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Strollerderby
Forbidden Old Lady Leather
Recently, this nice mommy blogger suggested that ladies should not wear leather after a certain age. That age, she thinks, is 30. Because I really don’t like being told what to do (and have a certain fondness for clothing made of cows), I felt compelled to respond.
First off, I want to say I think she has a point. But the point is not what she thinks it is. To hone in on the kernel of truth here, we must put aside the original thesis: the author was disturbed by the cracked visage of a certain morning TV host. The host happened to be wearing a perfectly fitted leather skirt. Which, she theorizes, made her look older. I would posit that maybe the premature aging of this newscaster was not the hide on her lap, but the harsh lights. Or the multiplication of pixels delivering her image to the author’s flat screen. If TV adds ten pounds, HDTV adds ten years. Possibly twenty, if you’re over 40.
Still, as a person who would like to be able to wear leather pants until I am as old as HDTV makes me look (possibly longer), I acknowledge that there are some (many) situations in which leather should be cast asunder by the aged.
If you’ve ever dressed a young girl, you know girls’ fashions can be problematic. There are the string bikinis for toddlers. There are the sparkly high heels sized for three-year-olds, just waiting to snap an ankle. There are endless frilly skirts, not so great for climbing monkey bars.
Then there are the t-shirts. There’s been a whole string of scandals recently about t-shirts with slogans like “Too pretty to do homework” on them. A lot of these awful shirts have been pulled from the market after a hue and cry on the Internet about their offensive content. Good work, Internet. Those bad shirts needed to go.
Sadly, they were just the tip of the iceberg. Jezebel took a good look at what’s still on the market for girls’ clothing, and it’s pretty scary.
Are teen fashion trends really heading towards less trashy looks?
Parents everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief over this New York Times’ back to school fashion piece: teenage girls are tired of tight clothing.
Skimpy is out; “grandma chic” is in. Girls are shopping for oversize sweaters and high-waisted jeans this fall, leaving the miniskirts on the rack.
Almost nothing makes me want my own daughters to grow up faster, but if this fashion trend is real, I kind of wish it were happening during their teen years. I’d love for them to come of age at a moment where girls’ are encouraged to develop their sense of style and beauty without being pressured to show off their bodies.
Thank Heaven for Little Girls.
The images are all over the feminist blogosphere: Jezebel has the full spread of little girls in grown-up poses modelling for French Vogue. Feministing is disgusted, Feministe cried “yuck.” What more is there to say really? Well, this:
I’ve long mocked the fashion industrial complex in my stand-up, which is easy for me to do because I don’t fit into anything they produce. As an outsider with no hopes of ever trying to look cute in gobs of green eyeshadow and a dress made out of newspaper clippings – or teddy bear eyeballs and credit cards – I’ve always felt that I can see fashion’s ridiculous exploitation of women for exactly what it is. Why anyone would be interested in wearing shoes modeled on a woman meant to look like a dead body hanging out of the trunk of a car is beyond me. I mean, people are up in arms about a Swiffer campaign that portrays women playing “dirt” and “mud” as desperate for love, but no one cares that Kanye West has women hanging from nooses in his recent Monster video? (You see, the difference is, Kanye is a genius, and Swiffer – well, they suck. But only if you buy the Swiffer SweeperVac!) Continue reading »
In general, I dress fairly conservatively. When I go shopping for clothes, I tend to gravitate toward muted colors without a lot of embellishment. Nothing too low, too high or too tight. In other words, I dress in such a way as to not call attention to myself. Considering the fact that I’ve always dressed this way, there is something very curious going on in my closet.
Stuffed way in the back is a collection of rarely-worn clothing items that, if I didn’t know better, I would swear I did not purchase. There’s a tight red sweater dress with a plunging V-neck. There’s a blouse made entirely of sheer black lace. There are several super short skirts and more than a few skimpy camisoles. And in the shoe rack? At least three pairs of sky high heels that I couldn’t walk in if I tried. Which I haven’t.
How do I explain this obvious contradiction between the way I usually dress and some of the clothes I have purchased? According to researchers, there’s a good chance I was ovulating when I bought them. Continue reading »
Remember mom pants? Those high-waisted, narrow legged slacks that were so popular a few decades ago? We wore them back then because we didn’t have much of a choice. That’s just what pants looked like. We certainly didn’t know they were ugly and would someday take their place alongside parachute pants and off-the-shoulder sweaters as examples of what was wrong with 80′s fashion.
But even into the 90′s and beyond, some of us of a certain age continued to wear mom pants. Mom pants are comfortable and perfect for reigning in that extra girth that so often remains after childbirth. Maybe they aren’t fashion forward, but at least they don’t cause the unsightly muffin top that even thin girls get when wearing those tight, low-rise pants that barely conceal their underpants. Continue reading »
What do Sarah Jessica Parker and my kindergartner have in common? A wristful of Silly Bandz, the funky plastic bracelets that have become a national obsession for the under-ten crowd.
After taking over our children’s forearms, the Ohio-based company is coming for their mams and papas. Sarah Jessica Parker, Anthony Bourdain and a handful of other celebrities have already been spotted wearing the colorful bracelets. The company CEO says that’s all just part of the plan.
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Wendy Michaels 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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