Skipping out on new styles is clothes call
By Beth Teitell
Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Over the weekend, after having visited every clothing store in Greater Boston and still finding nothing appropriate for the book readings I'll be doing, I made what seemed like the only rational decision:

I'm going to sit this season out, fashionwise.

Maybe I'll get back into the game when they stop showing tops that look like maternity wear for teenagers. (Jasmine Sola, I'm talking about you.)

Relaxed for the first time in days after deciding to rely on a few favorites from last spring, I mentioned my plan to the Herald's fashion editor. ``The stuff I have from last year is really fine,'' I said.

Well, that was a big mistake. I might as well have said I was going to wear a skort.

``It's a slippery slope,'' she warned, ``You pull out for one season, then the next season it's that much harder to get back in the game.

``Either you're going to be really really trendy,'' she added, ``or you're going to end up so many seasons back it's going to take you twice as long to catch up.''

Just as I was reeling from her words, she leaned in and whispered one last piece of advice: ``I'm not saying this is you,'' she said, ``but the people who give themselves a pass are not the people who should be giving themselves a pass.''

Maybe if I had a doctor's note?

``That's what was great about being pregnant,'' one woman told me when I mentioned my predicament.

``I almost want to get pregnant again,'' she said. ``People would say, `I didn't know you wanted a second child' and I'd say, `I don't, I just don't want to wear strapless tops or look like a bohemian.' ''

She thought about what it would be like to simply stop buying and almost couldn't imagine it.

``But what would you spend your money on?'' she asked.

As I pondered where to invest my funds if not in a jeweled sweater that looks like something made for an Easter brunch in Vegas, another woman weighed in, and suggested I follow her confident approach:

``It's not that spring's skin-baring styles would make me look like a risque Teletubby,'' she said, ``it's that I'm choosing to wait for a less-faddish season, fashionwise.

``No matter that my feet look like I'm going for the Guinness water-retention record, it's that I'm choosing something low and more sensible. I'm embracing the clueless look as a political statement.''

Yeah, that's right. And my fashion choice? Spring 2004. It continues to be a very good year.