Fashion Revolution

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things. . . actually, just hats and gloves. And I'm not really the Walrus. I think that was John Lennon.

Anyway. I've been looking at my hands. They are old lady hands. Wrinkly. And there are these spots. They used to be freckles--charming, mischievous, evoking a youth spent dropping from the rope swing into the lake (there was no swing; there was no lake; there wasn't much of a youth-but the freckles didn't know that). Now these insouciant little freckles have morphed into age spots. Just like my mom's. Geez. Just like my Gram's. They (the age spots, not Mom and Gram) look like some amoeba-like aliens planning their conquest of the human race.

And then there are the fingernails. Or lack thereof. I try. I really do. And for a month last spring, I actually did have nails. A brief, shining moment of being good at being female. But then I reverted to my usual ragged, jagged nails bit to the quick, bleeding cuticles, pus-pulsating hangnails. I can't help it. Life is hard. Fingers are close at hand. I bite. I tear. I chew. I pick. I prod. I peel.

So. The solution, obviously, is a grass-roots renaissance of gloves. Not utilitarian winter gloves, which clearly would not catch on here in the Deep South. I mean, ladies' gloves. Gloves for all climates and classes. Elegant, silk-like elbow-caressing gloves. And little lacy white wrist gloves. You know, gloves. The sort of gloves I have some vague, primordial memory of my mother wearing to church. And even me, as a very little girl, in white fake patent-leather shoes and white tights and a pastel blue church dress. And gloves.

And if we're doing gloves, then we must do hats. Again, fuzzy, hazy pictures come swimming up from long ago of my mother and the other Ladies, bedecked and bedazzling up on top. Think of it. No more Bad Hair Days. The ability to put off your roots touch-up for another month. No more blowdryers and curling irons and straightening rods, no more mousse and gel and paste and wax and "Product." Just pop on that sexy little beret. A dashing toque. A demure yet ooh-la-la pillbox. A jaunty newsboy cap. A feminine, postmodernist take on the cowboy hat. Oh, the possibilities are endless.

But if the grassroots Hats-and-Gloves movement fails, then I suggest we all adopt the hijab in solidarity with our Muslim sisters. Or shoot. Given the realities of the Body Facing 50, let's just go for the fullout burka. All this time, I've identified the burka with oppression, but honestly, maybe it would be the ultimate liberation: Time to go to work? Pull on the burka and you're heading out the door, 60 seconds max.

But I've got my eye on the cutest straw cloche with a black silk ribbon, paired with lacy black cotton gloves. Maidens of menopause, unite!