changes in taste

A discussion from Ravelry yesterday: How has your taste, in how you dress or decorate your house or whatever changed in recent years?

And it got me thinking about it a little bit. I have changed in how I dress, and I've noticeably changed (well, noticeable to me) in what kind of fabric attracts me over the past dozen or so years.

With clothing, I've become a lot more comfortable with showing my girly side - instead of dark or neutral, fairly plain dresses or skirts, I will occasionally get something that's pink or lavender or another pastel. I think part of my rejection of pastels in the past came from a time when I went shopping for clothes, and, being in my early 30s, I felt like I was too old for the teenybopper sort of clothing a lot of stores sold (and even back then, there was still a lot of what is sometimes termed "slutwear" for fairly young women - stuff I would never have worn no matter what age I was, because it was just trashy looking and not an image I wanted to present to the world). But the only other alternative, it seemed, were the pale pastel pantsuits allegedly sold for "mature" women. (I have a number of friends in their 70s and 80s, and I have never seen any of them wear anything like the pantsuits I was seeing - again, they were just unattractive, but unattractive in a different way from the teenybopper stuff).

Of course I can sew, so I sewed a lot of my clothes in that time period.

But recently, I've begun buying more bright-colored things, and even more pastels. I suspect part of it is a realization I don't really have to prove my "seriousness" to anyone; if anything, I probably come across as a little TOO serious. And part of it may be just that decrease in giving a darn about what other people think that seems to come with maturity.

Also, I've got a few shorter skirts than what I would have considered in my 20s or even early 30s. (not super-short; an inch or two above the kneecap is as short as I go, mainly for modesty's sake). I think that came because I used to buy long skirts because I thought I had unattractive legs. But at some point I realized that even though my legs weren't the most attractive in the world (and even then, the woman with "the most attractive legs" would probably be a matter of considerable debate, even among men who considered themselves experts on the topic), they also weren't terribly horrible - yes, they were bigger than I might like, but they were big because I have well-developed muscles and not really because they're fat, and the skin isn't wrinkly or blemished or anything....so I have a few shorter skirts now. I don't wear them often (and never on windy days), but I do have them and wear them. One is a green-and white print; another has large blue flowers (sort of impressionistic looking flowers) on it; still another is sort of a peacock-feather design, only in lavender.

And when I bought my still-fairly-new dressy raincoat, I chose a bright pink one. Sort of a bubblegum pink, or, if you prefer, a Pinkie Pie's mane-and-tail pink. Granted, there weren't many choices of colors, but as I remember they also had kelly green and navy blue, but I chose the pink. And I'm glad I did. I really like the coat and a couple people have told me the color flatters me.

(Also, this month's Southern Living featured a spring coat that was bright pink. Yeah, it was more money than I paid for mine and a slightly different style. But still: it was pink. And there was some comment about Southern women favoring bright colors like that for those kinds of things. Interesting. Maybe I am becoming a bit of a Southern lady after all, despite the fact that when I open my mouth, everyone can tell I'm not from around here...)

My taste in quilting fabric has definitely changed. I used to be all about the reproductions - in fact, I still have a  couple huge tubs of Civil War reproductions that I never did anything with (but someday I probably will).

But lately, it's bright colors that catch my eye. I've probably bought more Moda fabrics (a lot of their designers favor really bright, clear pastels) than anything else recently. And I've gone ahead and fully indulged my love of novelty fabrics. Because most of the quilts I make are for me, and if the color combinations seem weird to someone else, or the prints seem a little goofy, that doesn't matter, because I like them and they are for me. (Then again, some of the comments I've gotten when I've taken tops in to be quilted suggests that what I like and think looks good is not so unusual after all)

It's also possible my increased liking of bright colors comes from either (a) a fear that I'm becoming a bit invisible or, more likely (b) I don't really want to be "invisible" any more. When I was in college and grad school, I didn't mind not being noticed, I didn't mind kind of blending in to the background. But now, I do kind of like being noticed now and again, and sometimes it takes dressing differently from the color the walls are in order to do that. Oh, don't get me wrong - I still have a lot of brown and neutral clothes in my wardrobe, but I more often now set them off with something brighter.