Eye of the Beholder

Getting the shameless self-promotion out of the way, this week over at That’s What She Said, I give the characters of The Office management makeovers. 

Fashion is trial an error, isn’t it?  One woman’s style is another woman’s shock and horror.  The Fug girls have built an industry out of putting error on trial.  I like to experiment, so I’ve been the subject of shock and horror more than once.

I think the worst case of it came on a date in college.  I was out with this boy I had crushed on for a year.  Early 90s, so I was still industry thin and had a gorgeous stomach.  Ah, those were the days.  I was wearing a crimson colored, off the shoulder body suit (it was the 90s!), with 3/4 sleeves, a black gauze broomstick skirt with fantastic embroidery in the same crimson, deep gold, and cream across the bottom.  I was also wearing a necklace I’d found in my favorite vintage store (Ahab Bowen, which is still in business if you live in the Dallas area and want a find–I thank my friend Stephanie for introducing me to her haunt 20 years ago), a necklace I still wear now and then.  It’s a bigger art piece, with crescent shaped filagree bits and delicate chain work.  I love it.

After embarrassing being a goofy 20 year old in lurve at Shakespeare in the Park, I was sitting at dinner with this boy in what passed for posh in that part of town.  Rather than just telling me he wasn’t feeling the connection, he looked me over and said, “You don’t really think you look good, do you?”

I did.  I really did.  In fact, I still do.  In fact, when I wore the same outfit in Manhattan, I was stopped on the street by people wanting to know where it came from.  It was cute.

Martin didn’t think so, though, and I was crushed for about ten minutes.  I got up and went to the ladies room where I stared at myself in the mirror.  I had to choose.  Was I going to be embarrassed about my taste because he didn’t share it?  Would I take off the necklace he had indicated as being awful?  Would I cry?  What?

I decided it was his problem.  I was happy.  If he didn’t want to look at me, he didn’t have to.  I ended the date and that was that.  Oh, I went home and cried.  I cried for a couple of days, but hurt feelings aside, I did understand that a man who didn’t get my style just didn’t get me.  Neither one of us were wrong, we were just wrong for each other.  (And he could have been kinder)

I ran into him years later and met the girl he married.  We could not have been more different if she had been from Mars.  He got what he liked, and so did I.  More important, I kept what I liked about me.

What do you like about you?