Face Meet Palm: My Biggest Fashion Pet Peeves

Here is a brief overview of the three style Do Nots that I personally find most irksome. Let the tirade begin!

Pet Peeve #1: When people create “rules” against wearing certain types of clothing.

(Real men are open to trying new things.)

Everyone is within her right to have certain things that she usually doesn’t wear. For example, I usually don’t wear blue because I usually don’t like blue (excepting navy). But I would never make a blanket rule against blue because I think it’s unnecessary. If I usually don’t like blue, I usually won’t buy it. Simple as that: No need to officially ban it. What happens when, inevitably, I happen upon something blue that I do like? Should I not buy it just because it’s blue? Clearly, that would be absurd.

Usually, when people do the “I don’t wear [insert clothing item here]” thing it has more to do with cuts and fits than with colors. Even so, I think the issues that lead people to impose such bans are usually in their own heads.

Using myself as an example again: I am working very hard to get over my fear of classic-cut pencil skirts. I have long felt hostile towards pencil skirts and skirts that hit just below the knee so a classic-cut pencil skirt is basically my worst fear. In my mind that particular combination of shape and length makes my legs look like they have been halved in length and doubled in width. However, I have determined that if I buy the right skirt, have it tailored, and wear it with super-high heels, there is no way that I cannot overcome this phobia of mine. It’s a work in progress but I’m determined to become a pencil-skirt-wearer one of these days.

Fashion is about being open-minded and taking chances so if you create too many rules about what you will and won’t wear, you will end up making the quest to be fashionable unnecessarily difficult.

Pet Peeve #2: When people let fear of failure keep them in ugly clothes for years.

(Melissa and Britney may have been the coolest kids around in 1999 but hopefully they threw these outfits away a long time ago.)

You know who you are. In high school, you understood what was fashionable and wore the latest trends without thinking twice. 10, 15, 25 years later, you’re still wearing those same outdated styles because you’ve lost your grip on what’s fashionable and why.

This one affects men at least as badly as it affects women. I have seen this happen with men and jeans: they are afraid of looking stupid in a cut they aren’t used to so they continue looking stupid in a cut that fits them poorly. The familiar is comforting but it is definitely not always flattering.

It’s a pretty gaping logic fail: people who continue wearing outdated cuts and fits are clearly doing so because they’re afraid of looking bad in new cuts and fits. Ironically, they already look bad in the old stuff so they really have nothing to lose.

Once again, it’s the decided un-adventurousness of this attitude that irks me. Life is not about playing it safe and neither is fashion!

Pet Peeve #3: Size Phobia

(You don't want to end up like this lady!)

This is the one that keeps me up at night. I feel extremely, extremely frustrated by people who buy clothes a size too small because of a phobia or fear of “big sizes” hanging in their closet. This is SO STUPID and let me tell you why:

The number on the label of your jeans is no one’s business but your own. What I mean by this is that, quite literally, no one sees it except for you because it’s on the inside of your jeans NOT the outside. If your clothes fit you, no one will ever wonder what size they are. Meanwhile, if your clothes are visibly too tight, people are exponentially more likely to take note. These people will not think to themselves “Oh! But good for her! She can still squeeze into a small!” – They may think that you look like a sausage in its casing or they may think you need to lose weight but it will not occur to them to feel proud of you for fitting into those Size 4s.

The irony just kills me: You go into a store and spot a certain top. You try it on in a small and clearly need a medium but decide to buy the small because all of your friends wear smalls and you don’t want to be the fat friend.

Let’s outline the problems with this scenario:

• You are about to spend good money on a top that doesn’t actually fit you. The only scenario under which it makes sense to buy a top that doesn’t fit you is if you’re giving it away as a present. Otherwise, you should never, ever, ever do this. It’s logically and economically unsound.
• Every well-made top is supposed to fit a certain way. The intended fit is part of the top. If you deliberately buy something too small, you are missing out on a key feature of the top and severely detracting from its cuteness. If you’re going to do this, you might as well not buy it: what’s the point?
• If you buy the medium, chances are it will be flattering and you will look great. If you buy the smaller size, you will look like a big oinker. If your concern is that it’s potentially embarrassing to have mediums in your closet, your logical conclusion should be that this is the lesser of two evils. The other evil is that you will look larger than you truly are in the small and this is clearly worse.

If you are truly a chronic size phobic, here are my tips to avoid falling into the looking-fat-because-you-want-to-feel-skinny trap:

1. Buy both sizes, take them home with you, take pictures, and keep the size that is more flattering in the photos (the key is that you have to suck it in equally in both pictures – don’t cheat with the smaller size).
2. Take a friend shopping with you and ask for her honest opinion.
3. If you know you need the larger of two sizes but can’t bring yourself to buy it, don’t buy that item at all. If you’re a shopaholic, this might be tough advice to swallow. But here’s the reality: if you buy the larger size, you feel fat. If you buy the smaller size, you look fat. Go to a store where the sizing is more agreeable to you and buy something there or wait until you lose weight to buy that particular item. Don’t spend money on something that fits incorrectly or on something that makes you feel depressed.