When my seven year old was only two, she was very adamant about what she wore and what she didn’t wear. I remember trying to put on what I thought was a cute dress for her. At the tender age of two, she looked at the dress and proclaimed “No mommy. Not this one. THAT one!” She was right, of course. The dress she picked out was actually prettier than the one I was going to put on her. But I figured it was just a lucky guess so I didn’t think anything of it. After all, how would a two year old know more about fashion than her mother, who is much older and wiser than she?
I have never been one for fashion. It’s not that I didn’t care about it. Okay, maybe I didn’t. But I guess I just didn’t have the knack for it. In college, my idea of a cute outfit was an oversized t-shirt and leggings. No lie. Besides my big (very big…oversized, in fact) hair, little was worse than my wardrobe.
It didn’t get any better when I was pregnant. My idea of a cool outfit was a terry sweat suit with a pair of Reeboks. The amazing thing was that no one ever said anything to me! Not one person! Of course, what could I expect when my own mother and sister in law were wearing the same sweat suit that I did.
It didn’t help that I got into the culinary world either. Since then, my “work wardrobe” consisted of a white chef coat, black chef pants and a white apron. And usually the apron wasn’t even that clean. So you can only imagine how bemused I was when I realized that my seven year old was more fashion savvy than I was.
So much so that I took her shopping with me this past summer. At first it was because I didn’t want to get a sitter, but I quickly realized that she had an eye for what looks good and what didn’t. Within an hour, I walked out of the store with shirts and pants that would make any mannequin green with envy. That quickly led to a Christmas shopping trip for family members. In 4 stores flat, my daughter helped me pick out jewelry, scarves and all sorts of things that I would have never picked out myself. At least not with that much confidence anyhow.
So as I sit here typing, my daughter sits on the floor designing her first purse. I’m wearing my usual sweatshirt with a pretty bow in my hair that my daughter made out of duct tape. No my friends, my seven year old did not inherit my fashion ineptness. Rather, she has a gift for fashion that is well beyond her years. Maybe someday she can design a wardrobe for her fashion-backwards mom. Or at least create a chef outfit that doesn’t make me look like a deflated Pillsbury doughboy. Until then, my old sweat suit upstairs should do the trick.