Too much inside out?

I know we live in times where we are supposed to have an "anything goes" attitude but there are some things that should, themselves, go. A few months ago, I was at the movies and a group of people came in to sit in front of me. The young lady who sat in the seat immediately in front of mine was wearing a very stunning top with a plunging back.

It would've looked lovely except for... the grubby beige bra strap displayed across her back. Perhaps she thought in the movies no one would see? If that's the case, she should've arrived after the movie began and the theater was dark.

This is a problem you see everywhere, young women seem to think it's "okay" to parade around town with parts of their underwear showing and frequently, this underwear is not that clean. Nowadays, there are so many options in brassieres that it really doesn't make sense to do this. Nor do you have to have an extensive wardrobe of bras to deal with all your different clothing designs. There are convertible bras with straps you can wear many different ways: crisscross, halter-style around your neck, one strap over one shoulder, etc., etc. In other words, you only need two or three such bras to cover off all your dress situations.

The young lady in the photo at top had obviously put a lot of thought into her outfit, because her hair colors actually matched the colors of her dress. But then she blew her look in having that ugly black strap stretched across her back. As for the young lady sitting on the bus here, with a variety of straps crisscrossing, why she thought not only a bra showing but also support pads on the bra straps completed her look, is beyond me.

It was thought tacky to dress like this 50 years ago, and it still is.

People need to remember that the way you dress is not so much about yourself as it is about consideration for others. I hope this is one fashion trend that will die a very quick death.

Not what they call 'buttoned up'!

Have you ever had the experience of going to put on a blouse or other garment you really love only to find that one of the buttons is missing? Or, even worse, have you been out and about when the button and snap fastener on what you're wearing pops off?

Given the way modern clothing is made, it's not surprising that we quickly end up far from 'buttoned up'! In industry, buttons are only rarely sewn on by hand, and the same is true for other types of fastening, such as snap fasteners. Instead, these items are added by machine, often with very rapid 'punch stitching' that is not fastened on or fastened off properly.

When you buy clothing made by an individual, there is a good chance the buttons or other fasteners will have been sewn on by hand and the person will have the first anchored the thread before attaching the button plus will then 'finish off' properly. So there's far less risk of the buttons coming off.

In the photos, I'm showing the problem that occurs. In the black-and-white striped shirt, the button was 'punch stitched' on and through successive washings, the thread has started to unravel because it was never finished off. If I hadn't caught this in time, the button would've likely come off - perhaps in the washing machine - or otherwise been lost. In the photos of the strawberry blouse, the fasteners are all transparent plastic snap fasteners. Apart from the fact these are less durable than metal snap fasteners, they have been put on by very rapid methods and are slowly but surely coming undone, one by one.

What can we do to deal with this? One tactic, any time you buy a piece of clothing, is to over-sew the buttons or fasteners yourself, finishing off well so that they do not unravel. This way, they won't fall off. An additional tactic is to always look for clothing that offers you spare buttons which match those on the garment. These can be kept in a safe place; if they're not actually sewn into the garment but, instead, come in a small plastic Ziploc bag, you can run a thread through the Ziploc and hang this on the hanger where you keep the garment. Or, put a safety pin through the top of the Ziploc bag and have a place where you keep these bags. I have a number of spare buttons in small Ziploc bags attached to the wire baskets where I keep my sweaters and other folded garments.

One final note of irony: both the garments shown above are sold by an extremely high profile women's-wear catalog company; as I am being 'brand-discreet' in this blog, I won't name the firm!