Who Are You?

I know you have asked this question a few times in your life when you are shopping for clothes.
am I "thrift" shop?  Am I Gucci? Am I Prada? Or am I me?

My daughter told me that some designers are designing expensive clothes without their obvious name brand labels or designs. I guess only the elitists would know what you are wearing.

I don't like to define myself by name brands; although, I do buy some obvious designer brands and my family gives me noted brands, even though
it makes me feel uncomfortable to "wear" a definition of whom I "might" be.

Wearing expensive name brand items generally says, " I have money. I am discriminating."
Or "get lost;" unless, you are wearing the same thing I am wearing.

It does make me laugh considering my profile quote of one of my favorite saying from Shakespeare:

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: 

They have their exits and their entrances; And one woman in her time

plays many parts...." 

I think some people are uncomfortable being who they are and wear nothing BUT "name brands" because they want the world to see them as someone or something else.

A friend, years ago, told me that while shopping at a department store, she was upset that the sales clerk ignored her. She felt the sales clerk probably thought she could not afford to buy clothes in their department.
She should feel so lucky, I said. I deliberately dress down
JUST to keep the sales person "away" from me.

I am so, not into name brands items. I could wear the same dress every day as long as it made "me" look good, instead of the designer.

I remember a cashier telling me that she liked my purse.
It took me awhile to figure out why she NEVER complimented me on any of the
other purses. Naturally, she recognized the name brand. All my other non-descriptive purses had no obvious brand. They were shunned by society, although, possibly better made.

People walking down the street are aware of how others see them. I am not one of them.
My mother was into fashion and would tell me what to wear. She was the one who wanted others to see me as she wanted them to see me.  I did not have to think about what to wear. I got up, threw it on, went to school.

My mother looked at New York and European fashion magazines for ideas. It took a full year before those same fashions
came to my part of the woods, but that did not stop my mother from having some woodland's seamstress copy the dress right out of the magazine.

Being in style, gave me no confidence because everyone around me had no clue what people in New York were wearing.
At my "all women's college, they pointed and laughed at me; especially when I started wearing Maxi skirts a year before it was fashionable on campus.
A year later, the campus modeling squad started wearing the Maxi. No one laughed at them.

At the time I was being mocked, I told myself that "somewhere" in the world I was in fashion. I could walk with my head up high...although it was a strain, considering, it was "one more distraction" in my already stressful college life.

Most people living in the public eye, go through life "trying on" different comfort zones of acceptability, to the world.  It is just a part of life.

Maybe people think that wearing famous designer "uniforms" make them feel "more" accepted by society. It would also validate designers if more people "lock stepped" in uniform to their rules for acceptability.

My fashionable conscious daughters would tell me that I am not always "lock stepping" in fashion, "Mom, that dress went out of style last year."
I say, "Yes, But fashion trends come back every 20 years. I am ahead of
the trend by 19 years," and no one seems to notice, as they are not
pointing and laughing at me.

Knowing that when I was "ahead" of the trend by just "one year," the campus girls made a "point" to let me know it was not acceptable.
Of course, I have my way of getting even with them. I let them know I have no clue "who" they are wearing: that alone could bring on a heart attack.

My advice to my daughters: It is better to "save" their money
than spend it on designer clothes when it comes to their comfort zone in society.
The savings will bring the comfort; as the other, is only a facade. 

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players..." 

Shakespeare