I wrote this post last week and forgot to post it. Enjoy!
I have always enjoyed the chance to play dress up. Costumes, fabric scraps, my mom’s cast offs, my older sisters’ makeup, you name it, and I probably dressed up in it. We have pictures of me heading up the road in my mother’s heels and my diaper. In our basement were two laundry hampers full of old costumes and scraps of unused fabric, and every sleepover included playing in “the scraps.” Although I have outgrown playing with barbies and my brothers’ GI Joes, I never seem to have grown out of playing dress up. Well into high school, my closest friends would come over and we’d still pull out “the scraps” and come up with ridiculous outfits, although we didn’t pretend that we were orphaned princesses running away from arranged marriages to live with gypsies/marry the stable boy/take care of other orphans.
Half the fun of any play I’ve ever been in was dressing up and finding the perfect hairstyle, accessories, and nuance of makeup to complete “the look.” Anyone who has ever lived with me can attest that getting ready in the morning for me is nearly always another game of dress up. What “look” can I complete today? From super classy to punk, from conservative to hippie, I am nearly always sliding among styles from day to day. I take pride in my ability to put together a complete and authentic look in a limited amount of time from the resources at hand.
Having a steady, professional job has, however, brought an element of boredom to the game. I’m dressing up as nearly the same thing everyday: a teacher. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some fun subtly experimenting with that one, too. I tend to drift along the continuum between the ultra-conservative teacher look (a tight bun, a dark-colored sweater, and my great-grandmother’s pearls) and the slightly nutty bohemian teacher who teaches her students to chain themselves to trees and wears pirate earrings. But, as much as I try to spice things up, there’s only so much I can do when playing the role of “teacher” for the hundredth day straight.
…Which is probably why I so enthusiastically embrace dress-up days at school. Once a year my school has “Blast From The Past Day,” and students and teachers can dress up from any decade from the 50s to the 80s. Last year, I went with the idea suggested by my long, straight hair and wore flowing skirts and a blouse and sandals and drew a peace sign on my check with eye-liner. This year, I was a little puzzled. I sat on my couch last night trying to figure out what to do. The long straight hair has been chopped off; I have boys in my classes with longer hair than mine. So it must be time to update my “look” by a few decades. Which put me square in the 80s. In about half an hour of borrowing and exploring the depths of my own closet, I suddenly had an outfit. Oversized shirt (white with colored stripes and bright orange accents) tied at the natural waist with a hot pink undershirt, black pencil skirt pulled up to the natural waist, gray leggings (I wanted something brighter but was constrained by the limits of what I already owned or could borrow from neighbors), shoes and bright red socks took care of clothing. Large, wooden hoops I purchased at a dollars store a year ago and a huge, tacky necklace purloined from my grandmother’s jewelry box for a gypsy costume a few years ago took care of accessories. Then came the most fun parts. Blue and pink eye shadow, lots of it. Bright blue eyeliner and hot pink lipstick. And, last of all, the hair. With the assistance of some very very sticky stuff, I now have a four inch hawk.
