The "New" Clothes in My Life

So many aspects of my life have changed dramatically over the last two years that I often fail to notice the changes. Recently, while I was hiking with friends, we started talking about clothes. We were lamenting the current trend: low-rise jean, tight fitting shirt, bare belly. 'I mean really those young girls who wear that look...' But you know we would have been wearing it too if we were 20 years younger. This whole conversation started me thinking about my clothing past life.

In my past clothing life, I owned all the latest fashion. I would think nothing of stopping by Nordstrom's on my way home from work just to browse the new seasonal clothes. Many evenings, I would pick up a couple new pieces for my wardrobe, grab some dinner and arrive home around nine. Today, I can't even imagine doing that. Evenings are bathtime, there is no stopping by Nordstrom's. In fact, I can't remember the last time I shopped there and I don't have time to browse. Today, clothes shopping for me involves a PC, a credit card and about 15 minutes of free time. I can't remember the last time I bought clothes live.

Another big change in my wardrobe today is washability. The clothing of my past life were almost always dry clean only. In fact, I remember just assuming clothes were all dry clean only. The only clothes that weren't dry clean only were the clothes I wore to the gym or on weekends. Today, all the clothes I buy are machine washable. Dry clean only is no longer feasible for me. I haven't made it to the dry cleaners in months. The last time I dry cleaned clothes, the cleaners were threatening to donate my clothes to charity I was so tardy in retrieving them. Yes, I know there are delivery services available, but I never seem to organize myself enough to set up the service.

Beyond machine washable, clothes today must be wrinkle resistant. Let's face it who cares if it is machine washable if you have to iron it? To me, if I have to iron something, it may as well be disposable, because I am not going to wear it after I wash it once. I remember a day, when I had an ironing board just set up in my spare bedroom so I could iron something before work. Today, there is no spare bedroom and an ironing board would be a safety hazard for the kids, so ironing just isn't part of my routine.

With this in mind, you will understand my excitement of recently finding pants are machine washable, wrinkle resistant AND have Teflon in the fabric. That's right: I can now wear a non-stick surface. Also, those same pants are high waisted enough to conceal my underwear when I sit down, soft enough that I can sit down without cutting the circulation off in my legs. I think these may be the perfect pants.

I experimented this morning. I actually wore my new pants to breakfast. As usual, La Nina had an incident with oatmeal that included my pants. This daily occurrence usually means my pants have a spot for the rest of the day. You will be happy to know, the teflon fabric spot cleaned beautifully. The spot magically lifted from the fabric with just a little water. Wearing a surface that can wipe clean is just the bomb.

This clothing discovery is probably not something the excites everyone as much as it does me. And I understand that. In fact, while we were discussing my new pants during our weekly Saturday morning hike, one of my friends scoffed at me. I took note. As she enters her teflon years, I plan to withold the brand name and we will see who gets the last laugh!