Princess

I was a little princess when I was a baby. First girl born after 3 brothers and I was spoiled rotten. By my parents, my brothers and my aunt who lived with us until I was about 5.

When I was younger all I wanted to wear were dresses, I guess from before I can remember until maybe 4th or 5th grade. I went to Catholic grammar school and wore my ugly uniform every day and to me it didn't count as a dress at all. When I came home from school I was not allowed to put a dress on, jeans, t-shirt and sneakers was it. Not that I didn't like wearing jeans and sneakers, but I loved being dressed up and even very young already had a thing for shoes. I played in the streets, wearing a dress and nice shoes was not the proper attire and for maybe a half an hour or so I would feel like a princess and keep clean, but it wasn't long before some adventure involving dirt, grass and mud was part of my day.

I remember for my first holy communion my mom put my shoes on a high shelf in the linen closet and I was warned to keep my hands off them until my communion day. And I can remember that day, my mom taking the shoes out of the closet, putting that box of shoes in my hands, it was like she was handing me gold. I am sure my shoes were ruined in less than a month as I may not have been allowed to wear them outside except for church or a special occasion, but I would still wear them around the house, tap dancing and shuffling and ruining my shoes.

There was a short time in between my father's death and my mom remarrying that she worked overnight and slept during the day. On those days that she was sleeping when I came home from school I would have a note, Trish, no dresses, wear what is left out for you. Total disappointment! But also during those times there were many occasions where we needed to be dressed up. If you went to a birthday party, you wore a dress. Went to parties with my mom, we wore dresses and of course our fancy shoes! My younger sister Linda and I pretty much had matching dresses for most of these events but on Easter Sunday, another big day in my memory because of the clothes, not the candy, we wore similar colors maybe but usually had different dresses, and shoes, and hats, and gloves. I loved Easter Sunday even when the elastic band from my hat hurt my chin, which it always did!

In my teeny bopper and young teens, bell bottoms and groovy jeans were in style and I was into those clothes. I loved the mini skirts too, though my mom wasn't into me wearing them! I couldn't even wear black leotards to dancing school, pink or white, black was not for little girls, even by 7th and 8th grade, black was not for me. And fishnets were in style then too, and of course I got yellow ones, not black! How times how changed! I've seen little baby girls in the cutest dresses with black leotards, my mom would be shocked! But my mom was buying back then so I didn't have a choice. By the time I was buying she probably didn't like half of what I chose to wear and she was probably right looking back.

By the time I was a secretary and working in Manhattan dressing up was office attire. Really dressed up. Pants were forbidden in the secretarial school I attended after graduating from high school. Except on Fridays, when we could wear a 3-piece pants suit. Yeah a 3-piece pants suit, it was disco time, the Saturday Night Fever days. Remember John Travolta in his white 3-piece suit, well women had their own version and it was just as ridiculous as Travolta's when you look back on it now, but then it was the style, it was cool. But I wore dresses, didn't own a 3-piece pants suit, my dress craze was back, that's after spending another four years of high school wearing an ugly plaid uniform accompanied by my construction boots, or Earth Shoes. Earth Shoes! Do you remember Earth Shoes? They look so ugly now but they were in style when I went to high school and if you weren't a disco girl wearing high heels you were wearing Earth Shoes or construction boots or something similar. In grammar school we had a uniform shoe. Not too pretty either. But in high school we could wear whatever kind of shoes we wanted. Go figure! With all their rules and regulations they let us wear whatever shoes?

My first job I worked close to Times Square and at the edge of the fashion district. Walking distance to Macy's in Herald Square and as big as that store is, I knew it like the back of my hand. Well the dress department, shoes department, and the Mrs. Field's cookie shop they had. Mrs. Field's cookies had just come out then and were the tastiest cookie in town. I was always there after shopping for a dress! I had dresses and skirts and shoes and shoes and shoes! Every color. Sneakers too, tons of different colors. Clothes and shoes meant so much, and all the accessories.

There finally came a time when I no longer liked to dress up, though I still bought the cutest sandals and shoes and pants, and accessories but dresses were out again, except at weddings or really special occasions. There were so many cool dress pants out and to be honest, most of my life pants didn't fit me, I was just too short and even though I would take them up, it changed the look. I think at this point in my life they finally came out with the petite sized clothes and I could finally buy a pair of pants and not hem them. And hem them for me mostly meant tape or safety pins and sometimes staples! I could sew but the other things were faster! And the work dress code was changing. Women wearing pants was very acceptable and the 3-piece pants suit was gone! Pants suits were nicer and just a nice pair of slacks with a sweater was also acceptable work attire.

Now it's very casual, and more for me because I work a swing shift and don't really come out of my little office space and interact with clients. Even the attorneys dress down, some still are a little dressier than others but for the most part it's very casual.

I like casual now, it's easy, it's comfortable.

Still like to dress up for special occasions and wear a dress and let the princess in me shine!

My little princess pictured up above is my niece Bella and she's so not a princess! Well she is a princess in some ways of course. She's a girl. It's in all of us to some degree I think.

Bella loves her pretty dresses but for the most part, she's very comfortable in jeans, t-shirts and sneakers and will choose that. She also has a major wardrobe! Cute little boots and jackets, but you know at certain ages, they just grow out of their clothes and shoes too fast. A lot of her fancy wardrobe are hand-me-downs and they are like new, again the person who had them before just grew out of whatever before it had a chance to be worn often. But if Bella does have a dress on, it's not long before there's some big stain on her dress and in her hair as she's constantly pushing it out of her face.

I created the magazine cover for Bella's picture above and also did magazine covers with pictures of her brothers. I guess this picture is about 4 years ago or so. I'll share Robert's and Jojo's at another time because you know there's a story behind every picture!