Men are so lucky. Their clothes are so much easier than ours. Always have been, always will be.
Dressing for business as a woman in the seventies/early eighties was much easier than it is now. We bought five or six suits from Brooks Brothers or Paul Stuart. If you didn’t need it to be a suit day, you would wear the skirt from one of the suits with a round collar, cable knit sweater, also from Paul Stuart or Brooks Brothers. Paul Stuart was more expensive, though, and I didn’t buy one of their suits until I was a VP at the United Way. I think it was $400, but I’m not sure. My favorite was the dark gray pin stripe. That was my ‘wear it on important meeting days’ suit. And we bought silk blouses, or men’s oxford shirts in women’s sizes. Lots of them. The silk blouses often had silk ‘ties’ that were sometimes attached so you never misplaced them. They were tied in a bow. If you were a woman on the rise, you bought a soft leather man’s briefcase (they didn’t have women’s bags like they do now). We bought either black or brown. I always bought black. Even then I tended toward black unless I could find something darker. Then we carried a smaller shoulder bag as well with the wallet, etc in it. Black or brown pumps (short ones), and we were on your way. Easy.
In the seventies, when I was fabulous at the United Way, a girlfriend and I wore men’s ties with our oxford shirts and suits. We knotted them like men do. We looked great. I used to ‘borrow’ the ties from whatever boyfriend I had at the time. One of my boyfriends was a very successful lawyer. He had Hermes ties, and I liked those the best. The colors worked so well with my suit colors. The only issue was that there was always a really long end (the smaller end that sits behind the tie) so the length of the tie wasn’t so long in the front. Sometimes I would just cut it off, especially if I’d broken up with the boyfriend and he hadn’t asked for the tie back. If he broke up with me (thanks a lot Mike Gibbons, you broke my heart), I for sure cut the end off. Mike Gibbons regretted breaking up with me and came back, but I was cool and told him “too little too late, Mike Gibbons,” just in case you were wondering.
Now-a-days anything goes, and I never know what to wear. I never look right. I’m still so stuck in the past in my clothing. And, now that I live in LA and everyone dresses so cheerfully, I’m really out of place. At least New Yorkers still recognize the beauty of black. I yearn for the days of knowing what to wear and everyone wearing basically the same thing. It occurs to me as I re-read this that the word ‘yearn’ should be reserved for things like world peace and your grandmother’s return from the dead, but I’m using it here anyway.
I am a leader, not a follower and I keep waiting for people to follow my black and gray dress code at work but it’s not happening. I might do a marketing campaign and put out to the business universe that any woman wearing anything other than black, gray or navy is a ‘ho. Might work. On the other hand, maybe I should just realize that I’m very busy and don’t have time to figure this out. The seventies are gone. No one wants to go to Barry Manilow with me. And no one wants to wear cut off men’s ties to work with soft leather men’s briefcases.
But just know all you fabulous women in business dressers out there, it was easier back when, and you would save a ton of money and be able to retire earlier, and your feet wouldn’t hurt, and you wouldn’t have to worry about what underwear to wear so it won’t show, and furthermore, you might just be known more for what comes out of your mouth than what you wore when you said it. Just kidding on the last part. I swear. I sound so bitter!
So, wear what you want. Make your statements and I will carry on with my black, gray and navy. Alas yet again.
