Dad, the Fashion Consultant

I have two daughters, ages 11 and 4. Their Mom keeps them well-supplied with nice, cute, stylish clothes. When they coordinate those clothes properly, how their Mom intended, they look very nice. However, sometimes the girls mix and match the clothing into outfits that should not be worn together. Since their Mom often leaves for work before the girls get dressed, it falls upon me, the fashion-challenged Dad, to set things right. I don't always succeed.

Kids have their own fashion sense. (Or should I say fashion nonsense?)

(I also have two boys, but I don't worry about them. Put boys in a t-shirt and jeans and they're set.)

The girls (especially the four year-old) sometimes go out in public in questionable clothes. I don't always catch the bad outfits. Part of the problem is I don't quite know all of the terminology. On the lower half of their bodies girls can wear dresses, pants, jeggings, leggings, tights, skirts, shorts, skorts, jorts, sweats, or some other thing that I should probably know the name of but quite clearly do not. And only certain tops, shirts, blouses, dresses, tunics, muumuus, or whatevers are supposed to match up with each specific lower-half-covering unit, and I don't know all of the correct combinations. For example, I've been told that leggings are only supposed to go with longer shirts, but I'm not sure what length the shirt needs to be to meet the cutoff point, and now that I've said "cutoffs" I'm even more confused than I was before.

A fashion faux pas needs to be extremely egregious for me to catch it. But, yes, I do occasionally catch them. The other day the four year-old was getting dressed for church. She had on a lovely pink floral dress, and I told her she needed to get some shoes to wear. She came back to me with her black Sunday shoes and a pair of green and white athletic socks. Even I knew that was a bad idea.

Even Dad know these socks don't go with a pink dress.

Over the years I have picked up a few little rules that help me. Girls love pink, and girls love purple, but pink and purple don't go together. (Unless they do.) Also, red and pink don't go together. (Unless they do.) Stripes and polka dots don't go together, either. (Unless they do.) I don't know when the exceptions for these rules apply, only that I'm not qualified to apply them.

The biggest problem in trying to be a fashion consultant for my daughters is that I'm so fashionally challenged myself. I've been wearing some of the same shirts since 1997. The other day I was wearing what I consider one of my "newer" shirts, when I saw a picture of me in that same shirt while holding my 11 year-old when she was a baby.

And really, what's the worst that can happen? My girls might go out in public wearing outfits that don't match. If it happens, and if anyone calls them on it, they can always just point to me and say, "Hey, at least we don't look as bad as that guy."