My granddaughter’s bat mitzvah was this past weekend and she was fabulous in lots of ways: poised, confident, prepared, articulate and more. I’m sure I will talk about the amazing Cici in some other story on some other day. For now, I mention her because I know she spent hours and hours and hours learning all the requisite prayers and her Torah portion. Shockingly, that is the exact amount of time that we female family members spent trying to figure out what to wear for the big day.
I am not kidding when I say that on Friday night at 10:42 p.m. — a mere twelve hours and three minutes before the Saturday morning service — my daughters and I were still texting photos back and forth with new clothing options for the next day.
Simply put, it’s hard to be a woman getting dressed for a party.
Not surprisingly, I have lots of thoughts on the matter. But before going there, let me just acknowledge that all the women of the family made great choices and looked terrific. I was extremely proud to be the matriarch of that gorgeous group of gals.
And now let’s talk about the F word, fashion.
I do not know now, and I have never known, what is in fashion. My mother — hardly a fashionista — once told me that raglan sleeves were in style that season. I had no idea how on earth she could know such a thing. I suppose from all the women’s magazines she read or perhaps clothing store windows she perused, but when I look at such images, they do not register in my mind.
Therefore, since college, I have mostly worn jeans with simple tops as my everyday uniform. And when something better is required, I have stuck with two different looks that may or may not be in style in any given year (or decade). One is a tailored, preppie look, often with black, navy or camel slacks as my starting point. The other is the colorful, crazy, flow-y stuff a leftover hippie might wear.
In my fifties or sixties, I added a third look. I am going to call it the boxy-top-style. It combines the two previous looks. I wear solid colored slacks or jeans and some sort of glorified t-shirt with a loose-fitting cardigan, unbuttoned blouse or blazer on top. And often that boxy-whatever is in some big and wild pattern that any leftover hippie would be proud to wear.
It took a decade for me to realize that this is a style my mother — the non-fashionista — perfected. Well, of course she did! She was a smart gal and she saw that the boxy top hid the boxy belly some of us women develop as we age.
I remember a Chanukah long ago when my Bubbie was in her 80s, my mom in her 60s and I was in my 30s. As a gift, Mom had picked out a new dress for Bubbie. Bub tried it on and told Mom to return it to the store because it made her look fat. In my naïve 30-year-old wisdom, I sure hoped I wouldn’t be saying such a thing in my 80s. In my 73-year-old wisdom, I’m thinking the dress lacked a boxy-top.
I should confess that I have my share of athleisure wear. I’m ok wearing them in the gym, but every time I wear those tight pants in public I wonder if they are appropriate for me — even though everyone my age seems to be wearing them.
Photo credit: Lorie Kleiner Eckert
And every now and again, I buy some designer clothes that appeal to me at the mall, though I am never sure if I look ridiculous when I wear them. A quote from a book I read describes my thought process exactly. This is an adult daughter’s description of her mother’s appearance: “She wore layers of black diaphanous fabric, a poncho-style top that could either have been an extortionately priced item from Eileen Fisher or an old rag with a hole cut in the top.”
As it turns out every version of me attended the bat mitzvah weekend. I was hippie-dippy at the Friday night dinner and tailored at the bat mitzvah service. I wore black slacks with a black shell and a colorful boxy top at the party, and reverted to my most comfy jeans for the Sunday brunch.
I didn’t feel particularly laudable in any of the outfits, but neither did I feel ludicrous. And that’s about as good as it gets when I get dressed for a party…a very tough task, indeed.
