Friday, December 16, 2005

Experimental Fashion Friday

My office has a corporate casual dress code that aggravates my pinstripe allergy and fuels my aversion to garments requiring ironing and dry cleaning. Perhaps it’s because I’m a temp, perhaps it’s because I never want to be mistaken for your typical office drone, perhaps its because the rules of workplace dress are, in my opinion, kind of ridiculous and passé, but the implicit stiffness of corporate attire provokes my fashion rebelliousness.

Since the company I work for hasn’t even adopted “Casual Friday” as a reprieve from the inanity of A-line skirts and cable-knit sweaters, I’ve implemented my own weekly fashion recess. Deeming the last workday of the week “Experimental Fashion Friday,” I have begun to integrate funky items that have no conventional role in the corporate uniform into my Friday ensembles with the hope of creating looks that are both adventurous and felicitous to cubicle servitude. About 5 or 6 experimental ensembles have been pulled together (usually on Friday morning with about ten minutes to catch the crosstown bus) with mixed results. Truth be told, there have been a few more hideous, clashy misses than visionary, trendsetting moments, including “The Purple Outfit,” an eyesore-inspiring combination of a hyperpatterned green and purple lycra dress, a purple velvet blazer and mahogany (purple enough to matchy-match) knee-high boots. The Eggplant Overkill was the first official outfit in the EFF repertoire and even in my most hung over future EFF moments, it will be difficult to top.

I am going to try and document future Experimental Fashion Friday ensembles here on Collections are Dangerous. Feel free to let me know what you think. Success or miserable failure? Either way, be sure I’m having a hell of a lot more fun in whatever freakish combo I’m sporting than I would be in a fucking button-down:

friday hat 1

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Huh, guess you don't like the cableknit/button down combo I'm wearing today.

Signed,
Co-worker

Stacia Jones said...

Since Mama Jones hasn't yet figured out how to use the comments board, I figured I'd post her loving yet expectedly honest (brutal) email response to her daughter's recent fashion choices:

i happen to think that your temple outfit was very pretty.....exactly what corporate is looking for...however, that last outfit was hideous....scared me...you can do so much better...individually the pieces are nice but together not so good...try again...even your mom dresses hipper than that....even when i go to temple, ha, ha....but no matter what, you are always gawgeous to me....