The Fashionably Minded

According to a study by Very.co.uk, women think about clothes 91 times a day, or about once every 11 minutes.  That means women think more about dresses and shoes than men think about sex, which is about 20 times a day.

The poll surveyed 1,000 young British women  between the ages of 18 and 25, the demographic most likely to think about clothes.  Older women still think about clothes, too.  It’s just that they add food and children later on as they marry and start families.

Dresses topped the young British women’s list of fashion items, followed by shoes.  They would be at the age when dresses are at their most flattering and when they would want to show off their legs to those young British who must certainly think about sex more than 20 times a day.

In total, women spend an hour and 15 minutes of every day thinking about clothes.  A British events administrator scoffed at the research, calling it offensive nonsense.  Anna Wintour probably doesn’t think it’s nonsense and certainly hopes the information is correct.

Respondents were directed to count every time they thought about fashion, from going to online retail sites, to window shopping, to quizzing the outfits of other women.  My former female co-workers were ardent fashionistas.  Shoes were the top item for them.  Psychologists say it has something to do with the nesting instinct.  In the animal kingdom, it is the male who sports the attractive feathers or fur, to lure other females and to distract predators from the nest.

I was a fashion maven in my younger days.  I was very proud of my wardrobe – my dresses, skirts, blouses, and yes, shoes.  But the fashions changed to a hideous degree, my job demanded that I pay more attention to other’s wardrobes more than my own, and I ceased to find any fascination with fashion.  I’m more like my old schoolgirl self, when fashion was the last thing on my mind.

My mother was fashionable in her day, too.  By the time I came along, she was running a household and had no time for fashionable dressing.  I had no role model for femininity until my ex-sister-in-law came along.  She’s no longer a member of the family, and I’ve reverted to my old ways, much to the distress of my family.  They’ve given me all her fashionable suits, pocketbooks, cosmetic products, and dainty knick-knacks.  Alas, they’re all moldering in my basement.  My brother won’t let me get rid of them (Nephew, I could use your help here.  Would F. like your Mom’s pocketbooks?  Your mother bought only the very best, you know.).

I’d trade all those pocketbooks for a library full of books or good marks on the GRE.  I’d have twice the basement space if I could get rid of all that stuff.  What a waste to give me pocketbooks and suits.  Well, I might have to wear the suits (which fit), but the pocketbooks will never see the light of day again if I keep them.  I probably would have been given her shoes, too, except my feet are two sizes larger than hers.

The study was a bit unfair to Tea Party women.  Oh, they like clothes as much as any woman, but there’s something else on their mind:  their children and their children’s future.  Ordinarily, politics probably wouldn’t have interested them.  But when they realized the Progressives were threatening their children, they put their clothes in the closet and came out in numbers to set things right.

As Ilsa Lund says in Casablanca of the blue dress she wore the last time Rick Blain saw her, “Yes, I put that dress away.  I’ll take it out again when the Germans march out of Paris.”