Fashion & Fiction: Why I NEED Some Bumble Bee Tights. Now.

I open my closet.

It’s a sea of black clothing.

Black pants. Black tops. Black skirts. Black dresses. Even black jeans.

I wonder what in the hell I’m doing wearing black all the time. I know I’m a writer, and writers love to wear black, but this is getting absurd.

I have to fight to believe that my personality is not reflected in the drab colors and style of the clothes I wear.

But it’s always black. Gloom. Doom. Snape-like. Johnny Cash-ish. Elphaba without the green face.

I’m drowning in a vortex of black.

And then a fictional character enters my world and I no longer want to wear black. I want more color. I want more life. I want to mix patterns and prints; wear colors that brighten my face; be seen in something that does not make me look sad and downtrodden. After finishing Still Me, I want more color in my life.

Therefore, I decided that I’m buying myself a pair of bumble bee tights. If they can bring happiness to a fictional character—Louisa Clark of the Me Before You series—then they can bring some life to this old gal.

Sometimes I wonder what the hell I’m doing, but then I remember, black clothing is easy. It’s much more difficult to put boldly colorful outfits together–and to do so whimsically, as our girl Lou does. Her clothes are fun and they offer us glimpses into a personality that is loving, kind, funny, witty, and quirky. Clothes reflect who she is. So, unfortunately, if you judged me by my clothing, you’d say I’m pretty bland and boring. Pretty sad and depressed.

And maybe I am—or maybe that’s what I’ve become. Maybe the sass has been sucked out of me by life itself for various reasons, but I’d like to think that I can be saved.

We all deserve to wear stripey bumble bee tights. We all deserve to show our own spirit, and most importantly, the confidence to wear them with pride.

Tackling style and fashion does require some means of self-awareness, I suppose. What works for you, what doesn’t. What suits your body frame, what doesn’t.  But who says our personalities can’t shine through and be something truly spectacular? Truly stripey? And truly represent who we are?

References to fashion are in so many books we read, but how many novels show the simplicity of love and kindness and self-assuredness as Jojo Moyes gave us in that scene when Will gives those outrageously wild bumble bee tights to Louisa?

It makes me want to put on a pair and parade around.

And so, I think I will.