What Not to Wear

Recently I've been thinking a lot about clothing and fashion and looking generally well put-together. (Could you tell from the last few posts?) The topic has been occupying my mind, I think, because I'm now moving into a new phase of style, one I described to my friend Amy as "Whatever's inexpensive, will survive spit-up stains, and takes less than a minute to throw on in the morning."

I've always been someone who thinks about what to wear, but not always with the greatest results. You can blame my affinity for neon and Spandex at the tender age of nine on the influence of the 1980s, but the rest of my outfits are not so easy to explain. Let's recap:

Here I'm in the ninth grade, sitting with Jenny and Clara and wearing my favorite jean cutoff shorts--probably for the fifth time that week.

This picture was taken at a party in twelfth grade, wearing a light pink gingham stretch dress from J. Crew that I thought was so sophisticated. I remember how much Ashley, Maria and I loved this picture of the three of us, but I can't remember why exactly.

Sophomore year of college, on spring break in the Dominican Republic

Here's where things get truly questionable. I'm wearing khaki clamdiggers with a baby pink cardigan?!? And let's not even talk about those black Steve Madden slides everyone was wearing. By the way, I cut out Molly and Amy out of this picture in order to protect our friendships, but let me assure you that they were sporting very similar outfits.

Also sophomore year of college...with Julie...don't we look like we are going to a costume party dressed as mermaids? Too bad we were going instead to a frat party, and those were not costumes.

Junior year ushered in a new era of style: all pink, all the time.

Molly and I used to sing karaoke in her room during our senior year at Michigan; I lived in this long gray sweater throughout the winter of 2001-2002, despite my roommates begging me to please wear an actual parka now that it's below freezing here in Ann Arbor.

On my twenty-fifth birthday, I cleaned up quite nicely...except that I distinctly recall taking off my banana-leaf necklace before this picture was taken because the bulbous beads kept catching in my hair. Yes, the necklace was made of BANANA LEAVES.

A few months later, I met a guy who'd have a large influence on my looks from that point onward:

Maybe a little too much influence?

Hey, at least I didn't wear a pink wedding dress.