Thursday, November 30, 2006

holiday fashion

Why do woman get so wrapped up in what to wear? Now that the holiday party season has started - I have to attend this year's first event tomorrow - it's time for the annual clothing panic.
You've got to worry about what kind of party wear to put on - formal, dressy casual(?), casual, nude (kidding!).
You've got to worry about under or over dressing for the event.
Plus here in S. Carolina you never know if it's going to be 75 (like today) or 40 (like the forecast for this weekend) so even if you have the right formality of apparel you stillmay be in trouble if it is too hot or too cold for what you had planned to wear.
And men have it way too easy. Most of the time they can put on a suit or nice jacket and tie and they will be fine. (Of course it's EASY to take off a tie or a jacket if things are more casual than expected...It's kind of hard to make formal or cocktail dress look "casual"

Then you get to throw in the rest of the social anxiety thing with work related parties - especially your spouse's work events. God forbid you appear gauche or socially inept and screw up his (or your own) chance at promotion, etc.

Sometimes though, the event so dreaded turns out to actually be a lot of fun - in which case you quickly forget what you or anyone else is wearing. (Would you believe that I went to one retirement party and found myself and the only other spouse I knew at the event wearing nearly idnetical tops. We decided to tell everyone we were sisters and laughed our way through the rest of the night.