Dress up femme

I’m a dress-up femme. My closet is full of pretty frocks and high heels ranging from the practical 2-3" pumps -- the sneakers of my heels -- to full on stiletto 4-5" heels in leopard peep-toe, candy-apple patent, and retro gold from Frederick’s of Hollywood. I have a closet for summer dresses and skirts, and another for winter. Jeans are folded and stacked on an upper closet shelf since they don’t look aesthetically pleasing like summer frocks do.

Dresses are organized according to occasion. Summer shifts, dog-walking dresses, dinner-out dresses, and fancy party dresses are in that order. Same with skirts, though I keep the dog-walking skirts front and center since I’m more likely to wear them, over the dog-walking dresses. With the dog-walking dresses, you can see down the top when I bend over to pick up dog poo, which in my case means you can see straight down to my panties. Still it’s so easy to slip into a dress and a pair of sandals, grab the poodles, and go. The dog-walking dresses double as errand-running dresses, especially if I’m riding my bicycle, because I can tuck them under my legs. My bike is not the bend-over kind.

In the summer I go bare-legged and in the winter I don’t, obviously, or I’d freeze. I hate tights and so I often resort to pants, which can be cute, but with pants one has to wear socks. My socks, other than the thin, petite runner’s version, I find hideous. There’s just nothing sexy about socks. Even writing "my socks" embarrasses me. It’s bad enough, in the throes of a hot winter romance, to be hopping around the floor stumbling out of the jeans you pray makes your ass look great, without having to discreetly take off your socks first to hide in your boots, or worse, have them stay on when your jeans come off. Ugh. It’s like being at the gynecologist; "you can keep your socks on," as if you don’t feel abject enough having someone you’re not intimate with talking to you from between your legs.

The Socks share a drawer with les bas ("the stockings" in French, which I don’t speak but know the important words). The best invention ever are stay-up stockings with lace-elastic tops. These days you can get them at Sears they’re so common. While garter belts are uber-sexy, and I keep them handy just in case the mood strikes someone who I may be dating one day in the future, stockings needing a garter belt really don’t make sense in everyday life. They’re hard to find, expensive, and wind up bagging at the knees if you do more than go from front door to taxi cab to bar stool or banquet.

Stay-up stockings were not intended to replace garter belt stockings, but pantyhose. Pantyhose were invented by a woman-hater. They are a chastity belt in nylon. Why does a woman need a concealed, waist-high, smothering girdle of thick itchy nylon (to wear over cotton-crotch panties yet, because everyone knows that nylon gives you a yeast infection) in order to have legs enhanced by material that is barely visible? Every woman takes off pantyhose with a sigh of relief. They are punishment for wanting sexy legs.

The 1970s was a time of great stress over VPL (visible panty line). Pants were thin, skintight, high-waisted, and underwear was completely wrong. G-strings were for strippers, and thongs -- rubber footwear for the pool. After suffering through the high school trauma years of VPL and pantyhose, I was one of the first onboard for panties the size of a slingshot. Ass liberation! Burn those granny underpants!

My panty collection takes up so little room in their drawer, that the rest of the drawer is a collection of stuff that just seems to belong there. To the right are the panties: unadorned gym panties, lace tap pants, the cute everyday assortment, a couple strange panty gifts from exes (zippered; edible; sequined...), and the small section of ridiculously expensive panties purchased for me by the only rich woman I ever dated and, because of my fear of scarcity coupled with the knowledge that I will never buy $40 panties for myself, I wear them only if I have a promising date or expect to be hit by a car. On the left side of the drawer are boxes from my perfume so in the event I ever take a vacation, I can dust off the cobwebs and the perfume won't break on the transcontinental flight. Alongside the boxes are a pair of completely sheer black pants, a few bras that have not increased in size since the "training bras" of my youth and that I almost never wear, hot pants and a sequin halter bra that were once part of a Purim costume, lipstick cases, and a signature turquoise box from a Tiffany’s ring.

In terms of other accoutrement, I have five different perfumes on top of my dresser that I rotate depending on whether I want to be reminded of either ex, my son, or my newly independent and unemployed self.

Lipstick, eye makeup, and nail polish all have separate drawers in my bathroom. I have many lipsticks. A little basket containing lipstick brushes and gloss divide the reds and darker winter colors from the pinks and oranges of summer. When Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue, was asked what a woman without a fashion budget should do she replied, buy a lipstick. I agree with you, Anna. If it’s a choice between $23 worth of groceries and a Chanel lipstick, by god, get that lipstick, girl! You can always eat tomorrow.