Comfortable Style?

I was reading an interview with Julia Roberts. Fully half the questions she was asked dealt with style. She batted them around with ease using buzzwords we’ve heard a million times like “comfort” and “unexpected touches.” I may be the only woman brave enough to say this, but I have no idea what she’s talking about. I don’t have any idea what any of the starlets are talking about when they kick back in their designer, tailored dress and flip their professionally blown-out hair and then talk about how they choose clothes for comfort. When I choose clothes for comfort I have to throw style completely out the window. There’s nothing stylish about sweat pants and tennis shoes or pajama bottoms and flip-flops. They’re super comfortable, but my husband claims that anything loose or floppy with an elastic or draw string closure is a turn-off—and if the item has a picture of a cartoon character anywhere on it then his sex drive is shut down completely. Full disclosure—this doesn’t mean that I never wear the above mentioned items, I just wear them judiciously.


As a mother, if I attempt to wear something stylish (my word for includes earrings and maybe a necklace), I usually end up with some sort of stain. I really thought this problem would end once my children were off the bottle and no longer vomiting milk down my back, but as it turns out children always seem to have “stuff” on their hands that they rub on you. Apparently, my new jeans are a fair replacement for a towel.

I have to admit that the Hollywood women do look stylish in those tabloid pictures that show them grocery shopping in skinny leg jeans, carrying handbags that cost more than my car, and I wish I could look like that too. But, my trainer is an old Richard Simmons tape that I dust off from time to time so, needless to say, stylish clothes pinch and bind. They’re snug in all the wrong places and loose where a starlet has silicon enhanced curves.

The fashion industry would love it if everyday women would be more fashionable and embrace their inner star. And who could blame them? Their pocketbooks depend on our search for clothing that is comfortable, and stylish with unexpected touches. I suspect that they also kind of like the fact that we have no idea how to create such a wardrobe. I have stupidly purchased rubber accessories, neon scarves, and I once even owned a bustier a la Madonna. None of these items got much wear and were eventually donated. I only hope that if my donations make it to Africa that the women understand the concept of “unexpected touches” better than I do.