Strangers offer too much help with fashion faux pas
Clothes are really such a problem for me. And recently I found
out that I don’t know how to dress myself.
Amazingly, twice recently I’ve had total strangers come up and
tell me that I was having a wardrobe malfunction.
Obviously there is something about me that makes other people
want to dress me the right way.
Strangers offer too much help with fashion faux pas
Clothes are really such a problem for me. And recently I found out that I don’t know how to dress myself.
Amazingly, twice recently I’ve had total strangers come up and tell me that I was having a wardrobe malfunction.
Obviously there is something about me that makes other people want to dress me the right way.
I have to admit, this is something I generally don’t do for other people, unless it’s a tag. There’s something about tags hanging out the collar of a sweater or shirt that make me want to tuck them back in.
And isn’t this such a female thing? Women are forever fixing other women’s clothing for them, even when they don’t know them. I’m not sure about women fixing strange men’s clothing – I doubt that happens very often – but women certainly do rearrange the collars and lapels of the men who are familiar to them.
In fact, for some women, it’s a prerequisite to being seen with that man at all. But I digress.
At any rate, apparently I go around badly dressed quite often, at least judging from the recent rash of other gals straightening me out in public. My senile years must finally be setting in. Soon I’ll be wandering around in nothing but a bathrobe and a hairnet.
The first time was a day when I was wearing a new pair of jeans. I was feeling just a little smug about these jeans, since I got them on sale and they were just what I wanted. Since I have a son in college now, and extra money isn’t just lying around, buying new clothes is now a rare and special event in my life.
I had taken pains that morning to take off all the various tags and labels that come on new clothing. I put on my new jeans and headed off to a doctor appointment. I had just parked and emerged from my car when a woman about my age approached me in the parking lot.
“You forgot to take off the label,” she said. “Do you want me to get it for you?”
Yikes.
“Um, no thanks,” I mumbled. “I can do it myself.”
Sure enough, there was one of those long sticky labels on the back of the pants leg. These are the ones that do tend to get overlooked. I had somehow missed it in my hunt for offending tags. Boy, did I feel stupid.
I found it very interesting, not to mention a little creepy, that a stranger had offered to take it off for me. Somehow I must look like I cannot care for myself properly.
This was ground in even further by Incident No. 2, which occurred just two days later. I was about to attend a play at a local community college and was standing in line at the ticket window. Somehow, in the course of driving there, the sweater I was wearing rode up slightly in the back.
A nicely dressed older woman approached me and said, “Can I pull your sweater down for you?”
“Um, no thanks, I can do it myself,” I replied. It was like dejà vu all over again.
So it appears that I can’t dress myself or keep my clothing where it’s supposed to be, so much so that total strangers feel compelled not just to tell me, but to try to fix it for me.
I know it’s only twice, but now I’m starting to wonder: How many times have I been out in public and no one has bothered to tell me I’ve got a gap, or a missing button, or an overlooked label or an unzipped zipper?
Scary.
