Love, Loss, and What I Wore

This Saturday we went to see Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Its basically a reader's theater of stories revolving around what pieces of clothing, shoes, bags remind women of. If you can handle a few nasty words I'd recommend it. We saw Kristin Chenoweth, and while there was no singing, she was everything I ever hoped to see. Rita Wilson, and Rhea Perlman were the other two that I knew by name.

It got me thinking about the things I remember related to clothing. Now I present to you in the form of Love, Loss, and What I Wore my personalized version.

The Birthday Suit:

My mom would make us a "birthday suit" for our birthday present. The funny thing the one I remember most vividly was a white, turquoise, and purple pant and shirt that was Jordan's (I think). I love the fabric, and thought the collar was the best thing ever. Anyway that is what we called them--birthday suits. They were often dresses, and usually followed some kind of theme to match the other sister's, so by my birthday I had a pretty good idea of what was coming. It was a year when I should have known what other people think a birthday suit is. A classmate asked what I would be wearing for picture day. I responded excitedly, "My birthday suit." The laughing began, I had no idea why it was so funny to wear a birthday suit on picture day. Boy was I embarrassed when I found out what birthday suit meant to everyone but the Reasor Girls.

Sweaters:

I have had a lot of sweaters in my time, most likely because I grew up in Minnesota, where you get to wear a lot of sweaters. I had this fabulous dark colorful sweater, with "Hey Diddle Diddle" illustrated on it. No one else had one like it. I always felt special wearing it, I think because my grandparents where visiting when I got it. I'm not sure if Grandma bought it for me, but she and my mom were there, and I don't remember my sisters being there.

Talyn and I had semi-matching sweaters. A scene in white of kids and a dog in front of a house with a fence. Mine was pink, and Talyn's was blue. Oh, how I loved mine, its pretty pink and whiteness. Oh, how happy I was that mine was not blue.

I wore a gray dumpy cardigan with no buttons that was too big for years. We called it the beetle sweater because it was made out of yarn with big lumps in it. My mom hated that I wore it, especially when it started to look really really dumpy. The secret is I wore it because my Grandma made it, or so I thought. Well, in our de-junking I finally got rid of it. I have a little pain in my heart when I think of not having it anymore, even though it looked horrible on me, even now that I finally fit it.

501 Jeans:

I looked forward to hand-me downs, because I got them from my cousins. It was the only time I had name brands--and while name brands don't mean much to me now, boy did I wish for Esprit, and Z. Cavaricci, and even Levi's. I know it's ridiculous, but we each have our moments. I got these fabulous button fly 501 Jeans from my cousin Heather. One in Red. One in Wine. The 501 colored Jean fad was way over by the time I got them, but I wore them with pride. They looked good, and I felt so "cool" in them. Heather wore them when she broke her leg sneaking out to go to a concert. I don't remember anything that happened while I wore them, but I love them.

My First Bra:

I'm the oldest. I was always a little reluctant to grow up, and my mom wasn't in much of rush for it to happen either. In my day we wore undershirts under everything. Cotton camisoles, often colored, under everything. One day my mom noticed that maybe I was old enough for something more than an undershirt. So, she shared her horrifying story of her first bra (which is probably why we had waited until this point to get mine). We went to the store and got a bra for me. I tried on several and settled on an underwire B cup. My first bras was a B cup. No department store, no department store lady. The funny thing is, the first time I went to a department store to buy a bra, actually found a department store lady to measure me. Some lessons you just have to learn for yourself.