Can you say a bit about how your mother’s body and style has been passed down to you or not?
My mother loves, loves, LOVES wearing bright, wild, shocking things.
She even says that she purposefully chooses items to give people a [colour] shock, and to jolt them out of their day. She’s like an Iris Apfel, but a little more toned down.
She happily wears neon green shirts even though I think it is an unflattering colour on her skin, but she just loves shocking people with her clothing.
She hates wearing dull, neutral, boring, chic / classic shades or colours, and that’s why the shirt I bought her was a great gift.
She loves bright colours and mixing prints, and I have obtained that style trait from her as well, evidenced by this bright pink silk shell:
When she was a younger mother handling rowdy tots, she had all of her clothes handmade by a tailor.
Everything fit her to a T, but then she went into a slight bout of depression due to her lack of career advancement and gained weight that she never ended up losing. She wistfully looks at everything in the closet and wishes she could fit into it again.
Recently, I tried to wear her clothes but only if I lost 10 lbs, would I be able to zip up anything across my ribcage as I am wider than she was when she was my age. She was much smaller, skinnier and thinner even after 3 kids than I am now, after one child and in stretchy dresses.
Nevertheless, I have always understood the importance of tailoring for the perfect fit, and that’s why I spend on it.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
The entire series can be found here: Women in Clothes Style & Fashion Survey
11 Comments
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Sherry of Save. Spend. Splurge.
I love that the two of you inspire each other in different ways. 🙂
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Cassie
My body is a cross between my mother and my father. My mom is short and voluptuous, while my dad is on the slender side, so I ended up with a curvier petite figure. Mom was very practical in her clothing choices, and following fashion trends was a luxury we couldn’t afford when I was younger. If we needed to go to town she wore whatever she happened to be wearing that day, and didn’t bother paying any mind to what anyone thought about that. Makeup bothered her skin, so she went makeup free as well. I found that helpful, because I never grew up feeling like I had to paint on a different face before leaving the house. Even in my blog photos I’m usually only wearing a slick of mascara or occasionally a little tinted lip balm. Even though she struggles with body image issues, some of the actions she took helped to bolster my confidence as I got older. I don’t think she realized that.
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Xin
My mom was much smaller at my age than I am now, ha! I was able to co-opt some of her old clothes when I was a teenager, though.
I didn’t end up learning great shopping habits from my mom: She was definitely more a “only if it’s on sale” shopper with a large discount being able to justify a purchase that might not have suited very well otherwise. I’ve broken away from that shopping mindset now, which manages to be better for both my closet and my wallet, I think.
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Sherry of Save. Spend. Splurge.
My mother is very very much like that, but then she goes into the extreme where she will buy the most expensive pieces without a single thought.
She actually used to find old gloves on the ground, take them home, WASH THEM AND WEAR THEM. I mean that’s not a terrible in and of itself, but if she wanted warm gloves, she could just have asked! I would have bought some for her.
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Kathy
As a teenager, I shared clothes with my mom. We had to because we were pretty poor and did it to make our wardrobes look larger. Knowing that back then our clothes came from K-Mart, I unfortunately turned the other direction as and adult and tend to buy things much more expensive than she ever would, even as her finances improved. In fact, after she and my step-father built a million dollar real estate portfolio, she still shopped at Goodwill and thrift stores. That is something I never do. I don’t say that as a snob (hopefully) but rather as one who is so grateful that I’m financially secure enough not to have to do that.. Body wise, we are different as well in that my mom is almost skeletal thin and I struggle with always needing to lose weight.
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Sherry of Save. Spend. Splurge.
You just can’t get rid of that scarcity mentality I guess. My mother is the same way. I spent so much on a shirt for her and she couldn’t believe I did it because she would never pay that much. She doesn’t shop secondhand because she has a thing about (mental) fleas and bugs in clothes.
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Revanche @ A Gai Shan Life
I’m an overgrown monster compared to my mom at the same age. 🙂 At 17, I tried her engagement dress from when she was what, 27? and I couldn’t fit it! I was too tall and too wide around, if you can believe that, considering the American sizes that I normally wear. She never managed to convince me to obtain any sense of age-appropriate style while growing up, and I’m still trying to figure it out now. Someday I’ll have it 😉
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Sherry of Save. Spend. Splurge.
As for the size thing, my mother was a STICK compared to me at the same age, and that was after she had all of us children O_o
I could barely zip up the ribcage of a dress of hers without being at least 20 pounds lighter… Now after Baby Bun? Forget it. I’m a size 6, with a size 4 body and I don’t care.
I can help 🙂 Email me! xoxo
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Toni
Hmm, my mom and I are tall (as is my sister), so we always both related to the appreciation of nice, long pants, dresses, sleeves, etc…and the frustration of trying to find them. She was always more athletically built than I am. Until my late 20s I was always very skinny, but I’ve put on weight in recent years. (Desk job, slowing metabolism, and eating for comfort.). My mom has multiple closets filled with (inexpensive) clothes though and I wouldn’t say our styles overlap much other than our love of jeans. I think we’ve both had our fair shares of hits & misses when experimenting with new looks. But when I think about this topic, I think about how much she LOVED buying us clothes and it brought her joy to do so, yet we couldn’t afford much and she wished she could do more. When I got a job in high school, it was primarily to buy myself name brand clothes which I’d never really had before. But she’s a great enabler and I love her for it. She usually makes me feel better when I’m expressing buyer’s remorse for spending too much. :b Conversely, my interest in minimalism/capsule wardrobes/decluttering has motivated her to start downsizing…a little.