Home > Work > Wife Dressing: The Fine Art of Being a Well-Dressed Wife
1 " Courage and discretion go hand in hand: the courage to dare to be yourself, the discretion not to overdo; the courage to do something unusual, the discretion to temper it. "
― , Wife Dressing: The Fine Art of Being a Well-Dressed Wife
2 " Never close your mind to a color. Remember, too, that texture is an important element. The same dress in the same shade of red may look wonderful on you in soft velvet but too harsh in a hard-finished taffeta. Think in terms of color combined with texture, not of one or the other independently. "
3 " Except for camping out at a beach cottage, dungarees have no place in wife-dressing. Pants must be perfectly styled to flatter the female figure. Dungarees, by definition and price, cannot be exquisitely tailored. Leave them to youngsters. "
4 " The kitchen is your natural setting as a woman and you should look beautiful, not bedraggled, in it. Whether you go to work or work at home- or both- take advantage of the opportunity the kitchen offers for expressing your wifely qualities in what you wear. Pinafores, organdies, and aprons look wonderful, as do gay cotton wrap-arounds that slip on over your dress while you make breakfast. Too much attention is paid to kitchen equipment and decor; too little to what is worn in this setting. Why look like Cinderella's crotchety stepmother when you can be a lyrical embodiment of all that a home and hearth means! "
5 " Good taste and the amount of money spent are interrelated but not necessarily dependent on each other. "
6 " You are you. You are not the model in that photograph or the girl beside you in the elevator or a woman eating lunch at the next table. What they are wearing may stop traffic, but be sure it's right for you before emulating the effect. "
7 " It's better to have fewer clothes, all wearable and each accessorized in your mind so that when you put something on you know at once which shoes and gloves you're going to wear. Complete costume planning is possible only with an intimate awareness of all your clothes. "
8 " he worst mistake you can make is to force yourself to shop. The most important part of shopping is your frame of mind. How can you make a proper choice if you feel like the mistreated heroine of a soap opera?A frivolous hat or other bit of forbidden fruit are ideal for beating the blues, but stay out of the dress and coat departments until you feel enthusiastic. If your body isn't attuned to fashion, you won't look right in anything. And if you're depressed because you've gained a few pounds, don't buy something too small to grow down to. Lose the few pounds first then go shopping. [i] Remember, diets always start tomorrow. [/i] "
9 " The worst mistake you can make is to force yourself to shop. The most important part of shopping is your frame of mind. How can you make a proper choice if you feel like the mistreated heroine of a soap opera?A frivolous hat or other bit of forbidden fruit are ideal for beating the blues, but stay out of the dress and coat departments until you feel enthusiastic. If your body isn't attuned to fashion, you won't look right in anything. And if you're depressed because you've gained a few pounds, don't buy something too small to grow down to. Lose the few pounds first then go shopping. [I]Remember, diets always start tomorrow. [/i] "
10 " If you're feeling depressed, don't try to jazz up your spirits with too violent an extreme so that you wind up looking like Pagliacci, your sadness intensified by the brightness of your costume. "
11 " It will take some clever appraisal on your part, but your clothes should express value without extravagance, warmth without being brazen, and understanding without looking like Whistler's Mother. "
12 " If you've become addicted to dark stockings or tights, be careful not to look like a Charles Addams heroine. The "beatnik" bit is wonderful for sloppy, slushy days, but should not be allowed to take over. "
13 " For purely psychological reasons, have at least one ultra-glamorous negligee to wear when you're not feeling well. You can feel like the heroine of a Victorian novel being pampered and loved and fed chocolate creams on a horsehair sofa. "
14 " We wives are emotional beings. Clothes play an important role in emotional control. If you go to work knowing you look wonderful, feeling at ease, comfortable, and appropriately garbed, you're bound to be more alert and more able to cope with problems, including the unexpected. Getting the habit of dressing well every day will prevent panic at an unexpected situation at work, or after work for that mattter. "
15 " Wear a full skirt [when traveling], which does not bind the way slacks might, and will also be acceptable wherever you stop to eat or sleep. At the end of a long stretch on the road, you'll feel less fatigued if you look presentable when you get out of the car. It's human nature. "
16 " Unless under a doctor's orders to be a lady of the dark, a woman wearing sunglasses indoors or at night looks like nothing more than a satire of a Hollywood glamour queen- grade B. "
17 " Never ask for whom the belles toil- we toil at our toilette for the approval and admiration of our husbands and the general appreciation of men with whom we work or meet in other outside situations. "
18 " A husband's interest in his wife's wardrobe will add to his understanding of her needs and desires as a woman; a wife's regard for her husband's preferences and judgment on how she looks add up to a happy marriage, "
19 " Know who you are, what you stand for- your enthusiasms, your ambitions, your hopes, your responsibilities. Remember that it's your husband for whom you're dressing. Keep him in mind when you shop. "
20 " When your husband's eyes light up as he comes in at night, you're in sad shape if it's only because he smells dinner cooking. "
