Fashion (April A2Z ~ Misty Memories)

Party dress?

Welcome to my April A2Z posts! This time, I am officially signed up on the challenge sheet and will be visiting other bloggers on the list. My theme is "misty memories," which will include a bunch of rambling about old stuff in my life, and hopefully some of it will be accurate, but if not, there's no one around to contradict me. Today we continue with F for Fashion.

I have never been fashionable, but things were even worse when I was a child. First, I had to get glasses at age six, which made me look like a total dork (I grew to like them eventually, but that's beside the point). Second, I was chubby until age 11 or so back when kids were skinny. Third, my mom liked to make clothes for me on her sewing machine, and they were certainly nothing like what other kids wore. Everyone wore jeans, but my mom called them "dungarees" and said they were suitable only for working on a farm or doing other manual labor (she came from a farm in Ohio originally). I had bunches of homemade dresses and elastic waist pants like an old lady. It's no wonder I was mocked relentlessly. Besides the weird clothes my mother made, I was partial to purple tights and white "go go" boots. OMG.

One series of outfits I remember very well. My mom found a pattern for this one-piece shorts thingie, with a skirt on top. Sort of like "culottes," I guess, but the skirt wasn't attached. I guess that was too advanced? Not to knock my mom's sewing; she was very good. Anyway, we'd pick out fabrics, and for some reason, we liked "seersucker," this oddly textured cotton material. So, I would end up in a striped one-piece with a skirt in a complementary color tied around my waist. 

I have a clear recollection of going to the circus on a fifth grade school trip (New Jersey) wearing a light blue striped seersucker jumper overlaid with a red skirt. Horrible! Anyway, I remember eating cotton candy for the first time and hating it. I also recall having feelings about the animals and thinking it was wrong that they were made to perform. I didn't say anything though. I usually avoided communicating deep feelings because no one understood me, and I felt weird enough already.

Around age 11 (strange how so many life-changing events happened at this age), I grew taller and began watching my calories. I wouldn't say "counting" at this point, but I became aware of which foods items were particularly fattening, and I was increasingly aghast at my parents' terrible eating habits (they were both very overweight). Now I could wear "normal" clothes like other kids and look good in them, so my mom relented and bought jeans for me. I ditched the boots in favor of Converse sneakers. Unfortunately, I had been in the habit of wearing "blazers" (suit type jackets) as opposed to normal sweaters and jackets for kids, and I continued doing this for a while. When I moved to Illinois, I was completely harassed for the blazers, so I quit wearing them.

Throughout high school, I mostly wore jeans and normal tops, and no one bothered me.