the fashionable pirate?

On the 25th day of Christmas, my mama gave to meeee: 1 date with an image consultant.

Yes. An Image Consultant.

Now, before I start getting distressed email...what? image consultant? whatever for? you are fabulous, you don't need to change a thing!

I totally agree, that is all true. I don't need to change...but it sure would be nice to look good. Most of the time I may feel really good, but I don't think I look good all the time. I feel kind of like a shlump.

I'd say my "look" (if you could call it that) is Urban Street Mom Who Doesn't Care. Hopelessly Casual. Refugee from a Gap Sale. This condition is not helped by my career choice: I am a professional woman, I work in consultancy, I'm an engineer. Engineers and consultants are notoriously fashion challenged. For me, fashion challenged = (jeans + t-shirt + Keens) x infinity.

I can hear all the guys out there saying, what's wrong with that? Which sorta illustrates my point exactly.

Somewhere around the time I had my babies, "fashion" became less of a concern. It's recently dawned on me that I don't need to give up on looking good. I'm in the prime of my life, I'm in the best shape I've ever been - so why do I go around looking like I don't care?

I am more than that!

So. An image consultant. Thanks, Mom!

The first date with the image consultant was jarring. I met her in my office. I was wearing some of my better jeans, and a cashmere sweater, and (of course) Keens.

I'm shocked when she swans in looking glamourous and smelling fabulous. She is Russian. I had pictured someone blonde, probably overweight, probably wearing too much make up.

Way back when I lived in Europe, I spent a month or so in Azerbaijan and got to know a little teeny bit about Russian culture from the Azeri perspective. While this is not a true perspective of what Russians are like, I do know that Eastern Europeans are generally known for being fabulously chic. Culturally, they are blunt. They swear a lot. They are fabulous swearers, artful polyglots.

The image consultant lady comes into my office and tells me, in the kindest possible way, that while I'm in fantastic shape (I should bloody well hope so) my sweater looks like crap on me.

Suddenly, my favourite $3 cashmere sweater goes from being a fuzzy warm thing to an emotional object. A favourite teddy bear. A woobie.

Did she just say it looks like sh*t? What does she mean it looks like sh*t?

She tells me I should wear makeup, and maybe cut my hair a little.

What's wrong with my face?

I tell her I'm open to a lot of things, but whatever she suggests will have to be easy or it won't happen. It's gotta be portable. I never know where I'm getting dressed in the morning - my house, the gym, the pool, it's a crap shoot. Ok, she says, we can do that.

I tell my husband about it. I ask if he's worried about this little process not that his opinion matters, but it does. He says he's not worried. He says, I'm pretty confident that at the end of this, you'll still be you.

sigh. I knew I liked that guy.

The second date with the image consultant was slow to dawn on me. She spent a couple of hours with me describing my colors for me. Basically, I'm a summer. Oh goody, I love summer! I'm a cool summer. I have red undertones. This means cold colours and muted tones are my colours: cold reds, cold pinks, pale yellow, charcoal gray, shiny silver, lavender, crisp white, and basically any blue.

As she tells me this, my brain goes completely blank. Huh? Colour? Whu?

She brings fashion magazines and circles items she thinks will suit me, but I'm distracted. I can't focus on what she's trying to teach me. Is that Katie Holmes? What in the hell is she wearing? She's like 9 feet taller than her husband, Mr. Shorty Cruise. He's super short. He married up. Heh. Married up.

Outfit? Surely she doesn't mean to dress me like that? Oh no. This can't be good...

She asks, bluntly, "what do you think of what I am wearing?" Of course, I'm torn. On the one hand she looks fantastic - but would that be a look for me? Not bloody likely. I don't wear heels. I don't like linen. It's so...girly!

All I can muster is, I like your jacket. It was a good jacket - red, alligator, shiny.

After she leaves, I tell my husband about her assessment. I worry that she will make me throw away my most favourite item of clothing: my jCrew cargo pants. My prized, specially distressed jCrew cargo capris. So what if the drawstrings are worn down to threads! So what if I've been slowly losing all the buttons! I probably paid an extra $20 for these holes! So what if it has a hole in the...oops...new hole in the crotch! Crap! She's going to say that they are not my colour and I'll have to throw them away, since browns are apparently deadly for me. My husband joked that she would really nail me on those pants..."Are you painter? Are you carpenter? Throw away."

Boys can be so cruel.

The third date with the image consultant was the one I was most dreading: the closet clearout. Oh Dear God, I have to let her into my closet to critique my clothes. For three hours, she and I went through my closet. She examined everything.

Everything.

She immediately exposes my vast collection of black t-shirts. "Here we have, black t-shirt...and here we have, another black t-shirt. And here we have..." What's wrong with black? I thought black was universally chic? No? OK, I can take a hint.

I am starting to get how those poor shlubby people feel when those What Not To Wear people tell them they can't wear their favourite sweatpants anymore. Talk about getting out of my comfort zone - this was like being asked to run naked down the street!

It wasn't like she forced me to give up any precious objects, it was more subtle than that. She would hold up items and say things (in a withering Russian accent)...

"Do you need this?" well, when you put it like that...

"I think khakis are lazy." Huh. I suppose I don't really need 4 pair of the same exact pants.

Her hand lands on a pair of riding pants, she asks "Are you riding horses?" well, not...specifically...but um...

"Do you wear this?" um, I used to, but um...no. I guess not.

"This is horrible colour." let me just..um...find a place in the trash for that then...

"This looks old." well, you know, it does. Now that you mention it, I have had that for oh, 12 years now...I guess I don't wear it...

"This is fine for weekend" Gee, I seem to have a lot of weekend wear, don't I?

"Is this memento?" what are you saying? Are you saying 1985 called and it wants its sweater back?

At the end of the day, she was right. I could defend nothing in my closet that she identified. She and I filled 2 lawn-and-leaf sized trash bags with stuff from my closet - much of which I had pretty much forgotten I had in there.

And after she left, I went through my vast t-shirt collection and filled another kitchen trash bag. And shoes. Truly, I was only down to a couple pairs of shoes I wear regularly (Keens), so it's OK to get rid of all the others.

What about my training kit? Now that is interesting. I was all prepared to fight tooth and nail for anything in the technical clothing realm, but she said right off the bat that she would not touch my technical gear. She said "you know what you are doing with that." Even so, every cycling jersey, every technical top, vest, etc. that she saw, she complimented. It was all in my colour family - happy cold blues and reds and pinks. I suppose it doesn't hurt that the good people at Pearl Izumi and Sugoi seem to make all their stuff in Guy colors -- blues, reds and blacks -- but it's nice to know that it works for me.

Or she was being nice.

Tomorrow's date with the image consultant: we shop.

According to my mother, the shopping is an endurance event all on its own - it will take fully an entire day. She's already been pre-shopping for me, I suppose to streamline the event.

Still. It's been ages since I've had a proper girly shop day.

Should be fun!


eep!