Last Friday, Saturday and Sunday I traveled to all the Colorado Archivers stores to run Make n' Takes for Creative Cafe weekend. I had known about this weekend for several months and yet, true to form, I hadn't done any of my laundry. Consequently, I could not find my white lacy-at-the-bottom tank top to wear under my teal sweater. Looking decent for three days in a row is extremely challenging for me, as I am more of a "work-in-my-pajamas" type of person. (And, as Holle can attest, I am occasionally a "meet Holle at Marshall's to pick up some samples in my sweat pants that I wore as pajamas because who's going to see me anyway?" type of person)
However, PJ's weren't going to work at Archivers, so in a moment that was half "happy accident" and half "wardrobe desperation" I tried a purplish blue tank top under the teal sweater . . . and loved it! The colors wouldn't normally be paired, but somehow they worked. I was pretty darn proud of myself.
So proud, in fact, that patting myself on the back wasn't quite enough adoration and as John walked into the bathroom I stopped doing fashion poses in front of the mirror long enough to say:
ME: How do you like my outfit?
And he said . . . nothing. He actually assumed that "art critic" pose where your arms are crossed and one hand comes up to cup your chin in a "C". He even closed one eye and stuck his thumb out toward me like he was trying to fix the perspective on a troublesome painting of a hilly landscape.
JOHN: I'm not sure. The colors aren't really the same . . .
And here he trailed off, unable to find the right word. I think he was searching for a color-related word, like hue, or tone, or saturation, but the man has never used Photoshop.
ME: But . . . but . . . I like these colors together. I think they go. I would SCRAPBOOK with these colors together!
I really emphasized the word SCRAPBOOK, to show that I was very seriously confident. I don't joke about scrapbooking. (Actually, I do.)
JOHN: Well, it either looks like you know what you're doing . . . or you don't.
Profound.
I decided that I knew what I was doing and gave him a "Bah" while waving him off.
In my next choice of fashion forward excellence, I used a flat iron to flip the ends of my hair OUT instead of IN. Bold.
Bouncing down the stairs, feeling like a fashion model, I greeted my daughter:
ME: Good morning, Emma!
EMMA: Good morn- whoa! Mom. Your hair is all messed up.
ME: Messed up? No . . . I did this on purpose. I flipped it OUT instead of IN. It's bold.
EMMA: It's poofy.
ME: Bold and poofy.
EMMA: It doesn't match your outfit.
Yes, my daughter told me that my HAIR didn't match my OUTFIT! Geez.
ME: (ignoring the hair comment) Speaking of my outfit . . . what do you think?
EMMA: Tell me again how purple and turquoise go together?
*sigh*
I slunk back upstairs and changed into a white sweater.
And I felt pretty peeved about it. Because I was 100% confident that those colors looked great together. But see . . . I had the same confidence in the pleather parachute pants that I wore on the first day of high school. And those, I do recall, went over like a turd in the punch bowl.
And I was equally confident in the denim vest that I wore over the floral-printed skort during Anne's bachelorette weekend when we were all getting dressed to go out to a club called Florabama (named such because it was directly on the border between Florida and Alabama) and the rest of the girls had to perform a fashion intervention wherein I was required to change before we could leave.
OK, so those two instances involved me being young, buying everything on clearance, and having no taste. Now I'm older, still buy everything on clearance (old habits, old habits), and apparently . . . still have no taste.
Because several years ago, when I was a fiend for "What not to Wear" on TLC, I would actually take notes! I was putting little dots of white eye shadow in my tear ducts to brighten them (thank you Carmandy) and I was making sure that my pants fit the widest part of me and then went straight down, with no taper, to elongate my body and make me appear slimmer, and I was paying attention to the length of my skirts, so they would hit right above my knee, making my tree-trunk legs look more like saplings.
And with great confidence, because I had 100% ripped off this exact outfit from a "reveal" segment on What not to Wear, I taught at CKU in a black top, denim skirt (hit right above the knee) and sleek tall black boots that I paid (I might add) full price for!!!
After the event, while reading the reviews on a scrapbooking message board, I read this (I burned the words to memory):
REVIEWER: I loved Karen Burniston's class. She was funny and energetic and taught a lot of great techniques.
All good. All good. Not bragging here, though. Wait for it . . .
REVIEWER CONTINUES: And she taught the whole class in knee-high black boots!
Uh.
Yeah, the student thought my boots were part of a costume, or something. Or maybe she was just surprised that I wore them for the whole class versus shedding them mid-way through and saying "Just kidding! Here are my real shoes!"
It is probably a very good thing that I'm not a famous person. Or a very bad thing, if you're the one who compiles the "Worst Dressed" lists, or the authors of Go Fug Yourself. Somehow I think I would be their schnitzel with noodles.
RKQOTD (Karl to his grandmother: You know, Mimi - you have a very fashionable hair style for an old person.)