Tag Archives: Banana Republic

Memories From the Closet

etc., fashion, travel, , , ,

My husband and I have traveled quite a bit and everywhere we go, we collect souvenirs – primarily t-shirts, mugs, and shot glasses. The mugs and shot glasses are displayed on shelves and in curio cabinets in our home and occasionally used for their intended purposes. The t-shirts we actually wear.

Not that we can wear all of them. Many were destroyed in the tornado that also destroyed our house, and of the ones that remain, almost all are too small (or actually, we are too large).

I used to have a “beers of the world” t-shirt collection. I had Harp Lager and Guinness from Ireland, Red Stripe from Jamaica, Corona from Mexico, and so on. (Unfortunately, Harp Lager beer is no longer sold in Ireland, so there were no t-shirts available on our most recent visit. I did get a very nice Tullamore Dew t-shirt on our most recent visit, but that’s whiskey, not beer. But I digress.)

While in Ireland, we picked up shirts from the Cliffs of Moher and Sean’s Bar too. We’ve also bought t-shirts commemorating our visits to other cities and scenic locations. We recently resurrected one from Dubrovnik, too tattered by the tornado to wear, plus one from the Gauley River and one from Kartchner Caverns near Benson, AZ.

We also have t-shirts from many of the science fiction conventions we attended, plus ones with images of cats or armadillos, our favorite performers and bands (Pink Floyd, Bela Fleck, Kris Kristofferson, Jimi Hendrix, the Black Book Band), and more than a few with in-jokes or snarky or geeky sayings on them. I even have one with Hemingway’s sound advice: Write Drunk. Edit Sober. And of course one from my alma mater, Cornell.

(I also had a bunch of Banana Republic t-shirts back in the day, which really aren’t travel t-shirts, but along the same lines. My wardrobe used to consist almost exclusively of clothes in khaki, olive drab, sand, and camo, plus assorted other colors that BR featured in their line. I once hyperventilated in a BR store in La Jolla, and once a friend gave me some of their tissue paper, which I used as a backdrop for my bulletin board. I used to drive to the next state over to their outlet store. I pored over their travelogue-catalogs. I never forgave Gap for buying them out. It’s never been the same since. But I digress. At length.)

Why do I need all these t-shirts? Despite my age (and the advice everyone seems to want to give to someone my age), my everyday outfit is a t-shirt and jeans – and I’d rather wear an entertaining shirt than something boring. I wear this “uniform” to go shopping and to my therapist appointments (I have one t-shirt that says “The Light at the End of the Tunnel Is an Oncoming Freight Train.” I used to have one that said “Leave Me Alone. I’m Having a Crisis.”) I’d wear them to work, except that I work at home and wear my even-more-casual pajamas.

T-shirts today aren’t cheap. You can easily pay $30 with shipping. I have two on order now. One is a shirt from the Philadelphia Folk Festival, where my husband and I met. The other one, which Dan doesn’t know about (and he never reads my blog, so he still won’t know until it arrives), commemorates our trip to Montenegro. He had suggested that we replace some of our old shirts with ones featuring all the places we’ve traveled together, and I thought that would be a good place to start. After all, he recently surprised me with a t-shirt featuring Croatia.

Now all we have to do is find ones from Maine, the Leeward Islands, Benson AZ, Laurel Cavern, Carter Caves, Venice, Slovenia, and wherever we go next!

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The Ultimate Fashionista – Not!

etc., family, fashion, funny things, humor, , , , , , , ,

I guess you’d call be a victim of fashion. Or actually, a victim of no fashion. No fashion sense, at least.

I’ve always been this way. Being the second child, I always had hand-me-downs, which is probably why I never learned to pick out my own clothes. Also, my mother chose my clothes, which I was okay with until junior high, when I was mortified to see myself on videotape wearing saddle shoes and anklet socks. Quel faux pas!

It was at about that time that people started taking me in hand and trying to fix me up, sartorially at least. (Apparently, the other kind of fixing up was not even an option until I was properly decked out.) My first fashion consultant was a friend who told me that the main thing I should invest in was a pleated plaid skirt with a large gold safety pin. I did not, and thereby missed my chance to be stylish as well as cool.

When I did develop my own sense of style, it was based entirely around Banana Republic. Khaki and olive drab were my color palette. I lived for the day each month when the new catalog came out with all its exotic descriptions of the clothes and tidbits of travel writing.

Only once did I ever shop in an actual Banana Republic store, in La Jolla. I hyperventilated, which is something I ordinarily do only when shopping for amber jewelry. I made several purchases and used the leopard print wrapping paper as a background on my bulletin board at work. (A co-worker once brought me an empty Banana Republic bag as a gift. “Won’t she be offended?” someone asked her. “She’ll love it,” Marie replied.  And I did.)

Later I learned that Banana Republic had an outlet store about 45 miles from my house. Of course, I had to go. This was before outlet malls became a Thing. The BR outlet was in Erlanger, KY, a few miles from the Cincinnati airport (which is in Kentucky, for some reason). Keeping with either the travel theme or the airport theme, the outlet store was housed in a large, hangar-like warehouse, where I could make a proper expedition of shopping. I was crushed when BR stopped publishing their catalogs and again when they were bought out by The Gap. The outlet store was just no fun anymore.

Still, I wore my khaki and O.D., with occasional accents of camouflage. (This was also before camo became a Thing for anyone other than soldiers and hunters.) My mother, perhaps in atonement for all the hand-me-downs, sewed me spiffy camo vests and scarves. Once she even found some camo flannel and made me a floor-length granny-style camo nightgown, which I adored. (She also made me a forest green cape and Robin Hood hat, which I wore to my college archery classes. But I digress.)

Another friend took me in hand and tried to eliminate the jungle look from my wardrobe. She introduced me to colors outside the neutral spectrum and accompanied me on shopping trips where she picked out my clothes and dressed me up like a Barbie doll. Well, not like a Barbie, really. I didn’t have the figure for it and my feet aren’t permanently shaped for heels. At least I looked respectable enough for work and dressy enough for social occasions, which for some reason I hardly ever got invited to. She’s no longer able to go shopping with me but thoughtfully keeps me supplied with more hand-me-downs from her own extensive and colorful wardrobe.

Gradually, I developed enough color sense to boss my husband around. (“Hand me the teal jacket. No, the teal jacket! Not the navy blue! Lady, can you show him which is the teal jacket?” “Of course I can’t wear the knit sweater that I wore to the last business meeting. It’s long-sleeved and it’s August. Oh, and it’s not white; it’s cream. Which goes nicely with the coffee stain on it.”)

Now, of course, I’ve abandoned all attempts at fashion. I work at home in my pajamas and keep a year-round wardrobe of nightwear ranging from sleep shorts to men’s flannel pajamas. I buy them on sale out of season. This nabs me ridiculous designs (“Feline Sleepy” “Look Like a Lady, Shoot Like a Boss”) and nighties that look like hospital johnnies. But no one sees me anyway, so it hardly matters. My husband doesn’t complain. I think he’s afraid to.

And if I do have to go outside, I’ve developed my own special signature collection of clothing in my own style. I call it “Retro Boho Hobo,” and it suits me fine.