The art of fashion is revealed to me everyday through the pages I turn in my monthly magazines and the streets I walk within my urban jungle.  Every so often I find myself lying in bed awake until the wee hours of the night as I study the pages of my fashion glossy, seeing things I love but simply can’t afford.  I know, I must be low on the economic totem poll to not be in the position to drop a mere $1,100 on a jersey knit skirt accessorized with a $450 faux-emerald necklace emulated from the $65,000 real thing.   I must be next to impoverished.  But fashion transcends more than the mighty dollar; it is a matter of presentation.

About ten years back I picked up a darling little sun dress at a neighborhood garage sale for a mere $0.10…that’s right: ten cents.  Back then I traversed the urban jungle with dreadlocks, Birkenstocks, and a backpack waiting for the next Dead show in my neck of the woods.  I have held onto that $0.10 cent find through all my fashion transformations and all my traverses through the past ten years, (though I still rock out to The Dead; some things never change!). The dress of course has transformed with me as its hemline became shorter, frayed, and fixed through whatever fashion energy I was summoning at that moment in my life.

Just the other day when the clouds parted to reveal a warming sun I found my little dress tucked neatly in the back of my closet.  I grabbed the cutie, cut the hem a tad shorter making it a little more salacious, threw on my distressed leather Frye’s, my brown leather cuff with metal accents, and my dark blue denim coat and hit the road for a summertime BBQ.  You wouldn’t believe how many compliments I got on my dress!  I mean, isn’t that what fashion is all about: making a 0.10 cent dress look like a million bucks…or at least a couple hundred.