Today’s question comes from my good e-friend Amanda (also known as the world’s most amazingly in-depth commenter; everyone should be so lucky as to have an Amanda to comment on their blogs).

Q: What is your favorite outfit to wear? Is there a reason you like it so much?

A: My favourite outfit to wear is a pair of jeans and a T shirt. I like it so much because it is easy, comfortable, and layerable.

What I mean by “easy” is that I have lots of T shirts and several pairs of jeans, so on any given morning I can find some combination that suits my needs (my needs being something clean-looking and more or less odor-free).

What I mean by “comfortable” is that the T shirts don’t cling to my fat rolls when I’m sitting down, and I like that in a shirt.

What I mean by “layerable” is that I can start with a pair of thermal underwear and a T shirt…

…add a pair of jeans…

…throw on a hoodie over my T shirt…

…and finish it off with a coat, a scarf, a toque (beanie), and mittens…

…and I’m set for the day.

I do not dress professionally for school because I do not care to, and also, because I’m scared. I hate being cold (I live in the wrong country, by the way). My biggest wardrobe anxiety is that I will leave the house under-dressed for the day’s cold, and I will have to suffer the chill the whole time I’m at school. I have a ten minute walk from my vehicle to my classrooms every day, and being exposed to the elements like that here in Canada makes survival my number one priority. Although I’m trying to start dressing more like a grown-up and less like a teenager, I still haven’t found a way to work that style into a college student’s life.

So on the days that I don’t have school, and the only time I spend outside is from my house to my truck and my truck to the door of whatever business I am running errands at that day…that’s when I try to step my outfits up a notch (however tiny and pathetic that step may be). But so far I haven’t been brave enough to go to school without donning a good, thick hoodie I can shove my hands into for warmth on my way through the parking lot.

And since I’m moving onward and upward with trying to look more like a woman and less like a sloppy-joe teenager with greasy hair and a fear of underwire bras (for reals, I never wore my first underwire until I was a freshman in college. They terrified me. They still do—how do they even work? {And if they are as successful as everyone claims, why hasn’t anyone invented underwire underwear? Not only is the phrase delicious to say, but just think of all the saggy bottoms that could benefit from some extra support down there! Wearing underwire underwear would be every bit as unnatural as clamping wire under one’s breasts, don’t you think?}), here’s what I came up with for today:

I thought I liked this outfit when I put it together, but looking back at it now (as with the Sun Devil disaster from the other day), meh, not so much. I kind of look six months pregnant in this shirt. I am not six months pregnant. I am not even one month pregnant. Sad.

Anyway, the shirt: thrift store. The sweater: Roots™. The jeans: BKE™. The shoes: Payless™ circa 2005. Hair clip: Vendor on Canal Street in New York circa 2006. The necklace: leftover from my wedding circa 2007.

This getup would have looked better with my darker pair of jeans, but those jeans are too long to wear with flats, on account of whenever I find a store that sells long jeans, I go crazy with the extra-extra-long inseams because it’s such a rare occasion, and also JUST BECAUSE I CAN, but then it’s annoying because the jeans only work with tall shoes, and I have lots of dress heels, but I’m too shy to wear them with jeans, and so I can only wear my long jeans with tall boots and I only have one pair of those, so, disaster.

The point is, I should’ve gotten my dark jeans in the length two inches shorter, but even then, this outfit probably couldn’t have been salvaged.

The other point is, Amanda, et al: don’t take fashion advice from me.

Ever.

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