Practicality above all

I wore a nightgown under my dress to work yesterday.

See, I think I've left you with the impression that I am utterly impractical. And I am not. I realize that I sometimes look ridiculous. But there are often extremely practical reasons behind it.

And here's the thing. It seems to me that you are either a slip person or you aren't. I am in the latter category.

I own two slips, both from my mother, and both longer than most dresses or skirts I own. Plus, for the most part, I don't wear a lot of sheer stuff. So I feel very little need for them.

But I got this new black knit dress, which is really kind of fabulous. And it's just long enough that it grazed the top of my boots, so I don't have to wear tights with it.

But it turns out that while it's not sheer, on particularly dry days like yesterday, it's really clingy. Particularly, and oddly enough, in the crotchal area.

This didn't happen when I tried it on, but I was wearing tights and it was a really rainy day. It clung, but to other, more flattering places.

And the last thing I want to wear is a dress that features my hoo-ha. So I went casting about for slips.

Mine, as I mentioned earlier, are just too long.

The only suitable thing I could find was a nightgown. Which worked perfectly. And kind of amused me.

I commuted to work in my boots, which was fine for the six-block walk from Nick's office. But impossible for all the walking errands I had to do after work. For those, I needed my Dansko clogs, which I'd left at work the night before.

Now, here's the thing. Since I didn't have tights on, I had one of two options with the striped wool socks I was wearing. And these socks, they are great. They're Smartwool, comfy with really funly colored stripes. They are perfect under boots.

It turns out they look idiotic with clogs. But it was too cold for no socks.

My two options were as follows: Pull the socks halfway up my calves, as high as they will go. Pretend it's a look I am aiming for. Or - and this is the one I chose - fold them down to ankle height, thus minimizing the number of visible colors on the socks.

I probably don't need to tell you that I was already a vision in a turquoise wool coat with a slightly paler blue hat. They look fabulous together. They look less fabulous atop screaming white calves. And brown purple green orange stripey socks, tucked into black clogs - although they were significantly less visible outside in the dark.

Though I did catch several people looking down at my feet while stopped at streetcorners.

I wanted to lean over, wiggle my eyebrows, and say, "And I'm wearing a nightgown underneath all this fabulousness."