Mama and Fashion

I don’t usually write about fashion. I have never cared much about it. I remember my mother-in-law once asking me “is that what they’re wearing?” I simply told her that it was what I was wearing. Poor Mama, she never complained about me, but I know she wanted a daughter-in-law who could talk about things like designer shoes, fashionable skirt lengths, and other aspects of popular fashion and culture. Instead, she was stuck with me, in tee shirts, dungarees, and sneakers. Not only didn’t I have a regular weekly appointment at the beauty parlor, I didn’t even have a regular hairdresser!

But sometimes I wonder what she would make of today’s fashion. She took in stride the outfits her grandchildren wore. She would never have considered wearing a mini skirt herself, but she did believe in following fashion, so didn’t mind when her granddaughter did. After all, she wore it with high heels, and makeup, and her hair was professionally done!

Mama was less understanding of the fashion of men with long hair. She wasn’t too bothered by it when the boys were still in school, but once they graduated, she wondered how they would ever get jobs with that hair. I wonder, though, what she would think of the current men’s hair styles. The Mohawk and the various Faux-Hawks would likely have amused her, but I can almost hear her laughing at the man bun. She didn’t understand why girls would settle for a pony tail; why in the world would a boy want to do that, never mind a man!

But the one fashion she would not have understood is the beanie craze. The concept of a style that would call for a male to ignore the rule doffing your hat when you entered a house would have shaken her well-ordered world. Following fashion may be important, but good manners take precedence. Neither a “bad hair day” or a desire to be fashionable would have excused that behavior.

Even in her nineties, Mama was never accused of being old fashioned. I wonder when “being real” took precedence over being polite. When did we as a society throw out the manners that help society function? I’m not saying that anyone wearing a beanie has no manners; just that sometimes, what you wear says more about you than you think, and maybe, just maybe, you don’t dress the same way for a job interview (or a visit to grandma) as you do to spend Saturday night at the bar with your friends.