My Worst Outfit Ever Recorded

This week the women of GenFab™ are doing a blog hop on the topic: Fashion Disasters. Generation Fabulous is a dynamic group of female midlife bloggers who are setting this world on fire. The women of GenFab are the voices of midlife today. Scroll down if you just want to see the awful pictures.

Last week I took the kids ice skating at an indoor rink.  It’s fashionable to go to one of the seasonal outdoor rinks that are installed here in SoCal during the winter holidays, but for some reason last year I took them to a place called Iceoplex, where kids play hockey and champion figure skaters are bred.  Their winter holiday special is a reduced price for skating and it includes skate rental, plus there are actual skating instructors about, so I was able to ask them for tips on teaching my little boys how to get started.

This year it was even better, because they have grown a lot in 12 months, and their physical sureness has increased, so after a bit of wobbling, they both got the hang of skating again, and were gliding about on the ice like naturals.  Young, gawky naturals, but at least I didn’t have to hold on to them the whole time.

This freedom left me available to skate a little bit by myself.  At one point I was watching the other adults – young and seasoned – skating around me and noting their fashions.  The younger girls wore leggings and cute jackets and earmuffs, or not, and fashionable gloves.  I thought they looked adorable, and I compared their outfits to my own:  baggy jeans, fleece overcoat matted with my blonde hairs, scarf, Notre Dame beanie, puffy old man gloves.  Designed to achieve the optimal warmth/flexibility ratio.  I chuckled to myself and I felt good that I didn’t care how I looked.  Once this thought passed through my brain I was instantly transported back to high school, when my friends and I would go to the local high school’s hockey games as social functions, and the optimal warmth/fashion ratio was of paramount important.  The right combination of ear warmth vs. hair-sprayed bangs height.  The right tightness of jeans, and hang of the jacket.  We were less concerned about being warm than looking cool.

Sigh.  I’m so happy to be free of those concerns now.  Still, when I look back on some of my fashion choices, I cringe a little.  Here, internet, is where I will bare a disaster from the early 90’s that I was happy to let live in the past forever, unseen by everyone who doesn’t have a copy of this picture:

That’s me in there, third from the right.  I’m the cutest boy in this photo.  The funniest thing about it now is that I was so proud of it.  I called it “Snow White and the Seven Domers” and I mailed a copy to everyone in it.  Except Snow White.

The only thing I know for sure about this outfit is that I chose it for maximum comfort.  Drinking a beer in every country at EPCOT center with a large group of male Notre Dame graduates  is a daunting task.  I don’t remember how far I made it through that challenge, but I do remember knowing I would need comfortable shoes and some protection from the sun.  Again, it was the early 90’s, and I had recently graduated from Notre Dame, where the “going out” outfit of choice consisted of black jeans, ankle boots, and a chambray shirt from The Gap, paired with Big Hair.

It was the early 90’s.  Fashion wonderland in South Bend, IN.

I’d like to say I’ve come a long way since then.  For the most part I feel like I have.  I tend to err on the side of caution, dressing rather plainly with pops of color and interest here and there. But I’m sure someone out there will snap a photo of me wearing something utterly inexplicable – except now, Lord help us, those pictures will show up on the internet against my will.