I have been thinking, for no good reason, really, a good bit about fashion lately and more specifically, my lack of it.  Of course, being a queen and all, there is a certain amount of style and flair required, primarily of the sparkly, sequined variety.  Not to break anyone's fantasy bubble, but I don't dress that way all the time; only when I'm "working." 

[As an aside before I delve hard into the fashion subject, do you people have any idea how hard it is to come up with appropriate Queenly garb?  Now ideally, we'd have little birds and squirrels and other woodland creatures who would flock around us with their little paws and beaks filled with marabou trim and sparkly diamonds to festoon our satin ball gowns, but for some reason, that just doesn't happen, so we have to go slugging our fine asses all over the thrift shops of greater El Dorado Country trying to find anything that shines and sparkles and is appropriately stretchy to accommodate our Queenly comfort.  It is particularly painful to hear someone say, "Oh!  I just gave away a whole garbage bag of my mama's sequined dresses!  I had NO idea you'd want them!"  I mean for the love of GAWD, have they not MET US??  This Queen fashion thing is HARD WORK!  So for the record, if any of you have beautiful ball gowns or prom-type dresses or sequinny, sparkly things or feathery, fringy things or plastic jeweleryish things, especially big'uns, you just e-mail me at bossqueen@sbcglobal.net and I'll arrange pick-up with a big ol' smile.]

But I digress, sort of...

Back in the olden days when the earth was cooling and dinosaurs were just starting to roam and I was a young, slender thing, I still was not much given to suffering for fashion's sake.  As I became a fluffier individual, that theme just continued.  It's not that I didn't dress pretty, because I feel like I did.  I just wanted to also be comfortable.  At some point, panty hose (and I'm old enough to have worn stockings before there were panty hose back when our fish nets were held up with garter belts) started to chafe my thighs something fierce, so they quickly became a thing of the past.  When I noticed that my feet were starting to take on the shape of my pretty, girly high heels, I was mortified and promptly went to flats.  Clothes like mini dresses and tube tops and things that require a good bit of pulling and tugging and constant adjusting were never much appreciated by me, so away they went.  I can't imagine wearing a thong and having that tiny little thing creep up my crack like it's butt floss or something.  Just the thought of it gives me a full body shiver.  Agh.  Pretty undies are nice, but if they are going to roll down or creep up, they aren't for me.  Being a full figured gal, one would think an underwire bra would be essential clothing, but after having about 8-9 different brands of them poke and gouge and pinch at me for a few hours had me bidding them goodbye. 

When I got into my 40's, my primary concern when buying new clothes was, "Can I sleep in it?"  I love long, soft, flowing, pretty stuff and so I do tend toward that.  Anything that has a good hint of yellow or orange undertones is sure to put me on the jaundice ward, so I lean to bold colors or pretty pink or light blue pastels.  Because of my fetish for flowing, pretty things, which are not actually in style at the moment, I like to shop in thrift stores.  Not only are the clothes inexpensive and unique, but they're already broken in, which is nice.  If I had a bajillion dollars, I'd probably still buy most of my clothes used.

I'd just have a bigger closet.

My biggest obstacle is color choices because I have no sense for what colors go together.  My ex-husband used to actually hang clothes that went together on the same hanger so I'd know what to pair up.  Eric looked at me like I was crazy when I suggested it.  So now I try to make sure that whenever possible, one piece of clothing, top or bottom, is black because it pretty much goes with everything.  My eyes see the colors, but my brain doesn't sort out what looks good together and what doesn't.

I've made a few fashion observations as of late, particularly on my recent trip to L.A. which involved a good bit of people watching.

Bra straps:  Apparently, we aren't even trying any more, which is a relief since mine seem to flop down constantly anyway.  There are now even proudly displayed bra straps and a good many of them.

Crocs:  Crocs are these plastic kinds of shoes that look like this:

This describes all of the benefits of Crocs and they come in a lot of bright colors.  I somehow feel personally deficient that I have never felt "stinky feet paranoia."

Salmon:  Evidently, that pinkish salmony color is all the rage because I saw lots of people wearing it.  Unfortunately, it has that orange undertone, so I shall have to remain freakishly unfashionable.

Skirts:  Skirts are back IN again which is lovely.

Big Hair:  Big hair is also making a come back, largely, I believe, thanks to the Queens of Grizzly Flats who embrace the notion in hairstyle, like so many other things, bigger is better.

I do waft toward the old fashioned ways in some of my fashion doings.  For instance, I cannot bring myself to wear white shoes after Labor Day until Easter hits.  It just feels wrong to me.  I can't get with the new fashion (as of several years ago) of mixing patterns, even clothes that are the same pattern with the pattern a slightly different color.  To me, if one coordinate is a pattern, the other(s) need to be a corresponding solid.  Although I do enjoy a nice cleavage look, there is, in my opinion, a fine line between "enticing cleavage" and "just being a big ol' whore."  One must pay careful attention to such things because of the whole "truth in advertising issue."

I do take issue with the punishing of fat women by giving them nothing but truly dreadful fashion choices.  When I look in the Misses section, I see lots of pretty sun dresses, sparkly tops and lovely clothes that could easily translate up a few sizes or 10.  When I get to the plus section, suddenly we are in a land of cabbage roses and puffed sleeves and empire waists.  Do you know what you get when you put an empire waist on a plus sized woman dress or top?  You get people asking when the baby is due, that's what you get.  Just because we're big ol' things, doesn't mean we suddenly crave ugly clothes.  On the contrary, we are actually in more dire need to pretty clothes than those skinny little things in the Misses section!  They've got young and cute going a long way for them!

One company, what's the name of it?  Give me a second to think...  White Stag, which is the Wal*Mart brand of clothes, is really sharp indeed.  There is a style of pants that we fat people just absolutely love that are made of stretch denim.  Mmmmm.  Stretch denimmmm.  Anyway, they recent plopped a fancy sticker on their pants that says, "New fit!!"  Mind you, they are the same pants as before in the "old fit," but the difference is that they have adjusted the size.  So if you wore a size 20 in the "old fit," suddenly you fit into an 18 in the "new fit."  Now that is clever because you know good and well that if a fat woman sees that she wears a size 18 in this brand and a size 20 in this brand, she's going to go for the lower number.  Someone was thinking!  Now if they would just think their way into some nicely designed, fitted fat clothes, we'd all be cooking with gas.

Be Particular, Friends,