Depressed because can't keep up with styles

the world's best mom

Mon, Jun 17 2024, 9:46 am

My advice for OP:

-Take style advice from people here. Buy a couple of things that can make you feel good.

-Stop caring so much about styles. It's okay to dress nicely, but it's not okay to think your self worth is less because your clothing isn't the most stylish. You are a wonderful person and you deserve to be happy in whatever clothing you wear.

-Don't be afraid of your in-laws. They can think styles define the person, and you can just remember that you are a valuable person and your clothing is just clothing. If it looks stylish, that's just an added plus.

Dolly Welsh

Mon, Jun 17 2024, 10:32 am

Microfiber.

A great fabric.

On shoes, skirts, lots of things. It is washable, never wrinkles, quite matte, never shines, drapes well, looks tailored.

When you machine wash nice clothes, put them in a mesh bag in the washing machine. Then air dry them, no dryer. They dry fast.

But it is good to have a cotton layer, black, right on the skin. A close fighting knit top. Cotton is absorbent.

amother

Gold

Mon, Jun 17 2024, 11:12 am

Fellow Montrealer here

Just needed to chime in and say I'm sorry you're suffering with this but in no way does this represent most of Montreal! It's either very neighborhood or family specific. I love my community!!!

Shopping is defenitly very limited here and it does make things harder. To the poster who posted junee and fame links they don't ship to Canada. Shipping to family in the USA isn't usually a good option, by the time you get you package it's usually too late for any returns.

zaq

Mon, Jun 17 2024, 11:38 am

Thread TLDR but my advice would be to forget about trends and go for classic. Certain styles, usually simple and tailored, are seldom the height of fashion but are never completely out. So while you won't ever look like a page out of Vogue, you won't look like a total dweeb either. Classics tend to look more refined and elegant than comparably-priced trendy gear.

Since classics are usually simple, they are easily given a bit of trendy pizzazz with accessories such as scarves and costume jewelry that won't break the bank. And classics can often be found in thrift shops, where you will also find LAST year's fashion mistakes.

amother

Nemesia

Mon, Jun 17 2024, 11:54 am

tichellady wrote:

Somewhere where people have other things to do than obsess about what is or isn’t in style

I’m shocked by this entire thread. depression because she’s not up on trends? and people are validating this narishkeit?

OP I say this with deep empathy for your depression. get help for your depression. therapy and/or meds. trying to heal your depression from the outside in is not going to be effective and is going to be a moving target you’ll always.

amother

Cantaloupe

Mon, Jun 17 2024, 12:08 pm

OP, I don’t care about fashion but I have young married dds and a dd in shidduchim so I do need to know what’s in to help them when we go shopping. Each of my dds has a hard to fit body for different reasons, so shopping is hard work and I like to be prepared.

My strategy is to watch what other people are wearing that are their age and type, and literally take notes after I’ve been at an event if I saw something I thought might work for one of my dds. So recent notes were “denim skirts in refined styles”; “ button down cotton shirts with ties at the bottom”; “cropped cardigans are in but most people don’t look good in them so only get ones that hit nicely below the waist”. Sometimes I go to a frum clothing store and sort of browse, but my purpose is just to watch who comes in and what they get, so that when I come back with my daughters, we already have an idea what we’re looking for.

Before we go shopping I make a list. Like if we need a weekday black skirt, I put notes like what length is in, and what materials and styles are in for their age. Then when we see a piece we like, we refer back to the list. It helps us figure out if we should buy that piece or wait for something better.

amother

Tangerine

Mon, Jun 17 2024, 12:49 pm

amother Nemesia wrote:

Yes. I’ve been keeping quiet all thread thinking this.
While I can understand fashion being important to some, if it is taking a toll on your emotional well-being, you need some help and it is not with trends.

I’m saying this as a fashionable person.

amother

Seafoam

Mon, Jun 17 2024, 2:41 pm

amother Tangerine wrote:

So much this.

If the thread had the energy of "I'm an artsy person and would love to be more creative with fashion and my clothes, please give me some suggestions and ideas!" that's one thing.

This is coming from an angle of low self-worth, depression, some other thing it seems.

OP - By all means, work on the style and take some suggestions here. However, it would probably be a really good idea to do some inner child work or some therapeutic work to address why style is carrying so much weight for you and how to work through that so that it is more manageable in the future.

Sending hugs and hope for you to one day be able to feel and see that you have worth as you are and you feel that in your day to day.

amother

RosePink

Mon, Jun 17 2024, 8:25 pm

amother Orange wrote:

Op, I relate. And not just with clothing. I also buy the wrong China, send the wrong gifts, choose the wrong backpacks or shoes for my kids.

You buy the wrong CHINA? How can dishware be wrong or right? Sure, there are fashions, and companies discontinue styles to encourage people to spend more than they need to. If your service for eight is down to four, or is two place settings too few for your growing family, it would be nice to be able to buy a couple more place settings, but, too bad, that pattern was discontinued, now you must buy a whole new service for twelve. But what does that have to do with the price of gaucho pants in Patagonia? Will your food taste any better on more stylish dishes? I doubt it. Would your home be more welcoming if your dishes were more up-to-date? Highly questionable. Will people whose values shtim with Torah values disrespect you for having old-fashioned crockery? Come on.

Do your children complain that they have the "wrong" backpacks or are YOU creating that culture in your own head?

I think you need to first figure out why you care so much about the opinions of other people about things that don't affect them.

zaq

Mon, Jun 17 2024, 8:27 pm

amother Babypink wrote:

We have some extremely fashionable images on here that live "in town" maybe we can get a forever thread going where they post what's "in" and the latest?

It is very difficult to stay on top of if you don't intentionally go after it, it comes easier if you live around lots of teen girls

Or maybe we should all learn to place less value on keeping up with transient fashions and foster more genuine and lasting values in ourselves, our children and our communities.

zaq

Mon, Jun 17 2024, 8:30 pm

amother Celeste wrote:

This is only true to an extent. I’ve had phone relationships with people who I’d later meet and they almost always say I didn’t imagine you to look this way! Aka based on how I sounded they thought I’d be more put together…

Really? When I say that to people, I mean "I pictured you as a petite brown-eyed blonde with straight hair and you're a tall green-eyed redhead with ringlets."

Dolly Welsh

Mon, Jun 17 2024, 9:44 pm

There are two separate issues here.

One is OP will soon learn how her own looks work, and how to look great.

The second issue is, how to not look out of date. Exactly how far to take that can vary. OP's social circle may be terribly focused on minute variations that they are probably the only ones who can see. A minuscule difference in size of earring. Are we wearing chiffon or twill scarves now and that's terribly important (it's not.) Teensy weensy things.

I confide that once, a long time, ago I went somewhere looking great. But I had not noticed styles had changed sharply recently. I looked completely out of step. Great, but out of step. Nobody cared but I was embarrassed. Nobody died either. But yes. That can be an issue.

But those were huge changes. Not little bitty changes.

But first OP has to look very nice.

Only then does she have to get an awareness of this other stuff. She will then decide how much to go along. She may go along only a little bit, in the large outlines.

If OP has a purse, that works nicely for her, and wasn't cheap, and suddenly those are 'so last year,' too bad. A thing of that price can be expected to be worn a long time. At that point OP will see what she wants to do.

Once OP looks fantastic for her, there will be a lot less pressure on her.

She may never be as fancy as her relatives. That might be all right. She cannot set herself the goal of being every bit as good at this as her relatives. They might have more interest, and bigger budgets. That might just be how it is.

But meanwhile OP will have achieved CONTROL. She will KNOW how this stuff works, and she will have a good arsenal in her closet of dressy stuff to throw on at a moment's notice, in addition to a good day time wardrobe. And she will know it all looks right on her. Correct for her build.

OP knows her closet only contains things that look good on her. She did her agonizing BEFORE buying anything. If it's in her house, it's great on her. Not in the abstract, on HER.

OP is going to enjoy that.