Even before we started Tulio, I have been involved in fashion. Always in mature fashion and I love it. Just because you're over 40 doesn't mean fashion has to be dull and boring. Even though I am not a size 10 I take great pride in what I wear and I put a lot of thought in to my outfits before any conferences or important meetings.
My poor husband has to sit there while I road test the different outfits. I say things like "Ok honey, this is for the first day. This is for the dinner on the 2nd night" while I parade round the room insisting he tells me if I look too fat, too dowdy, too casual, too dressy, the list goes on and on.
It's for this reason that I usually feel pretty good about how I look when I'm on these trips. I enjoy getting off the plane and getting to the taxi, testing out any reaction, all perceived mind you, to my outfit. I'm absolutely certain no-one is looking at me! As I tell my girlfriend who won't wear bathers and swim in the ocean with me, "No-one is looking at us, we are now the invisible age group. They are looking at the gorgeous young things in the bikinis and we get to go unnoticed, we may as well enjoy life" She's not convinced and still hasn't gone for a swim with me.
This leads me to recount another episode in my long, long running history of wardrobe malfunctions. Why they happen to me in the most public places I do not know. Probably karma for thinking I look good! So here I am this fine Friday afternoon cutting a swathe through the crowds at Sydney airport to get home to Brisbane after a three day conference.
For today's events I have donned a silver double breasted knee length jacket, with a belt, that I am wearing as a dress with stockings and boots. It's got a lovely stand up collar and laces up at the back and I think I look great. I think others actually do too as heads turn as I stomp my way up the concourse. Tyra Banks would be proud.
It's a long concourse in Sydney and as I make my way I can hear a woman running behind me and I feel sorry for her that she is late for her flight. That is until her footsteps get closer and then stop as they reach me. "Excuse me, excuse me, I had to catch up and let you know" Let me know what, how great my outfit was? NO. "Your dress is all bunched up under your handbag" Well, what she didn't say, too embarrassed for me probably, was that not only was it bunched up on the side and back under my handbag but it had ridden so far up that you could see my bum and undies, all squishy and encased by my stockings (I guess that's a small mercy, but I wish they were tights)
Needless to say I have never worn that outfit again. I looked at it later and thought about the length and wondered what I was actually thinking.
But let this serve as a lesson to you all, well ok, it's a lesson just for me. Handbags and dresses together are not my friends and if people's heads turn to check me out, I am afraid, very afraid.
