birthday shirts
back in 2002 when i was turning 23…yes, i am young OR yes, i am old (depending on who’s reading this), i started a tradition that i didn’t realize would become so much fun yet such a waste of money. for the special event that was planned to celebrate the day of my birth, i decided that i would buy myself a super cute shirt that i had been eyeing for a while even though it wasn’t on sale yet. (i try to never pay full price!) i wore it out to dinner and got many compliments and said “thanks, it’s my birthday shirt.” every year after that i’ve been rewarding myself for being born by buying a shirt that would be cute enough to match my impeccable taste, yet slutty enough to get the attention of the male gender but without actually being slutty. finding the perfect balance of cute/slutty/but not too slutty/yet special enough to pay full price is no easy feat, but usually the shirt finds me and not the other way around. i actually still have the original birthday shirt hanging in my closet as i type…a testament to my need to either clean out my closet or my need to hold onto sentimental things that technically i should get rid of because it’s taking up valuable real estate in my closet. in any case, the birthday shirt has evolved much over the past 5 years and this year it actually became a full on dress. (one that was a great idea in theory but in pictures proved to be a little heavy on the “get the attention of the male gender” aspect. ) hence the difficulty of striking that previously mentioned perfect balance. confused about what i’m talking about? here are some examples to help sort it out.
acceptable (cute, shows enough skin, but not too revealing)
unacceptable (show skin, but looks like a picnic table cloth, just plain hideous)
acceptable (sexy and revealing enough, but still tasteful)
unacceptable (too casual, too boring, too blah. don’t do it.)
acceptable (cute, fun and flirty)
unacceptable (board room meets dominatrix, not suitable for birthday celebrations)