French Women Don't Wear Active Wear

I went to my open air resistance class this morning, rugged up against a rather chilly early winter's morning here in Oz. I had my full length black leggings on, topped with a short sleeved hot pink top, a pale blue sweatshirt and a lilac zip up fleece. It was so chilly that even in the most hectic part of the workout I only ditched the fleece. In short, I looked rather a dag, as we say over here. (Think 'slob'.)

After the class I was faced with a dilemma. I had to go to the bank and supermarket. Should I go home and change first?

Huh, you're thinking. What a snob. Just go as you are, girl, who will notice or care?

Well, I notice and I care. There is active wear and active wear. Do the full Lorna Jane or Sweaty Betty, all nicely coordinated, and you can probably get away with it. Thin, fit middle-class women do. They strut around the shopping centre with great hair, sweetly scented (you can tell they haven't been to the gym first and probably won't go ... they just dress like that) and nary a roll of fat is visible on their leggings. In winter they wear sleeveless puffa tops over their technical merino long sleeves. They have several pairs of trainers which coordinate with the accent colours in their outfits.

Active wear favours the slim. I've seen some pretty horrifying sights in leggings and skimpy gym wear and fear I'm more like them than the sleek women I see around shops in our area (which is middle-class and quite decent on the socio-economic scale).  I do wear leggings, quite often in fact, but plain, non-gym ones teamed with tunic tops that cover my backside and let the best of my legs be on show. And I pair them with ballet flats or boots, not trainers. I don't own a sleeveless puffa jacket as it would make me look like an elephant.

So I felt rather ashamed of myself when I decided to hit the shops on my way home after all, bum looking big with the fleece barely covering half of it. No makeup, not even lip gloss. Hair that looked a fright after an hour's workout in a breeze.

There's a bit of me that's French. Not just in attitude, but genetically too.

You see, French women don't wear active wear outside of the gym. If they go to a gym, that is - more likely they'll go to a yoga class. I have been fortunate enough to visit France three times in the last six years and the only Parisienne I saw in a full active wear outfit was carrying a yoga mat. She had reason to be dressed as she was. Even in rural France and French towns, nobody wore active wear on the street. I felt at home. It was easy to spot the tourists - they spoke English and wore active wear.

It's a tongue in cheek observation from several authors that a French woman will put on her lipstick to check her letterbox - a) because she has standards, b) she never knows who she may meet there and importantly, c) she doesn't want to cause offence to anyone who sets eyes on her; the French do not like to be perceived as badly turned out.

Even working from home, as I do, I aim to dress nicely. That nicely may only be jeans and a top, but I'll have decent shoes on (no ugg boots in winter or rubber flip flops in summer). When I go to the shops I will put on lipstick at least, maybe a little bit of eye makeup if I feel I look washed out. My jacket will coordinate with what I'm wearing and I may even put a scarf on. Because why not. I like to feel nice and not slobby.

I can't rock the active wear look - I'm overweight but not obese, but I have curves that become bulges in active wear clothing and it ain't a pretty sight - so I choose the French option instead.

C'est la vie pour moi. Et vous?

Bagless liberation

Last night I went out without a handbag. I had my keys and phone in my jeans pockets and my wallet tucked into the inside pocket of my Driz-A-Bone.

It felt strange, but quite liberating.

You see, I always carry a bag. I'm not someone who walks about with her keys, wallet and phone in her hand, as I see some women do. I like a bag as that way my hands are free and I'm not likely to leave my phone, keys or wallet on a cafe table.

Like many women I started carrying a bag as a child/teen, in imitation of my Mum, who is definitely a handbag person.

Over the years I've had dozens of handbags. Dozens. Handbag junkie, me.

Because I'm bespectacled a handbag was a must before I got glasses with transitions lenses which are photosensitive. I had to always carry a pair of prescription sunnies as bright sunshine hurts my eyes.  I routinely carried a small camera everywhere too in case I saw anything interesting or amusing while I was out and about.  I used to get sinus problems so a handful of tissues was a must too. And makeup. And a book to read at my desk over a sandwich at lunchtime when I used to work full-time - and the sandwich as well!

These days my routine handbag contents run thus:

• keys to my house
• keys to my Mum's in case of emergency
• keys to the office of my main client
• phone
• business cards
• wallet - quite thick because of all the bloody cards I seem to have wound up with
• extra case with other bloody store loyalty cards, just in case I need them to get a discount
• a couple of lipsticks
• mirror compact for lipstick application
• a couple of pens
• a tissue
• regretfully, fags and a lighter on occasions

I typically take a bag that's big enough to include my iPad for business meetings and a more professional compact camera than my phone camera for business events.

Usually my preference is for shoulder bags and cross-body bags - bags that leave my hands free.

I could probably get away without a bag on more occasions if women's clothing was just that little bit more practical - you know, jackets with inside pockets to put my wallet in. I do envy men their jackets, and I envy women who can wear them and look great. I look like a dag if I try.

Women's wallets, by the way, are appalling these days. They are so damn big. I could use a man's wallet but then that means carrying an extra coin purse, as I don't always wear trousers with pockets. When I was on holiday last year I found a miracle at David Jones'  - a small wallet - into which I could fit my driver's licence, my frequent flyer card and my credit card, as well as cash and coins. Bloody lovely. I tried using it for a bit on my return but gradually needed to include the Woolworths' card (to get points for cheaper fuel), the FlyBuys card (same) and a couple of other 'regular' cards. With a sigh I went back to my usual wallet, which is also on the small side compared to the range of women's wallets which are the size of a clutch bag.

So yes, it was quite liberating to go out last night without a bag. I know women who go to parties without taking a bag, but in my case I was at the rugby. And that's another whole story!

Bum freezers and giraffe legs - welcome to The New Races

I was sitting on the grandstand at Hawkesbury Races on Saturday when it struck me that I have been going to the races at irregular intervals for more than 40 years.

That's a very scary thought. I don't feel 40. I certainly don't feel 50, which, according to my birth certificate, I am.

I was ten when Mum finally bowed to my ceaseless pleas and took me to Rosehill to see Gunsynd, the Goondiwindi Grey, in action.

Back then the races were about betting and horses. People shuffled en masse from the parade ring to the betting ring then up to the stand or down to the rails to watch the race.

Now it seems the races are, for many, strictly about the social scene. About drinking a LOT, and for young women, wearing bum freezer skirts and ridiculous shoes. Fashion has always played a part at the races, but now for many of the younger racegoing set the races are about being seen rather than having a punt.

I watched several groups of young women down bottles of bubbly on Saturday. One group just in front of me on the stand didn't move all day aside from replenishing the bubbly supplies. I never saw them have a bet or brandish a tote or bookie ticket.  I suppose that's a good thing; gambling can ruin your life if you get in over your head or spend more than you earn.

I'm a small punter - $5 each way is about my limit. But I know that when I'm betting with a bookie or the tote, a percentage of my bet is being fed back into the racing industry. I think the TAB gives 10% back to Racing NSW.  So betting is like making a charitable donation but with the chance of winning it back several times over. :-) (And a big thank you here to Mouro, who won at 8/1 for me!)

But, as usual, I digress.

Back to the girls. Racewear has evolved, for those under 25 - and scarily for some women near my age - to dresses which barely cover your bum and which hug every curve on your body. If you are very young and slim this is fine, but leaves you a little exposed when you climb the stairs on the grandstand. (And do remember girls about how to sit like a lady with your knees together. Please.) If you are, like some of the girls, bigger than a size 12 you look bloody ridiculous. All the fake tan in the world - and there were orange legs galore on Saturday - can't disguise cellulite, and thighs which wobble when you walk are much better covered up with fabric.

This year's crop of chunky platform shoes doesn't do a delicate dress any favours, either. I saw some shockers on Saturday. Chiffon baby doll dresses are overwhelmed by chunky footwear - in one case I saw a nude chiffon micro dress teamed with enormous electric blue clumpies with ankle straps. They are be better suited with a killer stiletto.

As for the platform shoes... girls clunked along on their platforms like giraffes taking their first steps, stiff legged, descending the stairs with a death grip on the handrails, their head plumage - the inevitable fascinator - bobbing with each careful tread. By the end of the day girls were kicking off the heels and walking barefoot through the car park - another look which just doesn't cut the mustard. I'm so glad I've grown out of following fashion with the slavish neediness of a late teen (I was wearing a charcoal grey knit dress that sits just above the knee, with knee high flat boots; practical for galloping to and from the bookies' ring).

Another thing that doesn't really suit delicate party frocks is tattoos. Big ones. Little delicate ones... yeah, they look cool for the most part. But imagine a pretty girl in a strappy short dress with a massive tatt on her back and on one thigh too. It looks incongruous. Cheap.

Young guys have started affecting the racing trilby, a hat almost doomed to extinction in recent years and previously only the territory of the aged male racegoer or horse trainer. They don't wear it like the old guys do though; it's teamed with a colourful shirt and co-respondent shoes. And trilbies are available in more interesting colours now. It's nice to a see a guy wear a hat instead of a baseball cap.

A few years ago race clubs were bemoaning the lack of spectators and visitors to the races; they started marketing to the under 35s and so the races have become party territory. Now the race clubs are bemoaning drunken behaviour. It's often the gaggles of bubble-fuelled girls that are the trouble-makers.

Maybe they'll grow out of it; maybe they'll learn a bit about following form, have the odd bet and help the industry. Maybe those with good jobs will become part of a syndicate and own their own racehorse own day.

I am relishing being a Grumpy Old Woman; a curmudgeon. It's not that I don't want to see people having fun. I do! Nobody likes a bottle of bubbly more than I. But the races are the races, not just a party.

Dressing up is fun, and the races are an opportunity to wear clothes and accessories you wouldn't wear to the office. But the races aren't someone's 18th or 21st, held at night until the small hours. I would love to see racewear change and evolve into daywear more stylish than uber-skimpy skirts. All it takes is a couple of racing fashionistas like Kate Waterhouse to start wearing mid-thigh or above the knee skirts instead of bum freezers. Hope you're reading this, Kate.

An afternoon out of time

The good old days weren't always the good old days. Think about what we have now - particularly health care and most particularly pain-free dentistry! The good old days - in any era - were undoubtedly much better if you were well-heeled; that's true of this very moment. We romanticise the past in tv shows and movies, and I'm as susceptible to longing sighs for a world before the intrusions of mobile phones, the internet and speed cameras as the next person.

My chosen era to sigh over is the 1920s. This was an exciting time per se, but a very exciting time for women as they shrugged themselves out of long skirts and corsets and into comfortable clothes, low-maintenance bobbed hair and a sense of power. The Great War had changed everything; women had a taste of independence as they took on roles left by men who'd gone to fight, and had no intention of going back to being subservient little creatures. They smoked in the street, they wore makeup, they defiantly wore dresses that showed their knees - or to the horror of their mothers, trousers -  and thanks to Marie Stopes had a lot more control over when they intended to have children. (Sadly however equal pay for women was a loooong way off!)

That's just the tip of the iceberg. I could rant on, but this post takes a delicate sidestep, a slight Charleston if you will or perhaps a Black Bottom, into the realms of 1920s fashion.

I'm a sucker for 20s fashion. Unfortunately I have a curvy 1950s body which means that the slimline boyish dresses of the period don't fit me as well as they should, but this was a period of real glamour. Again, particularly if you were well off. Sequins, beading, luxurious materials, floating panels that swirled out when you danced, feathers and filets... glorious glamorous stuff.

Three years ago I went to a vintage fashion fair and bought a reproduction 20s dress made in India of modern materials - knitted cotton lining, net over the top embellished with heaven knows how many sequins and beads. I'd get dizzy if I tried to count them. The dress was less than $100 which was great for me but probably not so good for the poor little bugger in India who'd hand beaded it.

Anyhow, there I was with this heavenly dress in deep purple and nowhere to wear it. Until I discovered the Roaring 20s festival at the Blue Mountains. Apparently it runs every February and there are plenty of events you're invited to frock up for.

So I frocked up and dragged my long-suffering husband along yesterday to the Jazz Afternoon Tea at the beautiful Paragon Cafe in Katoomba. The Paragon was built in 1916 and has recently changed hands, with the new owner slowly restoring it to its gracious original beauty. Luckily there is a wealth of original features untouched for nearly 100 years, including art deco mirrors and panelling.

Armed with champagne cocktails we both had a fantastic time, got chatting with the German jazz singer who, when she is at home in Hamburg, is a family court judge, explored the Paragon, danced the Charleston (Yesss!!! Another thing ticked off the bucket list), ate too many delicious Paragon chocolates and generally had an afternoon out of time.

What I loved most was how different I felt, dressed in this sparkly purple dress, with my home-made satin bandeau and the purple kimono-type jacket I'd finished the week before. I moved differently from head to toe. I walked differently. I caught sight of myself in one of the Paragon's old bevelled mirrors and in the dim lighting I was someone I didn't quite know; not the dag who spends most days in jeans and a t shirt or bizarre tops and leggings, but an elegant creature from an earlier time.

Yes, I dress well when the occasion demands it, usually business suits or smart modern clothes for business meetings. But this was different. Now I understand why people - adults - play dress up. Why period costume conventions are growing in popularity. The good old days weren't always the good old days but the glamorous bits, in a throwaway world whose pace is far too swift, are worth recreating.

Chick lit, trashy mags and weird clothes

Today I bought a copy of Grazia. This is worth mentioning because I rarely buy magazines with the exception of Country Living (British Edition)  or Burda (sewing mag). If I want to read a gossip mag it'll be at the hairdresser's, but since I got a new car the hairdresser visits have got fewer and fewer. The colour I now buy in a box at Priceline and if I'm feeling very frugal and have split ends it's a DIY job for that too.

The last couple of weeks I've swayed from my usual diet of murder mysteries and have been reading some of Marian Keyes' chick lit novels (thanks to Displaced who put me onto them). Chick lit may be a rather unkind description in this case as her novels feature characters with deeper problems, mental illness and other issues; this sets these novels apart from the dime-a-dozen-with-pink-covers-and-curly-fonts books. Aside from which they are bloody funny. And Marian Keyes knows how to hold your attention; several nights in a row I've been up till midnight because of her blasted cliffhangers at the end of chapters.

Having read about women working in the fashion/beauty industry (Anyone Out There) I had a sudden urge to pick up a copy of Grazia, just for the heck of it. This was doubly fuelled by galloping through How To Be Impossibly French by Helena Frith Powell last night in a bubble bath.

I have a cup of tea on one side of the computer and Grazia on the other, and flicking quickly through the mag I realise that while I don't feel at least fifteen years too old and several kilos too heavy for it, I, in fact, am. I also don't have the budget to be a fahionista - or the longing, even if I was a lithe 25 again.

There was a time when I'd blow one third of my weekly pay packets on shoes and clothes (that bit about 25 relates to this!). This was the 80s and I followed fashion with a passion. Unfortunately! Of all the eras to choose...oh well.

These days I have my own style. I might pick and choose an idea of what's in style and try and recreate that with what I have in my wardrobe, some of which is vintage stuff I've bought from eBay, markets or op shops that comes in handy from time to time. Now I'm learning to sew (intermediate rather than beginner I think by now) I buy fabric and make clothes. Lace is in fashion at the moment. I made myself a lined stretch black lace suit for $45; would have cost about $200 in the shops. It's the nicest thing I've made, suits my body shape and is nice enough for business occasions.

My own style is rather dependent on how I feel when I wake up or what the weather forecast says. I have an eclectic mix of clothes from hippie style cotton kaftans (just perfect on those stinky hot summer days) to business suits (boring but necessary from time to time) to jeans and tshirts, a few pretty floral dresses for when I'm channelling the 1930s or 20s, plenty of knit tops that are transseasonal and clothes I've made myself including more knit tops. These last are clothes that look like no other - partly because I was a real beginner when I started and had to cover up duff necklines and other bits and pieces with additional bits of lace or fake fur or whatever.

My friend Sue, who is quite conservative these days, told me recently, "Some of the things you wear are really weird. But then, that's your style. If you dressed like everyone else you wouldn't be you."  I think at the time I was wearing a hot pink tshirt and tights with an orange tunic over the top and red shoes. Or perhaps purple. I do prefer the term eccentric to weird though.

I did my bit towards eccentric/weird this week. I bought a copy of Burda a week ago, the German magazine (English version) which is packed chock full of clothing patterns. Really.There's a huge great pullout bit in the middle with patterns overprinted on other patterns and once you've sorted out which bits you're after, you trace them and bingo, you have a pattern. Stuff you can make - yessss!! This coincided with a 50% off sale at a fabric warehouse last weekend so armed with Burda I went to the sale and got some real bargains. More knit tops to make in beautiful shades of green, and a 1920s-influenced kimono thingy I'm going to make in patterned velvet.

This is the top in question. This version naturally looks 100% better than the one I made!

The Burda instructions for the kimono top said "easy" but I've been caught with "easy" before, so I bought some cheap purple fabric in a hurry (which on reflection looks like polo shirt material. Oh well) and some matching satin and thought I'd try to make it first out of the cheap material, to find out where any stuff ups could occur.

So that's been my nights this week, making the purple kimono. All went swimmingly until I had to attach the ties. There's a wonderful scene in the first episode of Black Books where bookshop proprietor Bernard Black is trying to do his tax. He reads the same paragraph over and over again and procrastinates, prevaricates and actually welcomes a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses to take him away from the task.

(Start watching at 1.40.)

Anyway, digressions aside, this is how I felt reading the instructions for attaching the satin ties. The instructions had been translated into English I think by a jokester or sadist who decided to leave important bits out. When I finally sorta kinda understood it, I realised it wouldn't work and devised my own method of attaching them. If I hadn't I wouldn't have been able to do the stupid thing up.

I finally finished the kimono-ish garment at nine last night. Can't wait to show my friend Sue, who will think it weird. But oh how I'll laugh if something similar shows up in Grazia this autumn!