I was out recently and came upon some members of the red hat society.  Now I think these ladies are adorable.  The only thing I don’t understand is the part about being old to wear purple.  You know these ladies base their club on the poem by Jenny Joseph that says “When I am old I shall wear purple, with a red hat that doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me”.  Okay, I’m cool with all of that, but why when I’m old?  I love purple.  I always have.  Purple tulips and purple roses are some of my favorite flowers.  I have lots of purple clothes and I always have had.  I remember when I was small, my grandmother made dresses for myself and my sisters in a lavender print.  I had to wear all four of them.  Good thing I like purple.

I’ve never associated age with color.  With the exception of gray, of course, I don’t think color says much about a person’s age.  Now there are some dressing choices that might speak of a persons age.  Here’s the thing though, when it comes to choosing their own clothes there’s not a lot of difference between children and the elderly.  My grandmother was 83 when she passed away.  Thank God she mostly wore dresses.  They match by default.  When she did wear mix and match it was nearly always a disaster.   She assumed that if there was a color in the top that matched a color in the bottom then the clothes went together just fine.  Plaids and stripes and florals and prints made no difference.  It was not unusual to see her in plaid pants and a print top (both very busy) with a common color, ready to go to town.  Of course she always wore knee-high stockings and carried a sensible handbag, and wore a head scarf.  The head scarf did not have to match anything in the ensemble.  As I said before, thank God she mostly wore dresses.  When my children were small and were allowed to dress themselves they chose their clothes mostly in the same way.  My sons wore t-shirts and jeans or shorts so they were usually okay, although one of them really wanted to wear his shorts and cowboy boots.  That same son came in one day with athletic socks on (you know, the kind that come all the way up to your knees and have the colored stripe up around the top).  Each band at the top of the sock was different.  When I asked him about his sock matching technique, he told me it was okay he had another pair just like these.  My daughter was the most creative dresser (she still holds this title).  She has gypsy blood I swear.  The part that amazes me about this is…it kinda works for her.  One day she came downstairs wearing a sweater that came down almost to her knees.  A shirt that was of an entirely different color was underneath the sweater, and she had a belt slung low across her hips.  She was wearing leggings and socks that were striped and didn’t really pick up any colors I could find anywhere on her person and ankle boots.  Full makeup and dangly jewelry and a beret atop a side pony.  She looked adorable.  Anyone else would have looked like a circus clown.  It reminded me of the old saying “it’s not what you wear.  It’s how you throw your shoulders.”

My mom does better.  I think that may be because we dress her.  We being my sisters and myself.  We buy her matched sets.  This works like Garanimals.  If we buy her an “outfit” she knows she should wear it as an outfit.  She sometimes accessorizes questionably…(she has a bronze belt that I will be burning as soon as I can find it when she is not in it) but one can only do so much.  She doesn’t wear head scarves or  SAS shoes or anything like that.  If she any questions about what she should wear she always asks us.  Occasionally she comes up with something that makes us all go WTF?  But you just put on your happy face and get two carts at Wal-Mart and stay as far away as possible and hope nobody will notice that she is really with you. 

My daughter accuses me of being too matchy-matchy.  Apparently I have a tendency to be a bit monochromatic (in her opinion).  She is forever telling me I need to add a splash of color to an outfit.  I am not sure you can teach an old dog new tricks when it comes to the way you are comfortable dressing.  I will sometimes wear prints on my pants, but I generally wear solid blouses and shoes that match that blouse.  One day to please her I wore a pair of black and white hounds tooth pants with an orange shirt and multicolored shoes with orange in them.  I felt like a total spaz.  She loved it!  I may get ballsy enough to do that occasionally but it isn’t likely to become my uniform any time soon.

I don’t think I will wait until I am old to wear purple.  Purple is too beautiful to put off until old age.  I think I will put off wrinkles…and varicose veins…and silver hair…and dentures those seem to be things worth waiting as long as possible for.  I really don’t think I am being judged when I wear purple.  I have a lovely silk blouse in purple and I have never had anyone come up to me while I was wearing it and say “Oh my God, how old are you?”  I usually get very nice compliments.  The purple complements the color of my eyes very nicely, and it also complements my skin tone.  So, I would be a fool to put purple away for another thirty years.  Ms. Joseph also comments that when she is old she will spend her pension on gloves and brandy and sit on the pavement when she is tired and gobble up samples.  These are things I can get behind.  I am also for cursing the neighborhood children, badgering the neighbors, wearing big stupid hats, napping at will, calling for invisible kitties, having really unhealthy dinners (like ice cream), going braless, and talking about the good old days until I bore my kids and grand-kids so much they finally go home.  But that’s just me, your list may be different.  I look forward to growing old, and it’s a good thing because I’m getting there pretty quickly.  I’m already finding “laugh lines” (not funny), losing my vision, and becoming less and less tolerant, so I know I’m gonna make a real good old person.  Just put my rocker on the front porch where I can see the neighbors and the traffic.  I might need to yell at all the damn kids too, and I might wear purple.  If I do it will be because I like purple not because I’m old.  If I shoot your kid with a BB gun for stepping on my lawn, that’s because I’m old.