My Seventh Grade Fashion Lesson

It's never pleasant to learn a lesson 'the hard way.'  But one thing is certain, a lesson that is driven home painfully will be one that sticks for a lifetime.

(It wasn't exactly this Ann Taylor blouse---but I felt like a young fashionista anyway!)

When I was in seventh grade, I had a favorite blouse.  It was a hand-me-down from a neighbor, made of silky-finished white cotton with long sleeves and a big ruffle in the front.  The ruffle was trimmed all around with red thread.  (Before you laugh too loudly at what sounds like a disco abomination, please remember this was the mid-1970s.)  My imagination ran wild whenever I had the shirt on; it wasn't exactly age appropriate, and I was thrilled by the idea of wearing something that a 'college girl' had cast aside!  Plus, the shirt was completely different from everything else in my wardrobe, which at that time included 'matched sets' of jeans and blouses that had to be altered every other week, thanks to my growth spurts.  If I could have, I probably would have worn my ruffled shirt every day, I loved it so much.  But washday came on the weekend, so I got into the habit of donning it every Monday.

All I was thinking about was how that blouse made me feel.  It never occurred to me that anyone else might have noticed my habit of starting the week out with fancy ruffles.  But one morning, just as the homeroom bell was ringing, the boy who was our version of 'big man on campus'---the football player who all the girls made goo-goo eyes at and all the boys tried to be as cool as---stopped in front of my desk.  He looked down, pointed, and yelled to the entire class, "Hey, that must be your MONDAY SHIRT!  You only wear it on MONDAY!"  Guffawing loudly, he sat down, and his taunt was picked up by all his flunkies.  'Monday shirt, Monday shirt, Tracy has a Monday shirt.'

Ugh.  Trust me, if time travel is ever invented, I'm signing up no matter how much it costs.  It'd be worth it just to throw a few punches.  I have a good memory.  And a list.

I'd done nothing wrong; my blouse simply had the misfortune to be ostentatious enough for a bully to use it as a delivery device.  But I learned that if the dullest observer in the classroom had latched onto my monotony, maybe I needed to recognize it in myself.  I was blessed with a mother who made sure I had plenty of clothes; I knew how lucky I was in this regard.  I needed to appreciate that more.

I also learned that predicability is one of the banes of fashion.  It's very easy to get into a rut with certain pieces, to wear them so often they become more than just Monday or Tuesday or Friday blouses.  Even if one's wardrobe is limited by necessity, making small chances to an outfit---pairing it with a scarf on this day, a necklace on another, or dressing it 'up' or 'down'---makes the clothing more interesting and the wearer far less predictable.

And even the most hardworking outfit needs the occasional Monday off....