Thursday, April 14, 2011

Fashion Smashion...

Once upon a time, not long after I moved to Kansas City, my employer offered a 2-day long workshop on business attire. By "offered," I mean "required all employees to attend." They brought in some expert from the Jones Store to tell us what to wear and what not to wear.

The Jones Store wasn't exactly a high-falootin' store, but at that time I was 21 and barely making minimum wage so when I shopped there it was to visit Clarence (my mother's name for the clearance aisle). This expert was some sort of personal shopper or something. I'm pretty sure she would have steered me away from Clarence if I had asked for her assistance.


Anyway, one of the important lessons I learned during this workshop was that a person should not wear white shoes to work, EVER, unless you're a nurse. But definitely not ever in an office setting. When I shared this information to friends after the fact, they said, "right, you shouldn't wear white after Labor Day." No, we're not talking about THAT rule. This all happened in the middle of July and it was very clear that white shoes were forbidden in the office at any time of year. EVER.

Maybe it's common knowledge, but that was the first I had heard of it. It was also the first two of my co-workers had heard of it. Michelle was just a few years older than me and Linda was about 20 years my senior. We discussed it at lunch and all of us thought it was kind of ridiculous, but had different ways of responding to the news.


That night, Michelle went home, retrieved the white dress shoes from her closet, and tossed them in the trash. Linda went home, set her white shoes aside to take them to be dyed a light pink. I went home, found my white shoes buried at the bottom of the closet and wore them to work the next day.

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