The New Year Transforms a Fashionista Poet into the Grande Dame

Come 2012, a truck will cart away piles of sensibly-priced-and-matched-to-the-teeth outfits. From Scarlet O’Hara’s lips, “As God is my witness, I will never be” found in those outfits again.

Like the Cheers theme song, I always go where everybody knows my name as the fashionista poet. However, I am dissatisfied with my entrance to places lately, which I blame on wisdom. With age comes discontent.

My entrance lacks a certain je ne sais quoi, and I have to harken to this inner dictate to appear, according to the French, naturelle. When I informed my friends that I needed to join the New Year bandwagon and make changes in my style, they protested vehemently.

“Girl, please, I wish I dressed like you,” said Mina and followed that with the hiss of, “How dare you insult us by putting yourself down?” Another friend compared me to a celebrity. Regardless, my fashion resolution for 2012 is a massive overhaul of a titanic proportion.

Mane: All attachments and extensions must come off. I should exhibit my own natural tresses for the first time in years. I do not know how long my hair truly is! I need to stare down the woman in the mirror with the convincing chant, “No withdrawal to Yaki, Outre, or Remy.”

Mani-Pedis: My father abhorred red nail polish and lipstick on women. As my teenage defiance, I went all out on red. I am colorfully inquisitive now. Red is too garish; I still lack the gumption to splash blues, greens, and black. My baby steps of change lead me to feel-good hues: lavender, deep purple, fuchsia, gold, and silver on my own vitamin-and-calcium-enriched nails.

Foot Statement: Every stylish woman’s enslavement, but so, so therapeutic! I need to be shorter with low drama. Years of mounting on uncountable 4-inch pedestals have confused my family and friends. I must climb down to my 5’7″ frame proudly while making shoe statement.

Outerwear: I used to be a kid in an M&M heaven in my twenties, splashing bold and daring colors in fashionable tastefulness. This 2012, I want to revive my colorful self. I cannot wait to paint the campus with my artist’s palette of fresh nail-polish colors, a breath of colorful wind blowing in lavender, yellow, pink, deep purple, and such. I want to be the Cause of a Pause.

Grande Dame: The confluence of all catwalks, the college campus is the fashion arena. I want to earn the title of the grande dame of campus fashion. First, I have to empty my closet much like people in Nigeria do on New Year’s Eve. They pile dumpsters with old rubbish in an attempt to welcome each New Year with clean and hopeful homes and hearts.

Ridding my closet of old clothes, I will march into the extreme makeover of high academic fashion: new job, new style. To that end, I will change shopping habits. My new outfits will look very expensive, but I will not dole out that much money. With the arrival of spring semester, my breathtaking transformation will force even me to curtsy to myself, the Grande Dame of Fashion.

Unlike Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love, I will find a new me without the miles or expense. The journey of my rediscovery starts with thousands of hair follicles, naturellement.


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