A Rainbow Treat: Putting the Fun in Fashion

After grading all weekend and just generally being stressed out lately, yesterday I was finally able to at least temporarily relax (even though I still had to go to work and teach two classes).


I just got this rainbow striped sweater in the mail from Darla at The Vintage Zoo (aka zoo_gal on flickr and a regular over at Wardrobe_Remix) and wanted desperately to wear it.

Monday was the perfect opportunity. Fall came a-knockin'. Seriously. Temperatures dropped significantly, and it was rainy and windy and gray. Everyone else I saw was wearing grays and dark blues to match the supposedly dreary weather, but I was excited and I wanted my outfit to show it.


It was only after I'd gotten dressed and taken photos that I realized I not only felt a childlike joy, but I looked it, too. I looked like a pop culture icon of my 1980s childhood: Rainbow Brite or Punky Brewster, perhaps. All I needed was the hairdo. Pigtails or a side ponytail, anyone?














It pleased me a great deal to realize that my outfit for the day so clearly reflected my joy, my comfort, and my own past--or at least a small fraction of it. Fashion, after all, needn't be such a serious business. It's something I spend a lot of time and effort and money on, so it can sometimes be easy to forget that, to focus instead on looking appropriate or looking attractive or looking adult. There are certainly serious issues tied up in the realm of fashion, issues that are important to consider and discuss, but if that's all we see, we're not doing fashion right. We're not getting the most out of it. We're missing the fun.

Well, yesterday at least, I had the fun. And everyone could see it.


So here's to childlike excitement and childhood inspiration! May we never forget the joys of looking like, acting like, and, most importantly, feeling like children from time to time.