Dressing for movement

One of the courses I teach in the summer is media relations. One of the things we do in that course is visit a TV studio at news hour. We met tonight with a woman I have known for years at the station, a former host, reporter, and producer. She is now working in management and not in front of the camera.


I hardly recognized her today. In her past incarnation she was the person I usually saw a trend on first, she had a major do, killer shoes, and beautiful makeup.


Today she came out to meet the class, still with the great makeup, but in a swinging sort of knit knee length skirt, hair that she had let go natural, a fashionable knit top, and flats:

She looked incredibly hip, far more attractive than I have ever seen her before, and for the first time I realized what a good looking woman she was, how animated, how warm, how connecting with people. 

I also realized that she was a mover. She moved her arms a lot, was expressive, moved closer to students when they asked a question - and it hit me. Her clothes were allowing her to move freely and for the first time since I have known her I realized just how alive she was. I finally saw her style not her fashion.

This got me to thinking that we often consider clothes as something we pose in, but unlike other design products, like jewelry or buildings, they move with us because people move as they live.

Clothes that don't move well contain rather than express who we are.

I think this is an element of clothing worth thinking about, way past comfort, way past the take-it-off-the-minute-you-get-in-the-door clothing, but about moving with style. This is what people really see, this is what people really watch.

I have to think this through, but I am going to start to pay attention to how clothes move on me and with me, and to what moves well on other people.

On a related note I randomly came across this tonight, on the subject of shoes. What is interesting to me is the observation that heels go up when the economy is down, can't quite make out why. Well if folks are going to read my feet, I think I might dress for prosperity. It's easier to go places.