Fashion - What Am I Missing?

Okay, there are apparently a whole lot of girlie genes that I missed out on when I was being crafted. I am not big into clothes (unless you're talking costumes, or period clothing). I don't like pink (though you will see my little redheads sporting it quite a bit, since it looks completely adorable on them, and I actually wear more of it than I used to). I don't wear makeup. My favorite jewelry is not diamonds in gold or platinum from a known jeweler name - it is metal or bone or horn handcrafted by the likes of MacManus or Greene or Miller (actually Heidi Bartolemy does the carving if I'm not mistaken). I don't care that "boots are back." I hate boots, unless they're necessary for trudging through the snow, or they're my Dr. Martens.

And I HATE SHOPPING.

But today I had to go. I've been wearing the same two pairs of pants and four shirts (not all at the same time, mind you) since the beginning of August. No joke. There are two reasons for this: 1) I couldn't wear my old size after having the baby so I had to get bigger pants, and 2) I wasn't able to find my regular non-maternity clothes when I started to need them because we were packing and then actually made the move to icky house and then had to move again to this house - and in all that chaos my old clothes never made it here. They are in a pod in storage somewhere and we still don't have room in the garage to move that stuff here. BAD PLANNING. Story of my life.

As if having to go clothes shopping weren't bad enough, I had to go to a place in the depths of hell known as THE MALL.

Thankfully The Bug slept through half the trip. Sweet Pea stayed home with Auntie. All I wanted was some jeans that fit, a few new long-sleeved shirts, and some comfortable but not ugly lace-up shoes.

First, I was faced with a corner of the store full of jeans that looked as if they had been worn, rolled in the mud, driven over by a bulldozer, bleached, worn some more, and then lightly hosed off. Ugly as shit. What is supposed to be appealing about this? Is this really fashion? Or is it for bored rich people who will also buy dirt-scented soap, which I'll have you know really does exist, simply so they can find out what it smells like without going outside? I weeded through the crap and did happily manage to find two pairs of jeans that did not look completely horrid which actually fit. AND, happy note here, they are the size I used to wear pre-baby! Wahoo! No wonder the pants I've been wearing since August kept falling down...

Next I turned to the shirts. I don't know if I was in a special old-lady section or what, but a sweeping glance told me that I needn't actually browse. Again, boring, old-looking, and fabrics appeared to be largely synthetic. Yuck. The tops that did appeal to me were in the Juniors section, which left me thinking that perhaps I am one of those women who doesn't know I'm not 16 anymore. I thought it best to keep my 35-year-old, breast-feeding mama body out of there lest I become depressed.

What's left? Shoes. The shoes-only store had left me with a question mark over my head about what the current style may be, and I couldn't find anything that actually felt good on my feet. Serves me right for wearing Birkenstocks for most of the past several years. Now I'll never find anything comfortable again, those fit so well! I didn't want white-white shoes, but that's what I ended up buying because they were SO comfortable. Like walking on a cloud. Ahhh.

For good measure I threw in an empire-styled corduroy jacket, but I'm not sure I'm going to keep it. So, I won't look like a fashionista, that's for sure. But at least I have some new pants that fit and shoes that are comfortable... I just hope I don't look as old as I'm starting to think I might be.

But... can anybody shed any light on this fashion thing for me? 'Cause I REALLY don't get it. Are we supposed to be able to turn a blind eye to the fact that often what is in style is undeniably hideous? Or am I simply unable to change with the times?