ANN’S FASHION FORTUNES By Ann Rosenquist Fee
Here’s how to tie a T-shirt without looking like you have an umbilical hernia.
Topography of T-shirts, bangs, tags
DEAR ANN: I’m interested in the big boxy T-shirt look that’s enjoying a moment of popularity, but I don’t think I can go fully shapeless with the whole hanging-downto-mid-thigh approach. Is there a compromise? DEAR READER: Yes, and the compromise is a knot, but not the kind that makes you look like you have an umbilical hernia. I recently stumbled upon this alternative to the single-strand knot in a quest for ways to cut a T-shirt to give it a softer silhouette, and I don’t know why it never before occurred to me to grab not one but two pieces of the bottom edge of a shirt and tie them up like this, but it just never did. This discovery pretty much knocked me out with simultaneous humility and elation, that special combo that happens when you
learn a new thing that’s so obvious it makes you wonder if you’ve ever known anything at all. Enjoy your new T-shirt look with a side of existential bliss. DEAR ANN: Recently I found myself watching Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” video and was entranced by, among other things, her hairdo. It looks like every strand of hair is fiercely determined to shoot out from a single origin point. This is not something I want to see among the 1980s hair and fashion trends resurging nowadays. Is there something I can do to prevent it? DEAR READER: We can only take responsibility for our own choices, so with that in mind, I suggest you let go of the notion that you can prevent this or any trend in general and simply focus on your own directional hair habits.
Questions to ask yourself: Am I in the habit of forcing my hair to part somewhere other than where a part or a cowlick naturally occurs? Do I find myself backcombing “just a little” so my hair is “not so flat?” Do I use a curling iron on a regular basis, and not one of those modern sticks without a springloaded handle, but a legit handled curling iron capable of creating mall bangs? Are hot rollers something I’ve used not ironically within the past decade? If you can answer “yes” to even one of these questions — or, let’s face it, if you answer “no” but in a too quick defensive way that probably means you’re in an emotional affair with backcombing — you’re definitely part of the problem. As much as it pains you, please try just washing and air-drying
52 • AUGUST 2022 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
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7/14/2022 10:35:00 AM
