Its that time of the year again, where I re-examine my wardrobe and do a big closet purge. I take last years cute stuff and drop it at the thrift store, or the consignment shop and I start eyeing trends to determine what I'll be wearing into the fall.
As a kid I pored over fashion magazines, I even had a subscription to Vogue when I was in college, and with the dawn of the internet and being able to carry a tiny supercomputer in my designer bag, I am known to spend hours down the rabbit hole of "this season's best looks."
One of my favorite topics in the realm of fashion has always been First Ladies. The Jackie Pillbox hat, the Betty Ford 1970's Turtleneck ensembles, Nancy Reagan's quintessential 80's middle aged lady dresses, Barbara Bush's "Pearls," Hilary's headbands and Pantsuits, etc.
Right or wrong, good or very, very bad, First Lady Fashion is fun to follow. When Michelle Obama was the First Lady she had some real doozies, but her every day choices were accessible, and some of them were snazzy enough that I copied them. Believe it or not, because of Michelle, I started to wear dresses again.
Then we had the positively stunning Melania Trump, who made everything look like a red carpet runway fashion show. For four years I was in my glory looking at what Melania was wearing, I grew my hair long again, started wearing heels with cigarette pants, put away the costume statement jewelry and practiced my "effortless glamour" in case I ever had to stroll across my back yard to board a waiting helicopter.
That seems so long ago now.
Life has handed us lemons.
Now we have Dr. Jill (no, not that kind of doctor) in the Lemon Dress. This is a nice style of dress, I have a few like it, sans lemons of course, but the whole thing would be so much better if THE LEMONS WERE AROUND THE HEM! Lemons all over the body of the dress is just asking for the eye to be drawn to places they need not go. Put them on the bottom and you have a perfect Easter dress, that can be worn again to a wedding (not the reception, don't be ridiculous) or a baby shower, or a brunch, well maybe not brunch because they have some summer table settings available at Dollar Tree right now in the same pattern.
What about the elephant in the room? Or to be more precise, the Zebra in the room.
So much to unpack here.
Lets start with the dress itself, who made this? and why? Red with zebra print is not a bad combo in theory, but with lime green accents? Red with actual Zebras? This fabric looks like it was intended for throw pillows in a safari themed pediatrician's waiting room. Those animals look trapped on her skirt as if in another dimension like the villain's from Superman in the floating parallelogram.
Then we examine the black blazer that is clearly a part of another outfit. Yes ladies, mixing and matching parts to maximize one's wardrobe is key to being fashionable on a budget, however, I would bet money the black in the jacket isn't the same black in the dress. I cannot tell from the photo, but I can feel it, because I know the struggle. If you are wearing a black jacket, not as part of its original suit, but as a separate piece, THERE MUST BE NO OTHER BLACK IN THE OUTFIT!! Wear it with pink, with red, with khaki, wear it with denim for a casual look, never wear it with navy blue, which is the worst color of all of the colors and (I cannot stress this enough) NEVER wear it with anything else black to which it can be compared.
This isn't even the best part though, (and by "best" I mean most horrifying,) lets talk about these stupid shoes. I suppose if one is going to wear a dress that looks like a pack of fruit stripe gum, one must have foil in there somewhere, Jill decided to go with HOLOGRAPHIC SILVER FOIL SHOES.
These look like shoes someone's great grandma wears with a chiffon dress from JC Penney's to be glamourous at an afternoon wedding. Low heels with Saturday Night Fever vibe. Gross.
But wait, there's more, Just when you thought it was safe to open up the Carol Wright catalog your grandma got in the mail in 1987, Dr. Jill hits us with this:
Its so appropriate that the commenter mentions the colors and ambiances of Sicily, because this brings so many memories flooding back.
I'm Italian and thus grew up with never being allowed in the living room, at our house, at our cousins houses, at Grandma's house, etc. Why? you ask, because every one of those places had furniture with coordinating curtains in this same fabric (or some version thereof)
Like these:
I look at this dress and my mind is immediately transported to a first communion party in the early 80s where my cousin Nini and I ate an entire bowl of black olives and ran around in the backyard until we almost threw up. Nini's parents, had one of these patterns in their living room. With PINK carpet (you bet your ass we took our shoes off when we came in) and various marble statues and knick-knacks from the old country (real talk they probably fell off a truck) and gold mirrors. Our living room looked just like it, except blue, our other cousin's house the same except green and so on, yellow, orange etc. we have a big family and I think everybody's living room is represented here.
The point of that trip down memory lane is that I cannot fathom that the First Lady went to an official function dressed like the décor of every Sicilian Auntie from the 80s! Someone is going to spill Sunday sauce on that thing! She is asking, nay begging, for someone to drop a paper plate of antipasti on her! And shame on you D&G, this is not designed to be a representation of my people, its a mockery of a parody of my people. This dress is designed to use up leftover fabric.
The other thing we need to pay attention to in this photo is the look on her face. She looks positively angry, and I think its because she was duped into wearing it in the same way as Jerry was with the puffy shirt.
Look, same energy.
She clearly isn't happy in it, and I hope she yeeted it into the trash right after.
Has Dr. Jill made some good choices? Yes, but of late I almost think wearing these monstrosities are less "bad idea" and more strategy. If everyone is looking at this fabric salad, they may not notice that Corn Pop is an incoherent, doddering old fool. Or maybe she is fashioning herself after common household things, so she blends in, so you will feel more comfortable with her and not notice that she spends most of her time running interference and corralling crazy Uncle Joe.
Like this:
You may think this is all just "fashion choices" but I think it's life imitating art, like the movie "Dave" except that couldn't find a guy that looks like Joe, so they handed the baton to Jill. Maybe its more like the "Wizard of Oz," but instead we are asked to pay no attention to man in FRONT of the curtains. The Dolce and Gabbana Curtains.
Either way someone should probably call the Fashion Police. Or the actual Police.