May the Color White Rest in Peace
The trials and tribulations of an (un) fashionista.
In the recently aired Netflix series The Diplomat there are several scenes where the Ambassador Kate Wyler balks about her wardrobe. She insists on black. No gray, white, or color, no skirts or frill either. Pant suits only. Her handlers attempt to subtly change her for appearances sake, only to be met with sullen looks and defiance. At one point she did wear a striking red gown; with ulterior motives of course, but that was a short-lived evening and likely never to happen again.
The show captures much of the tone that set my love/hate relationship with clothes and fashion that reminded me of the days when it mattered.
In late September of 1968 Southern Michigan would see a return of a short push of summer…
I was in 5th grade walking up the second set of steps leading to the middle level of Northeastern playground when Scott Smith pulled my harvest gold knit mini-skirt down around my ankles. I reached down to pull my skirt up and realized my white cotton underwear was on display for all of Mrs. K.’s class to see.
Mid August of 1972…
I was sitting in the bleachers at band camp preparing to go out onto the Michigan State University football field to march across the field pretending to play my flute while marching toward 1st in state competition. I looked down to see that it wasn’t droplets of sweat running down my leg but a gush of bright red blood oozing through my crispy, white, cotton shorts dripping down both legs.
And in late December of 1980…
I was headed back to the dance floor at my (regular) LasVegas nightclub after I hit the bathroom to reapply my false eyelash glue, adjust the white strapless cutout mini dress I was wearing, and imbibe in illicit party favors when the bartender called out:
“Hey, Patti, your dress is tucked inside your pantyhose.”
March, 2020
After my then future-husband proposed, it was only natural to everyone else I’d wear white since it was my first time marrying. I was the star of the show, that’s what my mother-in-law said when I complained to her I didn’t want to wear a white dress. I wanted to get married at the local courthouse.
Painless. That’s how I envisioned getting married at 62 would be for me. After all, I was not a blushing bride. I had nothing to prove… and yet there was that little bit inside of me that wanted to be beautiful just for that day. Maybe I wouldn’t have the Russian net veil or the luxurious train, or even the tulle fabric I’d lusted over in all the bridal magazines; but in my mind I simply couldn’t separate luxury from practical. My imagination didn’t carry that far. I wasn’t that young woman who’d always dreamed of getting married and walking down the aisle.
Back to 1968…
My mother bought school clothes from the Sears Catalog back then. Buying school clothes signaled fall was coming; Halloween, Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. I looked forward to the Sears Catalogs year-around. Each season it appeared in the mailbox, the arrival meant our family was getting ready for a change. The spring and summer book signaled it was time for family annual month-long trips to Florida, when my dad took his only vacation from work.
When I was 11 we started doing a mother/daughter shopping trip to a specialty clothing store in Grand Rapids. I was big for my age, 5’2 and fully developed by 6th grade. For me the excursion was an excuse out of Snoozesville. It was August event that I looked forward to for the next few years.
Mom and I chose school clothes with care and attention to detail. She knew style. I knew comfort. The two didn’t (always) go together. I learned a lot about quality material, classic style, and tailored clothing that felt and looked good. It helped mask the low self-esteem I had as a gawky, ugly teenager.
Until.
“My mom would check out books from the library about parenting, and then I would read them,”Gerwig says. The books describe an abrupt change that happens to American girls when they hit adolescence and begin to bend to external expectations. “They’re funny and brash and confident, and then they just—stop,” Gerwig says. Author Abby Aguirre “Barbiemania! Margot Robbie Opens Up About the Movie Everyone’s Waiting For; page 138, Vogue Magazine May 24, 2023
Into (circa) 1972…
At 14, my fashion sense was confused. I hated being a girl. It was a pain-in-the-ass. My parents were two generations behind me and that led to some very overprotective parenting years. Conservative fights emerging rebel. Battle lines were drawn.
My teens were fought with battles won and lost but ultimately my parents won the war, until I moved out of the house at 18 years old, thrilled to be on my own, but that’s another story.
I started wearing corduroy pants with button-down, long sleeve knit tops, and hiking boots to keep my mother off my back. I wore the least feminine clothes I could find. At one point I shopped in the boys’ section with my brother, Glenn.
My mother had become somewhat of a Puritan during my middle and late teen years, solely directed to me. She still dressed elegantly and somewhat provocative when she went out dining and dancing late night with my dad, even as she was aging. She made style look effortless.
At 14 I wanted to fit in with girls my age, as most of us do growing up. (I did envy the ones who didn’t give a shit, though.) Well, that isn’t entirely true, either.
I got caught up in reading John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series while avoiding doing (mostly) dreaded homework or in the summers during month-long grounding phases.
McGee was a salvage consultant, ladies man, and he lived on a houseboat in Florida. I wanted to run around scantily clad on a houseboat moored near Ft. Lauderdale (not the conservative west coast of Florida I knew so well) with hot guys running after me, while smoking a cigarette, and martini in hand.
And then there was The Flame and the Flower, by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, my introduction to romance and imagination gone wild. Can it get any better than being kidnapped and held captive by sea-faring rogue, Captain Brandon?
Tiger Beat, Seventeen, and Teen Beat were fashion magazines for girls my age, but I was more interested in the celebrities. By then, mother didn’t approve the (latest) fashion anyway, so I mostly looked to my girlfriends’ advice for proms and party wear.
And.
Since I was grounded most of the time from lost generational battles, I stayed in my room and read. And I can assure you I was not reading the Emily Brontë novel, Wuthering Heights or Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.
1980, Las Vegas style…
In December I landed in Mccarran Airport with $200 in my pocket, and a zest for life. I found a job, albeit not in the normal fashion, and through a connection in Buffalo, NY I found a place to live, while getting my bearings straight. 24-hour entertainment, nightclubs, dancing, drinking, and party favors opened up a world far from anything I’d been exposed to in my past.
The city introduced me to a new world of black work pants, bow ties, vests, tuxedos, little black dresses and black stilettos.
Back then big department stores were still thriving. The mannequins displayed head-to-toe fashion, complete with bag, hat, and shoes. I loved dressing up back then and bought a new outfit every week to hit the dance floor and date nights.
The city was rife with dancers, entertainers, dealers, food and cocktail servers, and we all worked all night mostly under bright lights in the city that never slept where I remained invisible unless working or hitting the bright lights on off nights. Ponytails, sunglasses, ball caps, sneakers, and sweats were dress by day… no makeup was perfectly acceptable. So (un) Middle American back then, and so me.
Las Vegas encouraged me to be myself. It was (and is) the city of extremes. I comfortably dressed down during off hours, grocery shopping, or running errands, or meeting for coffee or breakfast and dressed to kill on nights out.
June, 2020
I procrastinated until June to start looking for wedding attire. Covid forced me to shop online and buy the damn wedding dress from China.
The drab white, polyester/nylon sack cloth (above) came 7 weeks later. My Hooter’s Girl hose and garter were a higher quality than my wedding dress. No time to alter, change, or return. And by then we’d decided we were eloping to Colorado for a (covid) mountain top wedding anyway.
I tried on the dress for my mother-in-law hoping for approval but knew it was the (third) delusional thought/prayer/hope of what was turning into a horror show.
I teetered up the stairs in my Chinese (purchased) stilettos that were clearly inappropriate for pretty much anything outside of a sleazy LasVegas wedding chapel or clinging to a stripper pole.
I stood in front of my mother-in-law (Jane) who (critically) eyeballed me up and down.
“I look frumpy and pregnant,” I wailed to Mom Petersen. “Carl said I look beautiful, but I don’t feel beautiful at all in this dress.”
“You’re right, the dress is terrible, but I love the shoes. My son isn’t seeing the dress. He sees you through the blind eyes of love. You’re lucky, the dress will be okay, but I think you’d better let the shoes go for another time.”
I made the dress work.
September 22, 2020 on a cloudy, blustery day, at 2:22…
After climbing the mountain we were married in Idaho Springs at 8,460 feet, on top of the world.
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I love this story, Patti. It is so relatable. It's about fashion and so much more.
Those shoes are lovely, and your husband was right. You looked beautiful!
Great post, Patti...I certainly relate to the struggle with fashion growing up and appreciate the self-deprecating humor!