Some years ago – and, by some, I mean 30 – I was working as a public relations manager for a high-tech corporation in Atlanta.  My boss had a wife who was gathering information for a book on professional image and she wanted me to ghostwrite it for her.  She invited me out to lunch to discuss the issue.  I was trying to be so polite that I cut a plum with a knife.  Unfortunately, the plum flew across the table and landed in her well-dressed lap.

“You want me to write a book on professional image?” I said.  “I look like the aftermath of a gypsy wagon explosion.”

“Not write it,” she said, looking at my wild hair and magenta broom skirt with amusement, “just ghostwrite it – and make it funny.”

“It’s already funny,” I said.  “Plus, I can write the whole book in a single paragraph: Women in business, cut your hair and wear gray or navy suits with knee-length skirts, tailored blouses, black pumps with a two-inch heel and simple jewelry; men, do the same thing – without the pumps and skirts (unless you’re Scottish).   

“It would be a short book without photos,” she admitted.  Nevertheless, she was forming a successful seminar business and the book would certainly expand her influence in the “dress-for-success” industry.  I suggested a “dress-for-distress” chapter – now that was something I could write about  – but she knew I was kidding. 

“Let me go ask my boss,” I said.

My boss merely said, “Are you working for me or are you working for my wife?”

“I guess I’m working for you,” I said. 

Frankly, I don’t know which way it would’ve worked out better.  The wife found another ghostwriter and the book was a big hit.  I can’t complain about my career path, though – and nobody seemed to care what the hell I wore as long as I got the job done.  I always looked professional.  I merely resisted uniformity. 

I always had my own eclectic style and there were certain items I simply couldn’t put on.  For example, I got thrown out of the Brownies when I was six because I refused to wear the stupid brown beanie and ankle socks. Socks, in general, don’t do it for me. I also don’t like khaki, short-sleeved shirts and Bermuda shorts. 

I think being persnickety about dress may run in the family. I have one niece who insisted upon going to her great-grandpa’s birthday naked (I should point out that she was two at the time) and I’ve never seen her own daughter in anything other than fairy dresses.  The kid was born with an aversion to pants.  And her big brother is partial to formal attire.  It’s not everyday that you see a seven-year-old in a smoking jacket and monocle.  These are my kind of kids.

Some years back – and by some, I mean 15 – I began to enjoy shopping at consignment stores.  It was just so much fun going into a store and never knowing what you were going to find.  I have a peculiar size, which makes it easier to stumble into almost-new, interesting-looking garb that nobody else would even consider.  I would say that, at this point, half of my wardrobe is new and the other half is used.

I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico where celebrities and other wealthy individuals buy very expensive clothing, decide they don’t want it and bring it to consignment shops.  Their loss is definitely my gain.  I may not wear their discarded clothing either, but my closet looks like a work of art.

I recently bought my husband four pairs of jeans at a consignment store.  At $2.50 a pair, they fit better than any jeans he’s ever worn in his life.  Either some doppelganger bought the farm and left my husband with four pairs of lightly-worn 36x34s or some rich guy had more jeans than he knew what to do with and got rid of a few.  Maybe they belonged to Gene Hackman.

Some people, like my brother, would be grossed out at the idea of wearing some dead guy’s pants – or even some live guy’s pants.  I say that unless the guy was actually wearing the pants when he died (or unless the pants somehow killed him – which would be a clear indication that they had bad mojo), I don’t see any problem in wearing recycled clothing.  It’s like recycling organs – why not have a part of you live on?

To me, garments have a story all their own.  I may keep an article of clothing forever simply because it reminds me of who I was with when I bought it.  I kept an angora sweater my grandmother bought me at the Alexander’s department store in Queens when I was 12 until it got devoured by moths last year – and, even then, I was reluctant to part with it.  I have my mother’s mink hat, which I will never wear.  I have a few pairs of those corporate pumps that wheeled me around so many trade shows.  And I have several beautiful business suits adorning my guest room closet.  I get to visit myself at different stages of life. Friends occasionally ask me for an article of my clothing and I couldn’t be more flattered.

I have a new friend who is coming to visit me in September.  She asked me what people wore in Santa Fe.  I told her Spandex, but that’s just me.  People can wear a gunny sack and bunny ears in Santa Fe and nobody would give them a second glance.   I’ve seen one woman here who walks around town dressed like a witch, complete with broom and curly-toed shoes.   It’s my kind of town.  On the other hand, it’s good to have something other than overalls lying around in case you’re summoned to jury duty or a funeral.

And, speaking of funerals, a few years back my friend Dorothy and I went to an estate sale.  The estate sale was for a recently-deceased woman whose initials were “ASS.”  We saw the inscription on her bathrobe.  We were wondering if there was another bathrobe that said, “TITS.”   Unfortunately, there wasn’t.  It would’ve been fun having both.  But having somebody’s strange, dead “ASS” hanging in the closet all by itself – not so much.

My old boss was also a big fan of having his initials inscribed on his belongings.  All of his shirts bore the insignia “JVP” and I wish I had one hanging in my closet.  He died eight years ago but his wife parted with him and his clothing many years before that. 

Maybe I’m glad that I chose to work for him, after all.