After reading a snarky-in-a-good-way profile of the prep-trepreneur behind the Nap Dress, I found myself, despite myself, intrigued by… the Nap Dress. Not for the first time, but it reminded me. (They emerged or maybe reemerged onto the scene last summer, when I was in need of summer maternity wear, which they more or less are, even if not explicitly marketed as such.) I find myself drawn to my own existing Nap Dress-adjacent wardrobe, but also to new dresses with roughly that silhouette. And, though it’s more subtle, all dresses not that shape began to look off. Shift dresses, t-shirt dresses, so classic! Yet suddenly so of a different time. Not yet revived, just temporarily done.
Who cares? Why be in fashion? I am on maternity leave from work I do from home regardless. If I look 2015 in 2022 it doesn’t matter!
Except it does. Moving in sync with humanity, feeling engaged with the world, this is not limited to but does not exclude material or purchaseable or wearable objects. Does this make me a consumerist sheep? Perhaps, albeit one with an overall rather old and worn-out wardrobe. (Mortgage daycare mortgage daycare and now inflation $$$$$$.)
It suddenly hit me, a few weeks ago, what I wanted no needed my new sneakers to look like. When I discovered that the ones I wanted were also the ones everyone else did, to the point that they were sold out everywhere, did this make me less intrigued? Or did I order them in a half-size too small, which fit well enough but are, more than a look like this should be, suffering for fashion?
The reemergence post (?) pandemic of discernable trends is uplifting. Seeing teenagers hopping on trend bandwagons, reviving various stages of my own youth, should make me feel old, and fine (midriffs…) does make me feel old, but also gives me a kind of hope for the future. Unnature is healing.
But also I’m not dead yet, just approaching 39 and somewhat exhausted. I used a spare 30 minutes and a return to roughly pre-pregnancy dimensions to try on clothes in person, and due to this wound up ordering a pair of $30 1990s-does-1960s black stretch bellbottoms. Am I a trendy asshole for this choice? More so than if I’d gone with a narrow-ankle style? Maybe more so than if I’d convinced myself that it is not in fact necessary to own (redacted) pairs of black leggings, but these are flattering and trendy. Flattering because trendy. Flattering in that they make me look like a person living in these times.