Looks Before Comfort

For years I have been trying to impress upon my girls my tried-and true fashion mantra – looks before comfort.  It’s a mantra that I adopted sometime during college when it was the norm to trudge along to fraternity parties through several feet of snow in sub-zero temperatures wearing a mini-skirt and heels.

I’m much better about dressing for the weather now, but still, there is nothing comfortable about high heels, tight jeans, and many other clothing options that are popular today.  Still, I pride myself in being somewhat fashionable and so will continue to wear them, despite my preference for exercise attire and bare feet.

To my dismay, my 11-year-old daughter, Natalie, has not bought into my teachings.  She (gasp) wants to be comfortable and, to date, has rejected any clothing item that does not fit within her extremely rigid definition of comfort.  Her rejections include any pants with a zipper, any top with a collar or elastic or gathered stitching, almost all shoes, tights and most socks.

Clearly, dressing Natalie is pretty much a nightmare.  For years now, she has worn a daily uniform of knit yoga pants, a knit crew-neck t-shirt, ankle socks (but only a specific kind without a toe seam) and sneakers.  Sometimes she goes really crazy and wears a top with a graphic on the front instead of her preferred solid colored top.

I’ll be honest – her daily attire drives me a little crazy.  Her outfits are just so…boring.  Her comfort clothing reminds me of what a little old lady might wear in a nursing home.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that solid-color knit pants & tops and comfortable socks are what my great-aunts did wear in the nursing home.

With Natalie’s strict restrictions on attire, you can imagine what an ordeal it is to get her dressed for church or other dressy-up event.  “Ordeal” is an understatement.  It’s like doing time.  Everything is too itchy, too tight, too loose, too small, too big, too stretchy, too hot.  In order for Natalie to wear a dress, she has to have comfortable shorts and a t-shirt underneath and to tolerate dress shoes, she pairs them with gym socks.  Heaven forbid I try to do anything with her hair.

Really, I had all but given up on the idea that Natalie might one day wear cute, trendy clothing.  I decided she was a hopeless case and I might as well focus my shopping energy on Emily, who is a little more tolerant of such things as fabric textures, seams and embellishments.

But then, out of the blue, Natalie came to me and asked me if I would take her shopping to buy a pair of jeans.  Interesting.  But I know my daughter and I was reluctant to waste good money on a whim.

“Natalie, you hate jeans.  The last time I bought you jeans, you were six, and I ended up giving them away with the tags still on them.”

“This time will be different,” Natalie responded.  “This time I’ll wear them.”

Hmmm.  What had changed, I wondered.  Using my most sophisticated lawyerly probing techniques, I eventually got to the not-so-surprising bottom of her unusual request: Peer pressure.  Apparently, the talk around the 5th grade is that knit pants are for babies.

And old ladies, I wanted to interject.  I resisted.

“How about this,” I suggested.  “I’ll buy you one pair of jeans and you can try them out.  If you can get through the day with your sanity intact (and mine!), we’ll buy more.”

She agreed.  So that next weekend, we indulged in one of my favorite pastimes, shopping, and I endured one of my least favorite pastimes, helping Natalie try on clothing.  It was every bit the nightmare I had expected, but in the end, she selected a pair of jeans that she could stand touching her skin for more than two minutes.
The next day she put on her new jeans and for a full 30 seconds stood there happily enjoying her new look. 

And then all hell broke loose.  They were stiff and uncomfortable and tight in the legs and loose around the waist.  She started writhing around like she was having some kind of seizure as she demonstrated to me that she could not walk.  I stared at my daughter, shook my head and sighed. 

“Natalie, you’ve been wearing knit clothing for eleven years.  Of course, the jeans are going to feel a little bit different.”  Amidst her whining and complaining, I urged her to give the jeans a chance.  “Just an hour or so.  Then you can put them in the Good Will pile if you really must.”

She would only agree to it if I pinned up all excess fabric around her waist with giant industrial-sized safety pins.  Not a real attractive look by itself, but thankfully, her knit top covered up the hardware.

Within the hour, the complaining had subsided and by the end of the day, she had forgotten about all the comfort issues with her new jeans.  When she wore them to school the next day and was treated to compliments from almost every girl in her class, the deal was sealed.  Natalie is now officially a jeans-wearer.
She may never subscribe to my “looks before comfort” mantra.  I’m okay with that; one person per family crazy enough to wear a mini-skirt and heels in a snowstorm is probably enough.  But my girl now wears one trendy article of clothing on a regular basis!  

That’s enough for me.