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Monday, March 7, 2011

Background Stuff

I'm pretty sure that I mentioned before that I'm on here to stay up-to-date on what other people are writing.  I'm not much of a fashion trender, not much of a blogger. I'm just a stay-at-home mommy with a rambunctious two year old. I do however, want to set a fairly decent example for her in terms of expressing herself (myself not always being the best example).

I was the awkward kid when I got to high school (transferred from an average middle school in Virginia Beach, VA to a very rich private school in Beaufort, SC).  I knew that I was different and that I didn't blend in with the other students, but I didn't really try to.  After my freshman year, the school changed it's dress code to 1) khakis or dark blue pants, 2) polo or collared shirts, and 3) jeans only allowed on Wednesdays.  Obviously, Wednesdays became my new favorite day of the week.

I took a pair of jeans with the widest leg I have ever worn in my entire life (it was the 90's) and put green and red puff paint down the side leg seams in alternating dots.  I sewed odd buttons onto the change pocket.  As the hems torn off from under my shoes, I just cut them and let them fray.  The best accessory had to be the grenade rings and pins that I clipped to my belt loops.  Yes, real grenade pins and loops.  I guess I should clarify that I lived on Parris Island, SC, which is just one of two locations for training enlisted Marines (OOH-RAH!).  We took a family learning trip to the original grenade range and I picked up some old "leftovers" to use later on.  Passive aggressive behavior does run in the family.

The only area of the dress code that wasn't touched on was socks.  My socks became the most colorful, outlandish socks on the entire campus.  Let's put it this way: My final exam at that school was for English class, and I already knew that we were being transferred to Stuttgart, Germany, so I didn't give a flying hoot about the dress code that day.  I decided to wear a caricature shirt from Barnes & Noble that had Charles Dickens dressed as Oliver Twist - shredded pant, bowl, everything.  I was showing my appreciation for my English class!  Yup, I got called into the main office for that one.  Ugh.

The rest of my high school years were spent at Alexander M. Patch American High School on Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany.  I'll have to find the picture of my first day at school.  Found it, and I'll post it later. What a riot!  I found a men's three piece suit at a thrift store on base and wore it constantly.  I walked across the stage at graduation wearing that suit.  I was just out there.  My freshman year of college at Mount Saint Mary's wasn't much different.  But looking back at some pictures, my bleached out jeans from Old Navy with my secondhand military sweater were kind of spot-on.  Wearing my super bad-ass Buffalo boots helped.  I just recently found those.  Still love them!

The night before I flew back home to Germany, I bleached out my dark brown hair and dyed it flaming red with some bleach blond streaks left in for the full effect.  It's not all that odd to walk around in Germany and see women of all age groups sporting some outrageous hair color, so I didn't really stick out all that much.  But Mr. Pinschmidt's (Senior year English teacher - best ever!) reaction was hysterical.  Poor guy doubled over laughing!

My time at Old Dominion University was pretty uneventful in fashion terms.  I dyed my hair bright, bright pink and that was pretty much the extent of my experimentation.  I just lost my sparkle and faded into the background.  Super sad to think of it like that, but I'm getting back out there.  When I went to Tidewater Tech, I started getting into coats, especially vintage coats.  I think that Issac Mizrahi's silver trench for Target may have been my turning point.  I went a little nuts.  But now I have a coat for just about anything.  Some day I'll get around to photographing everything and posting them on here.

Now I'm super into vintage clothing, vintage shoes (even though almost none of them fit my size 10 feet - you girls with smaller feet are soooo lucky), vintage furniture, vintage housewares, etc.  My shopping buddy is Emily of The Daily Fashionista, even though she's on a no-new-items shopping deal.  Thankfully my two year old daughter, The Puff, is a pretty good shopper.  She tends to run off to the dressing rooms, which has caused a few heart attacks, but for the most part she likes to run up to items of clothing and say, "Ooooh.  Pretty.  I like it."  I may be creating a mini-monster.   But that's about it as far as what I used to wear.  And yes, I will post pictures from way-back-when, even the not-at-all flattering ones.

3 comments:

  1. I want to see these pics!! Especially the one of your 3 piece suit:)

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  2. I love this story of your life. I did a post on my fashion history a while back too, with collages of my style through the years. I love seeing bits of how people rebel during their teens and beyond, and how they manage to keep that in their style :)

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