Suzy Says

Love/hate for Friday, August 23, 2002
Clothing variety

This may be one of the classic male/female situations that lead to clich&eacutes: women feel that one can never have too many clothes, and men feel the opposite. Women can stand in front of a closet stuffed with clothes and say with all seriousness, “I have nothing to wear!”, a remark greeted by her husband/boyfriend with utter disbelief. I mean, look at all those clothes in there!, he thinks (though if he is wise, he keeps this observation to himself). But what he doesn’t understand is that once you have eliminated:

– things that are too big (but which you might have altered, so you’re keeping them)

– things that are too small (but which you might lose enough weight to fit into, so you’re keeping them)

– things that need repairs which you haven’t gotten around to doing yet, but you will, so you’re keeping them

– things that are too heavy or too light for the weather du jour

– things that are too formal or not formal enough for the occasion du jour

– things that no longer make you feel good when you wear them (i.e., have lost their fun factor)

there really is nothing left in the closet to wear.

The same thing applies to shoes. At a working lunch, one of my colleagues said that when she and her husband were in Italy on vacation, she had bought 5 or 6 pairs of shoes. Her husband gazed at the new shoes with bemusement and said, “But honey, you already have a pair of black shoes.” All the women in the group laughed at the utter absurdity of his remark. All the men looked at each other in bemusement. Men think one pair of black shoes, a pair of sneakers, and possibly a pair of brown shoes is all you need. They don’t realize that women need shoes with heels of varying heights, some suede, some leather, pumps, mules, boots…the possibilities are endless, and if you don’t have the right shoes, it ruins your whole outfit.

You can tell that guys wrote Star Trek and other shows set in the future, because the first thing they do is get rid of fashion completely and make everyone wear stretchy uniforms. If the future is like that, or the most recent remakes of The Time Machine, where everyone lives in sconces and has the most deplorable rags to wear (and no jewelry), or Planet of the Apes, then no thanks. I would have a hard time living in such aesthetically unpleasing times. On the other hand, no-one has ever predicted the future with any real accuracy, so I can take comfort in that.