I wear them with my carefully cultivated work-persona clothes, which I choose to meet three criteria: available for cheap; will prevent injury in lab; and convey "I'm in charge here." They're usually neutral colors with bright accents.
Anyhow, last semester, one of my (male) students looked at my black-dress-and-grey-blazer-and-orange shoes outfit and sighed. "Dr. S, My life goal is to have enough confidence to wear orange shoes like that. Those are great shoes."
I very nearly told him "All you have to do is not give a !@%# what anyone thinks, dear. Give it time."
*applause*
ReplyDelete... I mean, not that you need it.
But it's amazing, and gratifying, when you run out of !@%#s, isn't it? (And they ARE great shoes.)
Thank you! They are my favorite. I have a matching orange summer blazer too!
DeleteI have orange shoes that I wear for the same reason (except, they are not so comfortable), Yes. Midlife can be very very freeing.
ReplyDeleteI will be 37 next month and I have very few fucks left to give. It's pretty great.
DeleteOrange shoes represent!
I occasionally wear a yellow pinafore dress covered in dinosaurs for much the same reason. With a black polo-neck, opaque black tights and black loafers, I look relatively respectable and "normal" from a distance. And then there are the dinosaurs. I'm 43. It's taken a while to give so few *&%*s that I can wear dinosaurs, but it's very freeing :)
ReplyDeleteOoooh, I could sew myself a dinosaur dress! EXCELLENT idea
DeleteYes. So much. Admittedly I've always been rather colorful about my clothing, but also lived in places where this is not totally outside the norm. My friends now complain when I wear a blue sweater ;) So my not giving a damn goes more in the direction of, 'yes I have a small kid and a job I like', because in my home country and extended family, that's still considered almost incompatible. Welcome to the 21st century.
ReplyDelete