.  Even the Tim Burton stamp wasn't enough to shift my prejudice after his sausage-fingered attempts at "Planet of the Apes" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".  Perhaps the heart of my bigotry was my traumatic adolescent experience of "Batman and Robin".  Perhaps it was a blind loyalty to the searing fearlessness of the Chistopher Nolan Bat-verse.  But yesterday, I allowed my enthusiasm for Christian Bale's Batman to quell the nausea created by Christopher O'Donnel's Robin.  Chris + Chris - Chris = well, I don't know really, but a kind of Batman amnesty that meant I let my flatmates talk me into watching what I feared would be a bat-astrohpe.  

How wrong I was!  Michell Pfeiffer's Catwoman was a revelation, and, interestingly, some very big lace-up, spike-heeled, patent-leather boots to fill for the afore-mentioned Anne Hathaway, who is tipped to play Catwoman in the latest Batman flick, "Dark Knight Rising".  

Although I am confident the lusciously intelligent Hathaway will make this character her own, what I loved most about Pfieffer's Catwoman was her DIY 'tude.  Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) sewed her outfit by hand (at times onto her very body), hacking up what appeared to be a private stash of BDSM latex she had hidden amongst the plaid.  As you do.  Every girl should have what my friend Ini calls an 'emergency sex outfit' at the back of her wardrobe!  

But that's a topic for another entry.  The point her is that after trashing her bric-a-brac and spray painting her candy pink walls, she sat down at her Bellvedere and remade herself.

That is the kind of superpower I want!  The skills, vision and determination to become the woman I feel myself to be, somewhere, inside (if I could just stop apologising).  

And that's another reason I love fashion.  You can dress like the person you feel yourself to be until that person is you.  Whoever that may be.