I dress like a Mom

I'm not sure when or how it happened, but somehow I have begun to dress like a Mom. Not a young hip Mom, or even an older classically chic Mom. Nope, I'm talking full on frumpster. Not that there's anything wrong with that, anyone wrestling small child(ren) that can manage an occasional shower is just fine by me. But I'm a twenty something, very childless person going to a professional school.

Which is most of the cause of my frumpy feeling. I heard once that all the pretty, smart women become lawyers. It's so very true. I am surrounded by teeny tiny women with perfect hair, and perfect bodies clothed in perfect little skinny jeans, with little banana republic tops and j crew cardigans, mincing by in their perfect little sensibly stylish heels. I don't know how they manage to have that perfect mix of stylish but not too trendy, young but still classic and professional. On the other hand today I am waltzing around in not terribly flattering light blue jeans, a navy blue cap sleeve shirt and a really fuzzy and comfortable grey cardigan that as a result of being fuzzy and comfortable is also entirely shapeless and hangs kind of wierd. Oh, and of course trusty, beat up flip flops. It's not a horrible look if you're loading 3 kids into a minivan. Less so for the casually chic halls of law school.

I don't remember feeling quite this out of place, but I may have lost what little style I had during my summer of nothingness. Every day at about noon I would go through teh excruciating effort of getting ready for the day by swapping out yesterdays yoga pants for a new pair and choosing whatever t-shirt clashed the least and smelled the best. Occasionally I would venture out of my cozy apartment into the real world and begrudgingly put on a pair of jeans. Once every couple weeks I might feel a little flirty (or out of clean yoga pants) and dare to put on a simple skirt (and a t-shirt, I didn't want to get too crazy). After a summer of such wonderful laziness, making a cute outfit just seems so hard. Add that to my natural lack of fashion talent and a lack of funds to quickly remedy that and well, you get my Mom uniform of blah jeans, plain cotton shirt and a cardigan.

I used to kind of look forward to the simplicity that awaited me when I would get taken on by some soulless law firm. Just day after day of nice, simple suits. Of course, then I rememebered that I'm a woman and there is no such thing as simple womens clothing. Which cut of suit would I wear? Which fabric? what kind or color of shirt. Not to mention shoes, accesories and a pretty but still serious hairstyle. And if i fail at that, well that just means that I'm not professional or trustworthy. Oh boy.

Maybe we'll actually get to some scifi future soon, and I can just wear jumpsuits? I like clothes, I think they can be fun, but if I can't wear what I really want without feeling awkward, it would be nice if what I'm supposed to wear was easy to figure out.