Sunday, October 22, 2006

Clothing Issues

With a rapidly expanding midriff, getting dressed in the morning has become an issue. I should say "properly dressed": since most activities require something more substantial than sweatpants. The problem isn't that they don't make clothing for pregnant women, obviously they do, since pregnant women don't go around naked (we'd noticed this). It probably isn't even really a problem for most women, since by all accounts most women not only gamely wear their maternity wear, they are apparently eager to do so and get upset when they're not showing fast enough. But it is a problem for me, mostly because Carhartt doesn't make maternity clothes.

Neither does Orvis or Cabela's. What gives?

Where am I going to find a solid pair of work jeans? A truly warm jacket that covers my belly? Who's going to stack the wood and plow the driveway? And who says I can't go fishing while pregnant? Well, I can't... but only because I won't find waders that fit.

Clearly we all need to go back to the wrap around bearskin concept which was such a fad back in the Ice Age. Bearskins were the great equalizer. You can wear a bearskin however you'd like and call it acceptable clothing whether you're male, female or that other gender, pregnant. They were warm in the winter. In the summer, you'd wear it if you required protection from something, like bugs or the sun. Otherwise you'd just go around bearskinless. It didn't matter. Who would care? The fig hadn't been cultivated yet, and Adam and Eve hadn't been invented yet, so the whole must-wear-clothing thing was a long way off... things must have been simpler then.

Meantime, I'm making do with unzipped pants and various bands to hold them up, and hoping the clothing situation doesn't get too ridiculous. If I'm having trouble now, I can't imagine what it'll be like three months from now. Maybe by then I'll have procured a bearskin, and maybe a cave. I'll grunt at people who try to talk to me. They'll think it's just hormones and let me get away with it. I knew I could play that card someday.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the idea of maternity Carhartt. We're launching a women's line in fall 07, I'll pass the idea along to our head product designer for women's apparel.

Suddenly Human said...

I'm all for a women's line for Carhartt too... and Fall '07 is almost perfect timing :)