How To Look At A Garment: PeaceBang Throws Down a Challenge

This post is going to be one of PeaceBang’s Greatest Hits for BTFM, so get your printers ready, pigeons!
This is a Monday Manifesto!!

One of the biggest problems uninterestingly-dressed men and women have is that they don’t know how to style an outfit. Accessorizing eludes them. “Working a look” eludes them. And they try to fill their closets with clothing that works all by itself to make them look well-dressed.

But that’s not how looking well-dressed works.

That’s why it can be so hard to go shopping with clients. It takes way more time and energy than it needs to because these guys and gals have never understood clothes and their bodies and their images and how the three must work together. They expect to see a garment on the hanger that they “like” and boom, it gets the approval for a try-on. Or they just throw it over their arm and say, “Yea, let’s get this, I LIKE it.”
(That’s the best possible way to wind up with a closet full of perfectly fine clothes that don’t go together at all, by the way… which leads to that bizarre situation of having tons of clothes but Nothing To Wear. AVOID.)

Looking put-together and assembling a wardrobe that suits our lives is not a matter of just acquiring what we “like.”

I, Your Faithful PeaceBang, like a lot of things but they just don’t look good on me. They aren’t RIGHT for me. I could certainly buy certain clothing that I “like” in my size and go forth in it, but that wouldn’t be a mature and aware way to dress myself. Conversely, I could try to dress in my best guess of what other people think I should be wearing — and I did that for sad years! — and that would also be unfair and unattractive, not to mention depressing.

When I consult with a client, it takes a whole day of shopping and cajoling and shocking and surprising and “oh my god-i -NEVER-would-have-thought-this-could-look-good” revelations for me to send him or her home with a few shopping bags full of affordable clothing that work for his/her body, her position in the world, and her personal style.
(If we don’t buy anything, they at least go away with a file folder full of great ideas and a vision).

It requires my intense concentration, attention to persona, and a creative interpretation of that persona through clothing to make that vision manifest for a person but when I accomplish it, there is no more exciting moment! I am an artist, but my canvass is people!

Of course it doesn’t stop with clothes. We consult about hair, grooming and make-up, we spend a couple hours on outerwear — hats, gloves, scarves, coats — and voila, I leave my client (and by “client” I usually mean non-paying client, someone I am mentoring, or a friend) with a renewed sense of confidence and a fresh sense of what’s beautiful about him/her.

THIS BLOG IS ALL ABOUT YOU DEVELOPING THAT EYE FOR YOURSELVES. And if you have been a regular reader of this blog for any amount of time, I hereby anoint you to begin the process of formation to that next stage of discipleship and make you deacons of PeaceBang’s Ministry of Fabulousness. The point is, I want you to work WITH me. You’re ready, you should know how to by now, and frankly, if some of you don’t I’m going to drop dead because working with you/writing for you is like dragging the Statue of Liberty around the dance floor.

The other day I posted some long skirts by Urban Outfitters that I thought would be very useful in a minister’s wardrobe. A simple, chiffon maxi skirt (or column skirt) is a pretty basic garment that most of us can definitely use for weddings and other more formal occasions.
Let’s review:

This is called a maxi skirt.
(And I’m going to wag my finger for a moment here, dears: you should know that. You should have at least that fleeting of an acquaintance with fashion to know that).

Some of you loved it immediately. You could see yourselves in it – in stillettoes or boots. That’s always fun.

One of you was thoughtful about it: “Oh, hmm, there might be some possibility in that. I wouldn’t have thought of that.” Those sort of responses make me go “YAY! Someone thinking about something new! Even if this skirt isn’t for her, she might get some use out of the color suggestion!”

One of you said, “I don’t see it, how is this different than those frumpy skirts you’re always saying we need to burn?”
This question also made me say “Yay!” because I was given the opportunity to point out the difference in an A-line skirt and this style. If we had been in a store I would have nipped an A-line skirt off the Frumpy Ladeis rack and brought it into the dressing room so we could see the two side by side. PeaceBang LOVES teaching moments!

And then some of you committed the most irritating crime against my time and effort by just looking at the photo and going “blech, frumpy.”
If we had been in the store together I would have said, “Go get your blech frumpy butt into the dressing room and I’ll show you how this works. Now shut yer trap and get in there.”

So the first lesson for my deacons in training is:
1. YEA, MOST CLOTHES LOOK UGLY WHEN SHOWN ON A SLUMPED LOWER BODY WITH NO STYLING. That goes for mannequins, too. You have to use your creativity. You have to imagine an entire outfit. You’ve got to do some work. Sing for your supper, babies. Otherwise you will find shopping online, shopping in stores, or even getting dressed in the morning to be a major drag.

2. YOU MUST CONSIDER THE SOURCE.

Think about the manufacturer or designer!! Use your noggin!
When you see a garment, who made it? What is their demographic?
Would Urban Outfitters — you’ve seen the store if you live in a city most anywhere in America — make frumpy clothes? They’re catering to a young, hip clientele. So the answer is: of course not.

If you think about who made these garments and for whom, you know that the sizing is going to be small and the garment cut slim. Thinking through these details can help you immensely in judging whether or not something will work for your shape. So many of us only look at price points and pay no attention to the other details of the item. That’s a big mistake and can waste a lot of your time and money. An inexpensive garment cut for a 20-something client when you’re a 50-something wide-hipped woman isn’t a bargain, it’s a waste of time for you to even look at it.

3. IF YOU’RE NOT USING A TAILOR, PLEASE DON’T DISMISS A GARMENT AS “SOMETHING *I* COULD NEVER WEAR.
This makes me rather crazy. I post ideas and inevitably someone chimes in “Oh, this would never work for me, I’m too short/petite/bow-legged/long-necked/whatever.”
What I want to challenge you to do instead of posting that kind of dead-end remark is to BE CREATIVE. Say, “I don’t think this would work for me as I’m really short, but if I got it hemmed I could see pairing it with a beautiful waist-length blazer I have” or “That neckline isn’t for me but since I love the rest of the garment so much I bet I could use a scarf to bla bla bla…”

Much of this blog is about the artistic endeavor of dressing ourselves, if you haven’t really figured that out yet. And art is about creativity. It is not about just eyeballing something and saying, “NAW.” Okay, but “Naw” and THEN WHAT? What would you do with it? What do you prefer to it? How does it contribute to anyone’s learning or discovering to hear just “NAW, HATE IT?” It doesn’t. So offer an alternative. Offer a suggestion. Contribute to the vision! Take the creative people around the dance floor for a change, don’t make us drag you.
I certainly hope that none of you would go out in public wearing an elastic waist of any kind with a shirt snugly tucked in and no belt or jacket covering the elastic!

Someone dismissed these skirts as “dumpy.” Oy. I thought, “Really? Dumpy like this?”

Or “dumpy” like this?

Here are two more “dumpy” looks you could go for in these skirts:

So. Your Charge, my pigeons: Start seeing with creative eyes. Don’t just reject and poo-poo, offer something exciting or beautiful and CONTRIBUTE. Become a stylist: when the photo doesn’t do the styling, provide it in your imagination. Know the source of garments whenever possible so you don’t reject things with no knowledge of where they came from or for whom they were designed.

Some of you may be ordained as deacons in this on-line ministry. After five years of authoring this blog, I would welcome guest columnists but if you’re going to preach in my pulpit you have to be good! Inspiring! Tough! Sassy! Theologically informed!

I have my eye on you, my pretties.