Trying my best...

I do spend a lot of time with women. I work more of less entirely with women, it's women who do the school run at my kids' school, I am not one of those girls who has lots of male friends. Except one or two (D - you know who you are, you secret male reader!) most of my male friends are the husbands of my girlfriends. Blogging is an almost entirely female preoccupation, unless I have yet to stumble on the boy blogs.

What strikes me though is that of the majority of these groups of women I spend time with, there is a consistency in them, no matter what age, lifestyle, type, character; many seem to have feelings of inadequacy about how they look. In fact it's not even just how they look, it's how they present themselves to the world.

Now as we know, I am a self-confessed shopper; I like to shop. I think about clothes and shoes. I make outfits. I wash and blow-dry my hair every day. I fret about my skin. If there is a day when I have a shoddy outfit on (and it's not a Sunday-loll-on-the-sofa-day) I feel somehow not quite right. So I guess you could say I make the effort. It matters to me. I want my husband to like how I look. If I get compliments I like it (who doesn't?).

So the thing I really, really don't get is why so many women just opt out of this element of life? Where they make enormous effort in other areas like their house or their kids or sewing the perfect fancy-dress for the school play, but they themselves look...dishevelled or dare I say neglected. And what is even worse is that when and if the concept of dressing or preening or fashion or just making the best of oneself comes up, some admit they kinda wished they did it.  They say they don't have enough time...the right body... the inclination. The occasional few say they are really not interested at all - but I'm not sure I buy that.

In the book 'The Thoughtful Dresser' by Linda Grant (who incidentally started as a blogger) she defends the fact that everyone has to get dressed every day, why don't we make an effort to do so in way that pleases us and others? Why opt out? Why not make the best of what you have? I  wholeheartedly agree. Maybe fashion is frippery. Maybe frippery is vanity. Looks certainly aren't everything.  But for as long as I can, I do intend to try my very best..stroll in the park anyone?! ;-)