Dressed up in spite of pandemic

And then covid-19 hit … and everything came to a dead stop.

Many of you found yourselves working from home, with nowhere to go. You were blessed to still have a job and your health. But the “nowhere-to-go” part may have gotten tough. (You have seen time and time again that this did got too tough for some to bear, so they found or created events to attend despite the health risk.)

Throughout the spring and summer, feature stories about what to wear while attending Zoom meetings from home have popped up in your inboxes and on your TV screens. Along with tutorials on how to do your own hair, you’ve seen debates about whether or not to dress up only from the waist up, leaving one’s lower half swathed in pajama pants and flip flops or bunny slippers.

But, hope springing eternal, you may have added generously to your spring/summer 2020 wardrobe. You may have purchased waist-up and waist-down wear in your desire to believe that the opportunity to dress up completely might just pop up. You may have been seduced by catalog and website photos of carefree-looking models posing poolside or on the beach, looking as though all was right with the world and showing you that you, too, would not only look good in the items being modeled but might somehow get to sport them on a whitewashed balcony on Santorini!

(Ahem … Fellas, don’t act like this column is just “for the ladies” and decamp to see if there’s anything going on in the sports section. I know there are plenty of you natty-dressing men who bought shorts sets to wear to the barbecue, golf ensembles to talk trash to your buddies while out on the links, and rich-guy-looking suits for the white-attire party you’d hoped would somehow still take place. So stay right here.)

My story, and I’m sticking to it: I was one of the hopeful. As a society reporter for this newspaper who has worked from home since March, I went from wearing cocktail and formalwear several times a week to getting up mornings wondering whether to stuff myself into jeans to gauge weight gain, yank on the loose gauze pants I dreamed of walking the beach in, or go for total and compete comfort in the form

of a University of Arkansas at Little Rock-T-shirt-and-shorts ensemble. The cruel irony of it all: Last winter, I was shipped a gaggle of gently used, higher-end, perfect-fitting evening gowns and cocktail dresses by my niece, who works for Nordstrom in Seattle, but I got to sport exactly one of these dresses B.P. (Before Pandemic). I’ve had no reasons to dress up whatsoever, even from the waist up: All of my Zoom action involves workouts, not meetings. Church finally opened back up, but I attend a church where extreme casual

wear is the norm and anyone who shows up dressed to the nines is gonna look like a Cat Fanciers Association International show contestant in the middle of a “Cats” musical production.)

Nonetheless, the 2020 warm-weather offerings looked tempting enough that I ordered a few dressy and jaunty wardrobe additions anyway, taking advantage of various sales and discounts. After all, I figured, surely this pandemic will wane. Sooner or later, I’ll have to cover something that will require me to get gussied up again. Maybe I’ll even be able to slip in some sort of (gasp) vacation that will call for me to make like the smiling

ladies in that catalog.

Most of those wardrobe additions have graced the closet … seldom, if at all, worn. The main items that have regularly seen the light of day are the aforementioned jeans — gotta wear something to run those errands in! — along with a pair or two of sandals whose best attribute is their being flat. Any dressy shoe with a heel, I dust along with the furniture.

Right before writing this column, I did cover an event in which the proper mask-wearing and social-distancing protocols were followed. The event, which took place in a residential community’s clubhouse, called for casual attire. One attendee showed up in a drop-dead-gorgeous summer frock and stiletto pumps that looked to be at least four inches high.

I not only understood … heck, I wished I’d showed up in one of my niece’s evening gowns.

Now, with no end to our health crisis in sight, the “fall preview” clothing catalogs and website showings have begun to trickle in.

So look. If you happen to see anyone Krogering, doing laundry or attending church in a tuxedo or in head-to-toe velvet — including and especially moi — do try to understand.