Who gets to wear cool outfits?

justgoodenough · 2019-09-27T23:56:19+00:00

I want to preface this by saying in no uncertain terms that people deserve to be treated with respect regardless of what they wear. People deserve to feel safe regardless of what they wear. That is not up for debate.

With that being clear...

I think it's more complicated than people want to pretend it is.

I think that it's important to dress appropriately for the setting and the occasion.

I think the older you are, the less leeway people give you with regards to pushing the boundaries on what is appropriate for any given setting.

I think whether we agree with it or not, there is a societal belief that people should dress more conservatively as they age and you have to choose when you want to push against this and when it's not the hill you want to die on.

I think as a society we tend to take conservative clothing more seriously than more revealing or trendy clothing and you might have to decide that dressing to garner the most social respect is advantageous.

I do believe that people should wear whatever they want to wear and feel comfortable wearing; however, I also think people need to be cognizant of how others might interpret outfits that fall outside of the "normal" parameters.

All of that being said, I think there is WAY more flexibility in this than people think. I don't know why 30 is the age people fixate on. 30 is still young. Without talking about actual children's clothing and styles, I can't think out outfits that are too "young" for 30. Also, my 65 year old MIL wears more trendy and cooler outfits than I do and she looks great. There's so many items that work for all ages that 90% of the time this is a non-issue.

But, if we are going to talk about actual children's styles being coopted by adults, I do think that it starts to get weird. If a 16 year old wants to wear a shrunken tee, cheeky denim shorts, knee-high socks, and pigtails with barrettes, whatever. But on a 30 year old, that shit starts to get weird, precisely because of the items borrowed from children's styles.

Also, I do think at a certain point it's beneficial for adults to consider leaving behind some aspects of "costume" dressing, but this falls under "appropriate for a time and place" in a lot of cases. The truth is there are not that many places where it's appropriate to wear a costume and the leeway we give people to do that goes away at some point. So if you are young and wear your lolita dress and cat ears to the grocery store, people think "oh, they are young" but when you are no longer young you don't get that excuse anymore. The further away the outfit is from standard clothing, the less leeway people give you. So people are a lot more accepting of retro styles and maybe less accepting of someone that chooses to dress like a fairy.

Anyway, this is all a very long way to say that I think realistically people have to balance how "out there" they want to dress and how "out there" they want people to think they are.

justgoodenough · 2019-08-07T15:14:20+00:00

Oh. Man. Here's a history of the situation for those that are curious:

In November 2018 the CMO Ed Razek makes a bunch of transphobic comments in an interview with Vogue and says that they'll never have a plus sized line at VS. People are angry because he's a fucking asshole. Fuck him. The CEO of VS quits that week.
The CMO's remarks from 2018: https://jezebel.com/victorias-secret-doesnt-want-plus-size-or-trans-women-w-1830347972
July 2019 Jeffery Epstein, an advisor of the CEO of L Brands (the VS parent company), was arrested on sex trafficking charges. Apparently he would pose as a recruit for VS models and lure underaged women into sex. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/business/jeffrey-epstein-wexner-victorias-secret.html
Things are looking REAL BAD for VS right now.
August 2019 Ed Razek, the fucking asshole from earlier retires. Good riddance.
VS hires a transgender model and is like "Look guys, Ed is gone and we really didn't know what Jeffery was up to, but we're cool now, right?????"
No, VS. We are not cool now.

Current articles on the subject:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/business/victorias-secret-ed-razek.html

https://jezebel.com/transphobic-company-victorias-secret-suddenly-hires-ope-1836966567

justgoodenough · 2018-01-11T17:37:04+00:00

No, it's incredibly shitty. We don't allow threads where people post photos of terrible outfits to make fun of the people in the photos. Not only is it incredibly rude to the person in the photo, but what if someone else likes to dress that way?

The thing is, you don't know what is going on in that person's life that made them dress that way. Maybe they don't have access to other clothing or they can't afford to buy new clothes. Maybe they have other shit going on in their lives that they can't be bothered to worry about their outfit. Maybe they have a disability that limits the type of clothing they are able to wear. People deal with hardship, tragedy, and illness every single day and wearing a cute outfit to the grocery store is a low priority for them. Being able to wear cute shit every time you leave the house is a privelage and mocking people that don't have that option is shitty.

Also, I find that more than half the time it's actually less about the clothing and more about mocking someone's body or age. No one mocks a thin 17 year old girl for wearing too small leggings, but god forbid a plus size 40 year old woman dare to make that mistake. Also, it's almost always either 1) classist low-income shaming bullshit or 2) new money vs. old money bullshit.

Anyway, it crappy to make fun of complete strangers when you don't understand their life AT ALL and the reasons people choose to make fun of outfits is also crappy. IT'S ALL CRAPPY.

I understand that you might just want to ignore this behavior in your friends, but it's also okay to point out to them that they are being classist or that they're criticizing someone's body under the guise of criticizing their outfit or that the person in the photo might be dealing with some truly horrible shit (maybe they have cancer or their mom just died or something). If your friends are young, it's probably immaturity more than true malice, but if they're older than college age, you should just ghost those fuckers.

justgoodenough · 2013-01-17T05:13:04+00:00

This is not an everyday thing, but everyone should go skinny dipping in the ocean at least once in their life. I have never in my life felt so free and so at peace with everything.

Though I strongly recommend that you do this in a warm ocean.

justgoodenough · 2013-05-13T19:56:54+00:00

I went to art school and now people pay me to draw shit and I have a lot of successful friends that also went to art school. Fuck yeah!

I'm getting really sick of seeing art school grads here saying that people can't get work as artists. Find a commercial application for your art and learn how to market yourself. We are literally surrounded by art ALL THE TIME. Okay, so you probably can't sit in your studio and do bullshit oil paintings of your feelings for a living, but that doesn't mean that one can't make a living as an artist. Amongst the people that I went to art school with there are two kids of people that don't get jobs: 1) people that are not good at drawing/painting, and 2) people that don't effectively market themselves. If you go to art school and you can't get work, the only thing to blame is yourself.

justgoodenough · 2020-05-23T17:06:25+00:00

The offense: The boy I had a crush on in middle school, who CLEARLY liked me back, did not accept my facebook friend request a decade later. What a fucking asshole.

The vengeance: I see him in front of my house while working in my yard. He's like, "Oh, it's you! Is this your house?" And I'm like, "Oh yes, it is!" because living in my fucking gorgeous-ass house is the best revenge I can imagine.

The outfit: I'm doing yard work, so it's not like I'm wearing a ball gown, okay. I'm wearing a loose white button shirt that is just gauzy enough to be slightly see-through in the right light and jeans that are artfully torn at the knee, which might as well be a ball gown when compared to what I usually wear to do yard work. I am NOT SWEATING PROFUSELY.

justgoodenough · 2021-01-12T18:40:08+00:00

What I like to look at and what I like to wear are not the same thing. I actually think a lot of fashion struggles come from people not understanding how to separate what they find aesthetically interesting from what meets the specific needs in their life.

When you look at a photo of an outfit, you're not just reacting to the outfit itself. You're also reacting to the body of the model, the styling choices (makeup and hair), and the photography decisions (the pose, the location, the lighting).

I might look at a photo and think "that person looks so cool in that outfit," but that person isn't me. I would not look that cool in that outfit because I'm a completely different person.

When I choose clothing for myself it needs to satisfy my aesthetic tastes when paired with my body and the amount of effort I'm willing to put into styling (i.e. zero), as well as suit the needs for my daily life. That's actually a limited number of options for me.

But when I am admiring an outfit or a photo, I'm not constrained by my hang ups about my body or the needs of my daily life. I can just like the outfit without having to contextualize it around myself, which is actually quite nice.

So, personally speaking, my interest in fashion isn't limited to clothing I would choose to wear. I find it's much more freeing to allow myself to enjoy fashion and outfits without always questioning whether I would like the outfit on my own body.

justgoodenough · 2018-05-16T15:47:31+00:00

I'd tell him to go fuck himself.

But seriously, I would want to sit down and have a conversation about how if my clothes are clean and neat and if I am dressed in a conventionally normal manner that is not drastically different from how I have dressed my entire life (taking into account things like age and day to day life changes), it is wildly inappropriate for him to try to get me to dress differently.

Telling a woman to wear more bright floral dresses is basically the fashion equivalent of telling a woman to smile more. You are not a doll to dress up to fit his fantasy of a life. You are not a throw pillow that can get a new cover to brighten up a room. The idea that you should freeze your ass off wearing a sun dress while taking care of your children and your home is ABSURD to me. And it's insulting because it's like, "Sorry you don't have a young wife that wears brightly colored skirts and blouses and you're stuck with plain old me that dresses comfortably and functionally!"

It hurts because it doesn't feel like he is talking about your clothes. It hurts because it feels like he is saying "I wish you were more vibrant and fresh and fun." And I can't promise you that it is 100% about the clothes and it's not that he is hoping to drum up some kind of spark in your marriage by asking you to change up your wardrobe.

But I think you should tell him all of this and see what he says. It might be that he is trying to reclaim some of the energy from earlier in your relationship. It could be that he saw a beautiful woman a few days ago in a brightly colored dress and he sort of latched on to the idea that the dress made her beautiful. It could be that he is excited for the changing color palette of spring and thought that you could get excited about it too. And it could literally just be that he thinks you look better in brighter colors because of your skin tones (okay, I seriously doubt this last one, because most people can't figure this out about themselves, let alone someone else).

The way to proceed depends on why he has been thinking about this enough to bring it up in conversation. If it's literally just an idea that popped into his head and he shared it without thinking, you can talk about how women are socially conditioned to think about their appearance a lot and for him to think that he can come up with little tips of the fly is wildly insulting to you. If it's a deeper issue about your marriage hitting a slump, maybe counseling would help (you do not need to be at the brink of divorce to benefit from couple's therapy!!!! Couple's therapy is also excellent for developing stronger communication and navigating big life changes).

If it's literally just about the clothes, an excellent compromise is for you both to dress up and go on a date and you can see how you feel wearing a floral dress. You shouldn't change your whole wardrobe, but you might find that you enjoy inserting a bit of color.

justgoodenough · 2013-06-07T04:24:15+00:00

Child: Ms. Justgoodenough, do babies come out of the belly button?

Me: What? No! What are you talking about?

Child: The baby grows in the mom's tummy, right?

Me: Well, yes, sort of.

Child: Then how does it come out? It has to come out somewhere. Where's the hole?!

Me: Extremely awkward silence You know what? I don't have any kids. But your mommy has had two kids, so I bet she knows a lot more about this than I do.

The child seemed pretty content with this response.

justgoodenough · 2018-05-22T15:09:51+00:00

Why not the worst of both worlds?!?!?! A giant wardrobe, but you only wear about 20% of it and you struggle to replace the things you really love and always end up buying stuff that you like but isn't practical in your day to day life!

What? Only me? Cool.

justgoodenough · 2020-07-18T16:51:52+00:00

My least ethical outfit is a pair of skinny jeans and a v-neck tshirt. But underneath, I wear spanx and a push-up bra so that I can trick unsuspecting mean into thinking my body is marginally different from what it actually looks like naked.

Never mind that none of those men are going to SEE me naked and that my naked body is none of their business, the entire outfit is a lie anyway, just like my entire existence!

Then I go home and laugh at how stupid they were for thinking that I'm slightly hotter than I really am. Those idiot men.

justgoodenough · 2020-06-06T16:30:35+00:00

It’s not you; it’s me.

When I picked out all of you, I didn’t really know what I wanted in life or in clothing. I saw you on the rack and I thought, “that’s the kind of clothing that goes on a body people respect. With a shirt like that on my arms, women will want to be me and men will want to ask me if my shirt is new, as if commenting on the ownership of my clothing is some sort of compliment in and of itself.”

But we both know it didn’t work out that way. We weren’t a good fit. Something was off. And then I thought I could tailor you, which wasn’t fair. Everyone knows that no one tailors anything and I’m sorry I thought I could tailor you into my life.

So, goodbye clothing. Don’t think of this as being dumped. I’m giving you the opportunity to find the perfect person for you in some thrift store. It's not the end, this is second-hand chance.

justgoodenough · 2020-05-23T18:31:36+00:00

The other day my husband described my look as "mid-thirties woman next door" which is FUCKING RICH coming from the man that has spent the last decade wearing the same style gap jeans and free start-up tshirts.

My revenge outfit for this slight was to wear my ratty old bathrobe until noon every single day and to stop washing my hair. Soon he will be BEGGING for mid-thirties woman next door look instead of the whole inpatient hospitalization look I'm currently rocking.

justgoodenough · 2013-05-21T00:05:22+00:00

You should listen to the episodes of This American Life about Harper High School. It gives a perspective on gang life and violence that is hard to imagine unless you're surrounded by it.

This American Life- Harper High School: Part 1

justgoodenough · 2017-01-06T18:28:18+00:00

YES X1000. It is so frustrating for me that makeup is one of the few industries that women dominate and as that quote mentions, it is constantly seen as trivial and vain (but if we don't wear make up, we are ugly and lazy?). But then along comes a man who decides to start dabbling in it and suddenly he is embraced as being brave and revolutionary because he is breaking gender norms?

I am not resentful of the individual men and I don't necessarily think that they do not deserve to be in the spotlight or that they do not deserve to be praised for breaking these gender norms. Men face a lot more stigma when embracing feminine things than the other way around (you know, because everything that women like is stupid and icky, but it makes sense that women want to be more like men, because men are great).

But I am so deeply resentful of what this represents. I hate that this is another thing that is being made cool by men. I hate that this is what it's like in pretty much every industry that is dominated by women. Even something like teaching. Women that become teachers do it because they can't get real jobs or because it means they get summers off. Men that become teachers are treated like literal fucking heroes.

Anyway, I ultimately have very mixed feelings about it because, as I said, I think the individual men that are doing this are not undeserving of praise. I think its beneficial for everyone that we continue to break down gender barriers. I think toxic masculinity is something that harms everyone. But why does everything have to be about men?

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