Foxy Lady!

When I was a teenager, one of my best friends had a black cap-sleeved t-shirt with a glitter transfer that said Foxy Lady in a very sort of 70s style script.  I have a photo of her on Harford Road wearing that shirt, possibly sporting a perm, with a really sassy look on her face. Some day I'll dig it out and scan it so her kids can enjoy it as much as I do. Even though we were 15-year old Catholic school girls, we knew that our non-uniform clothes made a statement. If she wore a Foxy Lady t-shirt then she was definitely a foxy lady (even though we didn't get the musical reference at the time). Her clothes just yelled it for the world and the 15-year old boys who didn't know a good thing when they saw it.  As a tall fat awkward teenager, I was never one who wore the attention getting clothes. My black glitter transfer shirt said, "Nature's way of saying hi" and featured a pot leaf (we didn't get that reference at the time either).

About 30 years later, so just a couple of years ago, I lost a lot of weight. On the way down the scale, I started trying to dress more fashionably, wear make-up regularly and hopefully have a look that represented how I felt inside -- f'ing great and getting better! No more mom jeans with baggy shirts, sweaters and New Balance sneakers! Time to get fashionable.  There were a few mistakes -- leggings (!?!?) a colleague said were "worse than sporting camel toe," a body hugging orange dress (not THAT bad) and a few others -- but mostly, I was developing a style that was modern and youthful without being too trendy or young (and yes, I cribbed that from a friend who is a professional stylist) and it worked for the music industry and advertising and my status in the office and outside. I invested in good pieces (on sale), designer names (on sale), a fashionable coat (on sale), boots (full retail) and Spanx and wore them well.

When I would walk to work from the subway wearing one of my put together just right outfits, I sometimes felt like strutting. God! It felt good to be dressed well and know that I looked good.  Walking down 56th Street every morning with music blasting through my ear buds, sunglasses on I often felt about 7' tall. And, I'm not above mentioning that on some days I turned heads. Not bad for an old plus-sized broad, I thought!

Even after the hammer came down and I knew the date of my last strut to work, I continued to dress the part. I think it helped me through the last few emotional weeks at work. I held my head high and wore my dresses cut low. And, when that gentleman ran up the street to catch me, fell into step and said I was beautiful and he had to talk to me and asked if he could take me to dinner, it definitely kept me going a few more days. I even said to him, "I guess you liked the swing of my skirt." A few nights later I was out with friends after one of my last days of work. When a 30'ish personal trainer tried to pick me up (a funny story best reserved for another post) I mentally thanked Michael Kors for that fantastic snake-print pencil skirt and Steve Madden for the perfect boots that gave me the confidence to look big-dumb-drunk-but-very-handsome guy squarely in his baby blues and turn him down*.

Now I've been out of work for a full week. I haven't put on a dress or a skirt. I've worn jeans and Allstars and unironic t-shirts and only put on make-up a couple of days. It's nice to take a break from always being "on" but I don't want this to be the start of a slide into sloppy Mommy oblivion. That might lead to depression and....God forbid... Land's End!  I just need a little time to figure it out. Get comfortable with this interim life and then when the time is right, I'll break out the Calvin Klein geometric print shift dress, knee high black boots, slap on thick eyeliner and frosty pink lipstick and hopefully feel like my old friend, the Foxy Lady, again.

* This is not actually how I turned him down but the effect was the same.