The Rural Voice, 1980-03, Page 34What Shall
Wear?
BY GISELE IRELAND
This may sound like a most frivolous and
an unagricultural question, but to the
part of the farming population that
wears skirts (at least sometimes) it is
getting to be a real problem. The
image we create by the way we look is
important...people do have to look at
you before they ever talk to you. I
know now why people sometimes don't
talk to me. It is the wav I look.
The new summer fashions and the
summer catalogue have just reinforced my
previous idea that the men who design
dothes for women secretly hate them. Why
else would they persist in trying to palm off
these converted feed sacks with a
drawstring middle? I don't want to look like
the Co -Op has just dropped me off the back
of the truck, and with my shape, that's just
what I would qualify for, a nice bag of
pellets.
The divorce rate among farmers is
relatively low because we don't have the
time,moneylor opportunity to visit fashion
boutiques and empty our wallets. We have
a harder time buying clothes than do other
professional women. The only place we slip
to in our lunch hour is to bring hubby a
portable lunch or out to the barn to check
things over. Our clothes purchases have to
be functional as well as attractive and have
to be able to span season after season.
Luckily most farm women sew. The last
couple of years that has been our salvation.
Time is also one of our greatest problem.
We usually get 30 minutes (if we're lucky)
to get out of the barn and get looking like
we've never seen a barn. As a result our
hair styles are blow dry, our nails are
unvarnished because if you polished them
before chores,after washing the third cow
half is off anyway. Our clothes are out of
necessity "jump in" and our makeup
sketchy.
The night you have to go somewhere is
usually the night something goes wrong.
The baby throws up and has a temperature
all the baby sitters are busy and you're
burning the phone lines getting one lined
up and the old brown cow decides to have a
breech birth and milk fever and needs the
vet.
At this point I usually get a headache
and decide to stay home. If I do get beyond
this point hubby can usually turn me off the
rest of the way.
1 mean, by the time I have laid out his
clothes and convinced him that no, his
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PG. 32 THE RURAL VOICE/MARCH 1980
plaid shirt would look queer with his
checked suit and find a tie to match, I've
had it. By then I grab for the stretch slacks
that will go around and over anything and
rummage through the tops for one that
doesn't look too bad with it and I'm off and
gone.
You're off and put -ting on your lipstick
going 50 m.p.h. down a gravel road and
decide against mascara because at that
speed you'd likely be blind when you got
there or resembled a racoon. You also
discover that you will have to cross your
legs funny that night because you just
found a run in your pantyhose that you
didn't see before because you were
brushing your teeth and putting the
pantyhose on at the same time.
When we get there we always envy the
women who look so collected and put
together right because we just discovered
the only one wearing pants is me. or I'm
the only long dress in a room full of
shorties. Sound familiar?
Designers would do rural women a real
favour by designing clothes that fit a
female shape. By nature we're lumpy and
bumpy in places and putting a drawstring
through our middle does little to enhance
this. Hopefully in the coming season we
shall see some sensible clothes and terror
will not be stricken into our hearts when we
are invited to go out and all we can think of
is "What Shall I Wear?"
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