SKINNY RIPPED PANTS OR FAT MOM JEANS? A FAIL AT BUYING AMERICAN

I've had a "buy local and in person" attitude for years. It's more difficult than ever to start or keep a shop and I want to support local and privately owned business. I head for the coffee house, restaurant, or boutique owned by an individual or a couple locals over a chain store or corporation.

I got my Economic Stimulus money and decided I'd spend a small part of it on clothes.

I'd avoided going anywhere unnecessary to the point of near insanity (Ok, I'm exaggerating but it felt that way at times) due to the plague and had put a year's wear on all my clothes. And yes, despite daily walks, trying lots of new recipes had created a little difficulty in zipping up.

I ventured out to buy underwear and cotton tops and a pair of pants.

The boutique I first thought of had gone out of business. Other stores closed, no signs of life.

I went into Ross Dress For Less and it looked bare. They also had a Security staff, wearing signage that said Security, all over the store. Has the store been badly thieved?

One of them, a young woman, was watching me so intently and obviously, if I'd been there to shoplift, I'd been nervous. "It looks wiped out," I said to her.

"We're in the process of restocking," she said.

I looked in a mirror and could see me. I looked rumpled and uncoordinated. I hadn't bothered to dress fashionably to shop for clothes.

She called me mam. "Come back on Friday, when we get a shipment, mam."

Had I degraded?

I'd cut my own hair after being quoted $25 for a one inch trim. I'd stopped wearing any cosmetics, not even tinted sun screen. I had no jewelry on, nothing to suggest status. I use a backpack, more of a schoolgirl backpack than a wilderness kit. 

I took to using a backpack a few years ago. I suppose that's suspicious.

I found that a backpack kept weight even and I no longer had to keep switching a big satchel from one shoulder to the other, that using one left my hands free to hold onto my dog's leash and walk her with ease. My backpack was especially good for packing groceries without having to buy a bag.***

There was absolutely nothing at Ross that appealed to me. I noticed the tops I saw were made in China. That was repeated absolutely everywhere I went. Not good.

"Oh, yea, there are cargo ships waiting to come in, backed up all the way down the coast from San Diego to the Port of Los Angeles," a friend said. "Incoming from China."

"So much for American jobs," I said.

After several trips out I bought a pack of underwear. An "American" brand, Made in China. And a couple of tops, because they fit and the color was right, from Big Five, also Made in China.

Pants?

Whatever happened to pants? Everywhere I went there were only two types, skinny leggin-like jeans with ugly, improbable rips, a trend that has gone on far too long because it only looked good on a few men who earned their rips, not via hammer, and they were muscled men, that trend is at best a teenage girl look. 

Or I could try overly fat "mom" jeans. I guess when a person becomes a mom they earned the right to be more modest and comfortable.

I went home and got on line. I didn't want leggings, skinny, denim, stretch denim, dropped waist (fat belly exposing), fat legs, or beachy cropped, pants. I know the fashion industry changes pants enough each year that the savvy can look at my pants and call out the year they were made. I wanted black, straight legs, made of cotton mostly, something that can substitute for dressy or business in a pinch, not athletic wear, not tight in the rear.

I surveyed my closet, unable to determine just how long I'd had things in it. I'm not much of a thrift store shopper because you normally can't try anything on. Now none of the stores were allowing try ons. Not being able to try on clothes is to me one of the negatives of online ordering.

"You risk things not looking at all like the pictures," my friend warned.

So I thought, maybe I'm so far out of it that I'll never get back in. I hadn't been in a library in a year - all closed - to even page through a Vogue. I know that fashion in Vogue trickles into stores like Target or Walmart in some way. Usually in color trends. 

I failed at buying local or American.

The trend to destroy American jobs began before the pandemic. It's all tied into the notion of "jobs Americans won't do." You will find that notion is used as a way of union busting or preventing unions from forming, exporting jobs and manufacturing, and for illegal immigration to being tolerated.  (I know this opinion takes into account both Republican and Democratic notions.)

So, I made myself promise me that for every new item I purchased, I would throw out or donate one item. 

What will our economy look like and when? 

C 2021

*** In order to, supposedly, prevent plastic bags from polluting, we now have to BUY paper bags at stores, it buy heavier "reusable" plastic or bring our own. It's bullshit. Cashiers are no longer tasked with having to produce a store bag and fill it. Stores are not giving you a bag for your purchase for free.

THEMATIC

For some time there's been a thematic underlying this blog which suspect that only one or two people (other than me) in this world is perceptive of.  

The thematic ties into my postings about the art of Andy Warhol (whose studio was called The Factory), my postings about products ("they didn't pay me to say this") and what I perceive as people seeing themselves as defined (and self promoted) by what they buy/own/like.  People reducing themselves to lists as well as advertisements and informational blurbs, in particular to prove they have value beyond their basic humanity (which some of them attempt to deny to others), often defined as having money for Brands ("We only eat Gelsons") - class - superiority through acquisition. People (including authors) turning into BRANDS so now you can sue someone for hurting your Brand/ income potential re defamation of BRAND (object) rather than a human being.  People promoting and marketing themselves for career, for friendship, for love.... but also for survival. (So if you're an author who also writes poetry, or you want to write fiction and non fiction, or more than one genre you may have to have several names of the pen.)  Not wishing to offend anyone with your version of truth - or opinion - we are in an era of self censorship and stifling in order to be liked - or employed.

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In some stories, a character's fashion purchases stand in as character development since these purchases define their sensibilities.

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When I post my (current) "likes" does my reader know me?  (Maybe, slightly.  I recently surprised myself with a "sea change" about something I'd been dedicated to for about 10 months.)

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Though I've taken down or not re-posted dozens of song/music videos that I was in the mood for or hearing in my head at the time I posted them, my personal music inventory is vast but also telling since I'm Old School and not at all into or informed on the hip hop and rap artists. Does that peg me?

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I once had a friend who was uniquely beautiful (and privileged) who was always used the term "Boyfriend" to mean "Date" as in "I have a new Boyfriend" after a couple Dates. She wasn't es[especially promiscuous but she wanted people to think so, that they had a chance with her. She attracted so many men who she enjoyed toying with; even the ones she didn't want. I caught on eventually that she also didn't want to loose any of her entourage to other women and these men let her waste their time. Her phone rang constantly (pre cell) with them just checking in, just telling each other what they were doing with their day, in search of Fame.  Interviews, auditions, practice sessions, and in the evenings the clubs to nurse a beer while showing support for each other. She was years ahead of most of us when it came to thinking of herself as a Brand and Self Promotion and Marketing which actually hid her true self, an unknowable self perhaps, unknowable as a means of self protection. It took me a while to realize I had been "conned by her charisma" and to get over the shock of realization that I'd made a major life decision based on her bullshitting me.

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It's NOT "all good."


C 2019 2026 Christine Trzyna  All Rights Reserved

BOOK EXCERPT : SHOPTISM BY LEE EISENBERG

From SHOPTISM by Lee Eisenberg

regarding RUSSELL BELK

page 297


..."Belk makes a compelling case about the inter-dependence of having and being. In fact, he even proposes four stages of human development based on the connection between having and being;

1) as infants we seek to distinguish ourselves from our environment.

2) as children we seek to distinguish ourselves from others .

3) as adolescents and adults, we use our possessions to help "manage" our identities and

4) as old folks we rely on certain possessions to maintain a sense of continuity and prepare for the end. Nearing that end, we cherish not only letters and photographs but also things we purchased over the years, thoughtfully or impulsively: jewelry, china, mementos of various kinds, even, perhaps, an old dressing gown.

"Our accumulation of possessions," says Belk, thus "provides a sense of past and tells us who we are, where we have come from, and perhaps where we are going."

Something to think about the next time you lose a possession that had come to mean something important to you. A break-in, a house fire, your own carelessness, it doesn't matter how it occurred. The response is the same; a part of you has gone missing.

C author Lee Eisenberg published by Freepress