Overdressed?!

It would appear I overdress.  I realised this when I tried to dress up a bit for a night out- a night in a local wine bar.  You would think this should be easy, but given my every day get up is fairly dressy it is definitely not easy. You'd think I had always known I overdress, but apparently I don't realise this.  Like the time I accidentally dressed as an extra from Game of Thrones to my friends Open House Art exhibtion (it looked like I was about to start a fire ritual) or when I regularly wear large skirts and high heels to play in the park with my kids, and give everyone a good flash of my knickers or fall over on my face.

However, I realised it was a thing when my friend (yes still at the age 30 something) rang me up to check in with me on my outfit for the wine bar in town, the realisation is that perhaps I needed to be wearing something more than what I was currently wearing. So that means what for me??!  Bigger heels, fancier fabric, do my hair up even bigger.... a ball gown?! Should I get the Game of Thrones dress out again, or perhaps add the pipe?  In the past there was some sort of societal rules in place almost for how you should dress, an etiquette guide as it were. I'm not saying this is a good thing (I would probably ignore them anyway!!), but now there are fewer rules but it can feel there can be just as much judgement - every women's magazine will show you that, or the comments the unthinking mother in the playground makes about your "unique" style of dressing, and then sniggers to her friend as she walks away.

So I hauled out every dress in my wardrobe, eventually settling on less is more tactic and wore a black 1950s pencil dress.   I thought more dressy than usual but not too over the top. Wrong.  I stepped through the door, to be greeted with "Bit much for Colchester innit?" Shit. I was dressed as a fucking peacock (literally) in the local pub last week and no one batted an eyelid on entry so what the actual fuck was up with this dress?  So smile, little laugh "oh you know never bad to over dress you never know where the night will take you. Ha ha".  Yeah really fucking funny- the night is taking me to my bed at 11 that's all the babysitter can do.  So I carried on and headed to the bar, couple of side glances (probably imagining it) and a comment from my friend of "Oh are you headed out after as well?" Er?! Wait? Hang on- you're the reason I dressed up a bit in the first place!

Lesson I learnt from this is one I should have remembered from years of enjoying expressing myself through my clothes (be that vintage or whatever style I have worn over the years), it is a lesson I try and convey in nearly every blog post, to every customer I sell to, at every event I arrange, to my friends and most importantly to my children- the lesson is in fact very blunt.

Fuck it. (to be clear I don't use the word fuck when conveying this to my kids obviously!)

Here's to the over and under dressing over the years!

Absolutely just fuck it.  You dress to please no one but yourself, some may love your style, some my hate it, some may mock it, most will not even care or notice and the perceived judgement is in your mind, you may be over dressed, you may be under dressed, you may not care what you wear.  The answer is still most emphatically fuck it.  You must dress to feel good about yourself, dress for yourself, be yourself- so in the end who cares and enjoy your flamboyance, or your under stated self, or your sweats and scrunchie self- enjoy and just wear the god damn clothes you want.

Or put in a slightly simpler format from The Hippy Crit below....

The HippyCrit Kitty Lo herself pleases herself when she dresses and simultaneously fixes bikes!!

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