Fashionverse: The Twilight Zone

Every since secondary school I have noticed that girls have a strange obsession with fashion. I never paid much attention back then, mostly hanging out with a group of boys during my breaks and playing hearts and dominoes.

My mother never much encouraged this descent into the closet either. We never had any conversations about buying or wearing make-up, nail polish or lipstick. Clothing was purchased on a need basis and not on 'I want' terms.

The first time I ever wore make-up, I was about twenty-one and about to model in a fashion show for Betty West.
After my brief stint of modelling, I retreated back into my world were once my clothing covered me and was clean, I couldn't care less about what was in fashion.

As I aged and became a working professional with money to spend. I bought lots of clothing and accessories but for the most part hardly wore any of them. And to be truthful, they were all the same style: plain and functional. I experimented with make-up one or two times but inevitably, them and any nail polish I bought would just catch dust on my shelves.

With that background then you will understand my bewilderment when I found myself in the middle of a discussion on high heels. I listened with fascination as my two female co-workers happily discussed different pairs of 'hot, sexy shoes' that one of them had been planning to buy.

There was even a collective sigh of shared commiseration at one particular pair that was oh so desirable, but the store had been out of stock in the right size.

My brow furrowed as they moved on to snakeskin shoes, I had never head the like before. As the shoe was described it brought to my mind the image of a blue, purple and pink snake winding its way slowly up a leg and settling there, looking quite comfortable. Thank goodness that they weren't into alligator skin.

My trip into the fashoinverse would not be complete without talk of dresses, particularly ones for church Christmas morning. It was right about then that I realised that all the girls from school had grown up, and quite possibly they were all still babbling about clothing and shoes, every chance they got.

I was quietly horrified but listened with half-an ear as I took advantage of a lull in activity to journal about my day.

Then it happened: The universe cracked and I was sucked into a warp-hole where I saw my nightmare come to being.

Shifting gears, they began to vividly and effusively fantasize about how much clothing, shoes and accessories they would buy if money was not an object. Hundreds of different colours and styles, so much so that they would never have to wear the same outfit twice.
One woman declared in the height of her fantasy that she would need a whole house to fit in all of her clothing, which would be organized by season of course.
They described a world of endless fashion unleaded by the absence of the need for frugality. No capsule wardrobes for them, not at all; just everything and all, more and more.

My eyes widened in terror and my heart beat quickened in my chest and I waited for them to say that they were joking. That even if they had all the money in the world, they would keep their closet to a respectable level. No such, was forth coming.

As a minimalist whose goal for the year was to end up owning less than 300 items, the thought of a houseful of stuff was sending me into a mild panic attack. The amount of money and resources they were planning to squander was incredible to me.

I pulled my mind back to the present by reminding myself that at least for now, they didn't have enough money to do that, so I would never hear about them having been buried in a mountain of dresses.

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I wondered if their wish had been granted if life would really improve as exponentially as they assumed; more stuff had never brought me any happiness, but who was I to judge?

I reminded myself to stick in my lane. I wished them well and hoped that one day they would have an unlimited income and a gargantuan closet stuffed to the gills; I hoped fervently however, that I would never have to hear them talk about it...