Fashion Void

I inhabit a Fashion Wasteland. This became very apparent when I had to go to an uptown bank to sign some papers. Men wore suits & ties, women wore suits, hose, heels & outfits that were carefully coordinated.

I work in an elementary school and elementary school teachers think it perfectly appropriate to appear in public wearning a denim jumper adorned with grinning apples and dancing school buses, white ankle socks with lace trim and red, pointy toe keds. They go all out for holidays and add earring shaped like pumpkins, sweatshirts were Rudolph really does have a shiny nose and checked shirts with embroidered G rated Easter Bunnies. On "Casual Fridays" the teachers appear wearing what most people would wear to clean their attic. Overalls, jeans with holes, capri pants and belly baring shirts.

My other standard haunt - the local thrift shops are not hotbeds of fashion either. One could (and some people do) wear fuzzy wuzzy slippers and nobody would turn a hair. Yesterday I saw a rather plus size woman in a black lace cocktail dress, long rhinestone earring, black strapped high heel shoes and black ankle socks. Her eye makeup would have done Liz Taylor proud - in about 1960 or so. Pink foam rubber curlers have occasionally been spotted. Sloppy and ill fitting appear to the be attire of choice.

Golf course attire hasn't changed much in years....you take one basic polo shirt and pair it with a pair of longish shorts. Of course one does see some flights of fancy - leopard print capris, plaid pants or loud printed shirts, but they are the exception rather than the norm.

My only steady exposure to Fashion is on of Sex and the City , Queer as Folk and The L Word. The ladies always look fabulous but I don't think they exactly resemble real life. Or perhaps they do and I'm just inhabiting a parallel universe where jeans and T-shirts are the norm. Which is it?