Maybe worst of all, nobody noticed. I expected this magical garment to be my ticket to popularity, but it didn’t happen. I was clearly a nerd in stripper shorts. I wore them a few more times, but the self-consciousness and obvious discomfort I experienced were not worth the awkward attempt at upward
social mobility.
Today I find myself raising two
little boys who have specific and
unique ideas about what they
want to wear. My oldest son’s
favorite outfit is composed of
rainbow-painted white
sweatpants and tall rainbow-
striped socks worn with a
waffle-weave gray and green shirt.
Sometimes he accessorizes with
the jacket from his Halloween
dragon costume (with green
wings under the arms and long
felt tail dragging behind) just
because it’s fun to be a dragon.
Who can argue with that?
My younger son may be our resident fashionisto. For more than a year, he didn’t leave the house without his Batman costume, including mask and cape. Lately, he is a preschool trendsetter by wearing his shirts backwards and going for a completely monochromatic look, preferably all blue or all black, topped with a ninja belt (a repurposed cotton headband in neon green) for some color-contrast and easy sword transport (Note: sword not allowed at school). When I pick him up in the afternoon, most of the other boys in the class also have their shirts on backward and their Moms say my son is the inspiration. I’m so proud.
Despite their distinctive
fashion choices, the thing
that makes me happiest is
to see them make these
decisions on their own,
and how these outfits
allow them to boldly and
confidently march into the
world. They have no
regrets over their
mismatched socks
(chosen carefully for
maximum dissonance) or
the tattered Cubs hat that is another frequent selection. They look good, they feel good, they wear it well. That’s all that matters.
Through the years I’ve dipped my toe into the fashion pool now and again, with varying levels of success. It took years of trial and error, but I settled into a style somewhere in my mid-20s that I like to think of as ‘sexy librarian.’ This doesn’t mean I have no appreciation for fashion, and I even push the envelope at times, but I know what I like and nothing is sexier than a confident woman, even if she’s wearing a cardigan.