Wearing White: The Rules
I was getting ready for work one morning last week, pulling on a pair of white jeans, when my gaze fell on a calendar behind my bedroom door proclaiming August 2010. I made a mental note to flip the page to September when a little voice from the recesses of my mind said, "September. You know you can't wear white after Labor Day. Oh wait, it's okay. It isn't Labor Day, yet."
Whoa. I don't pay any attention to that anymore, do I? Why did the thought even enter my mind?
I suspect it is another of those mores which, even when challenged, stubbornly refuse to go away ... at least in one's thought.
We even observed the "rule" with our stewardess uniforms. In summer we wore a tan uniform with sporty tan and white spectator pumps. (I remember what a chore it was to keep the white parts white!) In the fall we went back to dark blue uniforms and navy blue pumps.
Today as I try to determine just when it became okay to wear white all year long, I vaguely remember shopping at Cedrics in Edina in the early 1980s. Remember Cedrics? It was early fall and I was shopping for a suit. The saleswoman said, "Try this new winter white." "White?" I asked dubiously. "Of course," she answered. "You can wear white all year."
Winter white. Snow. It sort of made sense. "What color shoes would I wear with it?" I asked, (after all, we surely can't wear white shoes after Labor Day.)
"Matching shoes," she replied authoritatively, and proceeded to tell me where I could find a pair of winter white shoes to match.
I bought the suit. And the shoes. Wouldn't you think that experience 30 years ago would mark my liberation from the "wearing or not wearing white rule"?
Today is Labor Day.
Alas, when I perused the clothing in my closet this morning, I thought about removing all the summer clothes and tucking them away for the season. I thought about it.
But I didn't.
Yet.
posted by Lady Skywriter at
8:53 AM
2 Comments:
Keep your white. We need some brightness when the days get shorter and dark nights, longer. However, I do recommend putting away the summer sleeveless. . . unless, of course you wear it as an accent under a jacket or blouse. My goodness! "Everything" goes, doesn't it? lw
This story of "putting away your summer clothes" reminds me of working with all those frigid (er, excuse me, I mean "cold") female flight attendants who insist upon wearing their thin, unlined "summer dress" uniforms all winter long, and then walking thru the cabin of the plane whining and complaining all the way to our final destination about how cold the airplane is, and always calling the cockpit to beg the pilots to turn up the heat! And all this while us poor male flight attendants are sweltering in layers of clothing including tightly buttoned-up shirts and neckties!
The old saying goes "if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen!". I say we enforce a new saying; "If you can't stand the cold, then stop wearing your freaking summer dress in the winter!"
Come ON, ladies, it's called a "summer dress" for a REASON!
Why doesn't the airline impose the rule which clearly states that the summer dress is NOT supposed to be worn after a certain date of the year? Because most F/A managers are also WOMEN, that's why!
Sorry, I didn't mean to go off like that, but really, some female flight attendants (ALL, actually!) just LOVE to live up to the stereotype of the dumb bimbo-stewardess! (And I've flown with ALL of them!)
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