Dressing with Dignity and
Style
Time
was when the Parisian designers determined the fashion of the day and women like Jacqueline Kennedy and Babe Paley
interpreted it in their own style. Nowadays the young pop stars seem to set the
fashion trends that women are supposed to follow. If you are a young, edgy woman, you too can emulate the far out
look of the pop princesses. Go girl!
But
what if you are a woman of a certain
age – no longer young but too alive to be considered old? What can you wear to proclaim to the world
that you are still in the game? How can
you be stylish and up to date but still be appropriately dressed for those
Ladies who Lunch events and dinners at the country club? And most importantly, how can you do this
within some kind of a reasonable budget?
Here
are a few of the secrets I have learned during the many years in which I have been
successful in achieving these goals.
First
of all, I haunt the stores every minute I can squeeze out of my very busy
life. I go to a variety of stores, high
end and medium priced to see what’s on the racks and I pay very close attention
to those beautiful racks that feature that magic word SALE!
I
have gotten some of my favorite items from the sale racks paying the same
amount for good clothes that I would pay for ordinary things. High end stores and boutiques must put the clothes that have not sold
on sale at the end of each season to make room for the new items that are
coming in. Look closely, even if the
racks are picked over or disorganized. Your perseverance will pay off, trust me.
Also,
make sure you are on the mailing lists of every department store or boutique
that carries clothes that interest you.
That way, you will be the first to know of trunk shows as well as have
knowledge of impending sales, which will enable you to get a jump on your sale
rack competitors.
Unless
you have all your clothes custom made, there will be other women on this planet
who will have purchased the same items that you have selected. You want to look stylish but also
individualistic? The secret is in the
accessories! Buy accessories – lots of
them.
I never pass a shoe store or shoe
department, without taking a serious look at the current trends in heel heights
and slant, color and fabric. Even an
outfit from this season will look dated if your shoes are not in fashion, but
an outfit from a season or two or even three years ago, will look brand new
when worn with the latest shoes.
Imelda
Marcos was laughed at by some for the tremendous number of shoes she had in her
closet, but frankly, every fashionable woman empathized with her for owning lots
of shoes. I, too, own a great number of
shoes; maybe not as many as she had but quite a few nevertheless. And let’s face it, even though high fashion
shoes are expensive, they are an inexpensive way to update a good, but much
worn, suit or dress.
I
also have a large selection of silk flower pins, interesting jewelry both real
and costume, scarves, fur pieces and purses.
To make an outfit look cutting edge, I change the accessories to fit the
current look. To make a daytime suit or dress glamorous enough for evening,
again, I change the accessories. Works
like magic!
Good
stuff looks good for years but bad stuff looks bad immediately! When you are considering a purchase, feel
the fabric, check the fiber content, examine the workmanship of the zipper,
seams and hemlines. If the item has a
pattern, examine the match. Nothing proclaims poor quality better
than to have the pattern poorly matched at the seams.
Five
years ago, I bought a jacket.
Unfortunately, when I spotted it, it wasn’t on the sale rack. However, it fit me as if I had been the
model it had been made for, plus, it was a tailoring ‘work of art.’ I really wanted this jacket but paying the
full price was something I didn’t want to do unless I had to. I bought the
jacket but held it, tags on and unworn, hoping that it would go on sale.
Every
week or so, I checked the store to see if it was on sale. After about a month, the clerk told me that
this item was not going to go on sale
because every piece that the store had purchased had been sold at full
price. Decision time had approached for
me. After much deliberation and soul
searching, I decided to keep the jacket, paying a rather hefty amount for it.
In
the five years that I have owned this jacket, however, I have not only worn it
numerous times, but I have also looked absolutely fabulous and stylish in it
every time I’ve worn it. What is the secret?
Quality! Quality of fabric,
design and workmanship have made this jacket a very important staple in my
wardrobe.
When
I was younger and had more time than money, I made quite a few of my own
clothes. Now that I have less time but
more money, I often employ the use of a dressmaker.
Last
year I purchased a beautiful jacket in a style and fabric that I just loved and
which was very flattering to me.
However, the skirt that had been designed to be worn with it had been
made in a rather heavy gold leather fabric in an A-line shape. It was also rather short, being a couple of
inches above my knees. Even though I
am 5’ 8” and reasonably slender, the skirt made me look short and fat – not the
look I wanted for myself.
I
bought the jacket, however, knowing that my dressmaker could find fabrics for
skirts that would work with this jacket and that she could make them in a style
that would flatter my figure. Since the
jacket was of investment grade
quality, I knew that I would want to wear it often and for quite a few years so
I opted to have two skirts made for it.
One
skirt was made in a gold Shantung silk for those occasions when I wanted to
dress up and wear an evening shoe with the outfit. The other skirt was made in a mustard yellow cashmere that picked
up that color in the tweed fabric of the jacket. With this skirt, I could wear either a taupe colored fashion boot
or a suede daytime heel.
Neither
skirt material was thick, so the fabrics did not add any extra bulk to my womanly hips. Thank God! To further
slenderize my figure, I also had the dressmaker make the skirts in a mid-calf
length and peg each of them.
Voila! Two skirts, two very different looks both with one
great jacket. Again, by adding different
scarves, jewelry and fur pieces, I have managed to completely individualize
both of these outfits.
Unless
you are the model for a certain size
of a certain designer, chances are that the ‘off the rack’ items you purchase
do not fit you perfectly. What to
do? Do what men have always done when
they buy a suit – have alterations!
Most
good department stores and boutiques employ women who can do the alterations
for you when you buy an item from the store.
These alterations are not included in the price and can be costly, but
the advantage of using the store’s personnel for the alteration is that the
store will stand behind the workmanship.
But
what if you have gained or lost weight and a favorite item in your wardrobe no
longer fits? Your dressmaker may be
willing to do the alterations for you but if she is too busy, check the yellow
pages for a tailor near you. Also,
check with your local dry cleaners.
There may be someone on staff who can do alterations. I have an excellent alteration woman who also
happens to be the owner of the dry cleaners I frequent.
Most
wardrobe advisors will tell you to get rid of items in your closet that you
haven’t worn in the past two or three years.
Nonsense! If you are temporarily
tired of something or suspect that your friends are because you have worn and
worn and worn an outfit, take it out of your main closet but don’t get rid of it. Tuck it away somewhere for a future day when it will look new and
fresh again.
Where,
you say? If you have a home with a
basement, buy some of those portable closets and store your out of favor clothes
in them. Better yet, have a cedar
closet built in your basement so you can safely store your clothes plus your
furs and fur pieces. Not having to pay
for fur storage every year will also have the advantage of saving you a few
bucks.
You
don’t have a basement? Well, do you
have a bed? You can buy ‘under the bed’
storage units for those clothes that you are not ready to part with. Put a few cedar squares inside the units and
your clothes will be completely protected as well as out of your way.
Another
advantage of keeping your favorite clothes even if you don’t want to wear them this
season is that it will remind you of how your figure looked when you did wear
them. So many women, myself included,
have a tendency to gain weight. When I
want to wear a dress or suit that I wore a few years ago but can’t because it
is too tight, I have a great incentive to get back into my former shape. What I do is hang the item in the doorway of
my spare bedroom where I have to pass it every morning. I then set a date when I want to wear the
outfit. Most of the time I am
successful in sticking to my diet so I can achieve my goal of fitting into my dress,
suit or gown by the time I want to wear it.
Wearing
black all the time and for all occasions started as a rebellious, “I don’t care how I look because I have more
important things on my mind,” fashion statement among the young art
students of Paris. Amazingly, what
started as a fashion rebellion swept
across Europe, crossed the Atlantic and conquered much of the United States,
especially New York, becoming the fashion
of the day.
Please! Nowadays, when I go to an event, even a
wedding, I feel like I am at a funeral because there are so many women wearing
black. Doesn’t anybody remember the ‘Color
Me Beautiful’ concept of the 80’s? Was
that only a fad whose time has come and gone?
It shouldn’t be because it is a fact that the right colors can both flatter
and slenderize a woman.
But,
black is the most slenderizing color,
you say. Yes, this is true; this is the
reason why I have so many black skirts and slacks. However, I never wear black too close to my face because it can
drain it of all color and make me look older.
Heaven forbid!
If
you never had an expert help you determine the colors that are the most
flattering for you, find yourself an expert.
There are thousands of image consultants world wide and most of them
live in our country. Log onto the AICI’s
(Association of Image Consultants International) web site, www.AICI.org for the name, address and phone
number of an expert near you. Keep your
black outfits for funerals but don’t forget to put a colorful scarf at your
throat.
I
can’t stand seeing a mature woman walking around a department store or having
lunch with her girlfriends wearing blue jeans!
Who is trying to look like – her teenaged daughter? It doesn’t work, the blue jeans only make
her look ridiculous.
OK,
don’t throw them out, but at least wear them only when they’re appropriate like
when you’re hunting caribou in Alaska or chopping wood on the back forty. For all other occasions, look like you’re
proud to be a woman who has her own style, one that is appropriate for her age
and position in the world.
I’m
old enough to remember when young girls couldn’t wait to be grown up enough to
wear the beautiful, elegant clothes that their mothers wore. What happened to those days? In our excessively youth oriented culture,
the tables have been turned completely upside down. We can’t look like our daughters and we shouldn’t want to. Let them look like us for a change. It would be a relief to see young women wearing
something nicer than blue jeans in the high schools and on our college
campuses!
There,
now you have it, my secrets. Go forth into the world, my friend,
dressing with dignity and style. We’ve reached
the age when we’ve earned the right to do so and we should do it with pride!
Ms. Ruth Kern is an International Image and
Etiquette Consultant.
She
has an extensive and informative web page, www.ModernEtiquette.com
Copyright
2002, All Rights Reserved
For
permission to print this article in your magazine or newspaper and to receive
photos to accompany the article please contact:
International Etiquette
Consultant
(847) 382-9502
(847) 382-5889 fax
P.O. Box 3021
Barrington, IL 60011-3021