Dress Code: The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen
by Susan Dunn
From Ansel Adams to Gauguin ... how will you make the switch? Dress is culture, it's learned, and it changes!
I grew up in the MidWest. In high school, we could only wear two kinds of footwear - Capezio flats (black or red) with nylons, or white tennis shoes with white wool socks. But I spent my summers in Rockdale, Texas, another planet. There you could only wear black leather penny loafers and huge white cotton bobbi sox, cuff turned down.
As goes that wonderful line from "My Cousin Vinny": "Blend!"
But our clothes? For ‘dress,' we wore beige, navy or grey with a string of pearls, but by day there was always plenty of color. Then in 1972, I moved to San Antonio, TX and thought I'd landed in a tropical paradise. Floral prints, even, and lots of jewelry, colored hose, colored shoes, be still my beating heart! Hay que fiesta!
Then something happened ... everything turned dark. We began to live in an Ansel Adams photo! Black and white had arrived upon the scene, and this was a disaster for me because, in the "seasons" thing, I'm a "summer." Only the "winters" look good in black and white, and they are a very small portion of the female population.
Well, according to the fashion mavens, color is back, and I'm thrilled. But if you're under 40 and it isn't "back," it's "new," it all may be a bit confusing to you.
It's a big change, but you can start small, with shoes or accessories. Buy some red shoes, or lavendar, some lemon-yellow sunglasses, a bright pink raincoat or a turquoise belt. Indulge in that color you always longed to wear.
Fashions change. When I was a kid, red-heads who wore red or pink would've been arrested, but don't they look smashing in those colors? Orange even!
For me it was chartreuse and this yummy shade has crept into my wardrobe. Sandals, a handbag, some earrings! I wear them with my teal blue dress, oh yes!
HOW TO REACCULTURATE?
Rejoice in the relief, expect some dissonance (no pain, no gain), and look on the bright side, 'cause bright it's gonna be!
Black is for funerals. Black is just a habit ... like nuns wear. It picks up dog hair and lint like crazy, and reveals dandruff. It makes most of us look like death warmed over. It's boring as hell to look at a room full of people in black. Where's the drama? Where's the individuality, the self-expression?
White is a stain waiting to happen, and against the face, flatters only the lucky few. My Grandmother used to say, "Don't wear anything whiter than your teeth," and she was right. Pearl, ivory and ecru are a better choice for most of us.
Most of all - variety is the spice of life! How many "little black dresses" can you own?? It was just a fad. Try a new fad! This one will allow you to be a lot more creative.
GO SLOWLY & GET FEEDBACK
Go shopping with a friend and hold fabrics up to your faces. Or pay attention to the feedback you already get. Now, periwinkle is one of my best colors, however I once had a terrible fashion-accident, some deep gray-blue-purply blouse I once owned. Every time I'd wear it, someone would come up and say, "What's wrong? Are you sick?" Three strikes and it was out.
If someone asks you that every time you wear a certain item, quit wearing it!
START WITH THE BLUES
"Universal" blue my friend Boots calls it. You can hardly go wrong up and down the intensity scale. People with brown-toned skin look great in light blue; for ice blondes, the lightest pastel blue; for rosy-skinned people, aquas, teals and cobalt; for white skin and dark hair, try electric blue.
Yellows are good too - lemon yellow, tawny yellow, electric yellow, autumn yellow. Lots of variety for different hair coloring and skin tones.
WHAT TO AVOID
Don't go overboard and become, well, GAUDY. And you don't have to become a fanatic, or shock your family and friends. Add a little here and there, slowly. Put it near your face -- scarf, colored beads, earrings, collar.
I don't think I've ever seen my daughter-in-law in anything but black, white or red, and if she walked in in a bright floral or grass-green polka dot dress, I would probably be dizzy and disoriented. It would be kind if she called me ahead of time and said, "Susan, I'm coming over and I've got on fuschia. Don't faint!"
WHERE TO START?
Go get some Orange Flip lipstick, some peach blush and lavendar eye liner and have some fun!
About the Author
Susan Dunn, The EQ Coach, GLOBAL EQ. Emotional intelligence coaching to enhance all areas of your life - career, relationships, midlife transition, resilience, self-esteem, parenting. EQ Alive! - excellent, accelerated, affordable EQ coach certification. Susan is the author of numerous ebooks, is widely published on the Internet, and a regular speaker for cruise lines. For marketing services go here.
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