Due to the fact that I am now in management - basically the assistant hotel manager without the official title - I have to dress appropriately for work. This is not always an easy task because it is not easy to buy clothes in my size without breaking the bank. Add in the fact that I'm Goth and that just doubles the difficulty. Sure, I could sew what I want, but that would mean I have to keep my sewing area cleaned up enough to be able to get anything made...it's definitely not from a lack of fabric because I have four large totes packed with fabric I've bought with an eye towards making clothes for myself and my daughter. It's largely from a lack of working space to do any sewing at all.
So, a friend and I have been making occasional trips to Value Village in the attempt to tune up my wardrobe into something much more appropriate for my position at work, yet keeping with my Goth aesthetic. Thank goodness for corporate Goth looks, and stretchy fabrics...when you can find it in plus sizes.
I am not adverse to wearing clothes from non-Goth brands. I am from the generation that couldn't just go out and buy what I wanted from Goth or alt stores - they simply didn't exist! Instead I learned to alter what I could find in stores, including thrift stores, and made the most of it. I still do that, to be honest. The amount of clothing in my closet that I bought at Walmart would probably shock most people that would have no clue that my Gothy outfit of the day was primarily Walmart finds. Or thrift store finds, for that matter. Or there's the pair of comfy grey stretchy pants I got from the Joe Fresh department in a Dominion grocery store.
Accessories are where I make the most of things. And considering that I don't really wear a lot of jewelry, belts, pins, etc., I think I do pretty damn good. I do have a few pairs of shoes/boots that are definitely NOT mainstream wear - my Demonia sneakers, and over-the-knee platform boots I bought from Amazon - but most of my shoes come from Ardene. Yes, seriously. For as much as I love the more Gothy footwear, I find that I can't wear most of it because my feet are fucked up. Back in the 80s my favourite pair of shoes was a pair of Fluevog winkle-pickers with bat buckles and taps on the heels and toes (they were VERY pointy and the toes needed protection), but they probably didn't help my feet much. Damn, I miss those shoes...
I find cheap jewelry online and most of the time I luck out. Sometimes my skin turns green within an hour of wearing the stuff, sometimes it doesn't. Clear nail polish on the side that will touch your skin goes a long way. As for earrings, my lobes are stretched so regular earrings aren't really an issue, but when I do decide to wear them, I can't wear studs so I stick to rings or shepherd hooks that I can wear through a pair of tunnels or ear skins. The tunnels and ear skins protect my skin from the cheap metal of the earrings so it's all good.
Necklaces are a staple of Goth aesthetic and always have been. I have everything from chokers to navel-brushing necklaces. Mostly silver, and some have a spot of black, red, or blue. I have a silver-coloured ring that has a pretty white stone in it, and I love it more than I expected to! One ring I got from Wish surprised me - it's a long silver ring with three long oval stones set into it, and it has yet to turn my skin green when I wear it...maybe I lucked into an actual silver ring for around $2? I've even fallen asleep with it on and there's been no issue. Woo!
One of the next things I need to do is replace my glasses. I usually go with a metal frame, either round, oval, or rectangle, and always something that isn't ginormous. The style for eyeglasses lately seems to be a repeat of the 70s and 80s with the huge ugly plastic frames, but I hated that the first time around so I'm definitely NOT going with that look again. Blech. Friends of mine who know my style have started sending me links to really cool frames, which I am very grateful for! As long as I stick to single-vision lenses they won't be that expensive either. I'm supposed to be wearing progressive lenses but I hate them - I bought a pair about four years ago, and not only were they ridiculously expensive, but they were impossible to get used to and ugly as sin. I think I wore them for a grand total of a month in the hopes that I would adjust to them, but I ended up going back to an older pair of glasses that I liked much better. Sure, the prescription is about six years old, but I can see way better in them, and if I need to see the TV to play a video game, I've got a pair of single-vision glasses that are in my newest prescription that I put on for the duration of playing the video game. I know I will be looking for a new optometrist as well, one that won't keep pushing progressive lenses on me when they simply don't work well for what I need. If I need to see up really close, I just take my glasses off. And I've got a smexy eye-glass chain with bats on it to use when I do that :P
Anyhow, back to the wardrobe thing.
Yesterday, a friend and I went to Value Village and we managed to find some really good finds! I now have the black blazer I've been looking for forever, and I found a Lane Bryant black brocade jacket that fits pretty good - I just need to wear one of my minimizer bras with it, but that's fine by me. The black brocade fits my aesthetic quite well as I tend towards slightly romantic looks for my work attire, and more than a bit of my non-work attire when I feel like wearing more than stretch pants and baggy tunics or t-shirts. I also found a sleeve-less long black dress made in a very lightweight fabric (I will need a slip with it unless I plan on wearing a long cardigan with it the entire day), and a glittery black lightweight tunic-style sweater. I'd found a black lace skirt I really liked too, but it was one size too small...damn. Along with the Torrid blouse and a printed red and black lace t-shirt I found during my last trip to Value Village, I've got a pretty good start on my new work-appropriate wardrobe!
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