Erin at Dress a Day has a very nice post about dressing to avoid pain vs. dressing to experience pleasure. I don't agree with her 100%; for one thing, I don't think it's an either/or situation. It's entirely possible to dress both for enjoyment and to avoid pain. And I don't agree with her premise that avoiding discomfort always boils down to fear. I can easily think of circumstances where it's just common sense to consider social discomfort when choosing your clothing: dressing for a professional setting, for instance. And I feel a combination of pity and contempt for people who pay no attention to physical discomfort when buying shoes.
Despite my disagreements, I liked the post a lot. She had one turn of phrase that was so apt I had to stop reading and tell Georg about it immediately: "Something you really, truly love, something that gives you so much joy you don't even care if blind people cross the street to tell you it's ugly...." I would never have put it that way, but that perfectly describes how I feel about my favorite clothes. I love them so much that if Tim Gunn himself descended in a cloud of tulle and told me my outfit sucked, I'd tell him to get bent.
It's not just the flashy clothes like the polka dot dress or the Ethel dress. I also have T-shirts and pajamas that make me feel like the cat's meow. I wish I loved all my clothes that much, that I could get rid of everything that wasn't sheer joy. But then again, I guess I have to have ordinary clothes too, for yard work and so forth.
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