Ann’s Fashion Fortunes

By Ann Rosenquist Fee

DEAR READER: As with all trends, confidence is key, so whatever you put together, you’ve got to wear it like you mean it. Fortunately, sneakers generally support good posture, so a shoulders back/feet-firmly-planted stance should come automatically as a foundation for your look.

As for what makes this current version of sneakers-and-dresses “current,” my personal take is that the more you look like an office worker who just parked in the ramp and now you’re hustling across crosswalks to make it into the building by your 9 a.m. biweekly ice breaker/team-building session, the better. It doesn’t really matter what kind or cut of skirt you’re wearing, as long as it looks as if it was originally intended to be paired with not-sneakers.

That, after all, was what made the 1990s commuter lady look so distinctive. Whether she was wearing an Ann Taylor Loft suit or a baggy drop-waist sack dress with a super-tiny print pattern, the sneakers did nothing complementary, they were just functional to get us from the parking ramp to our desks where we’d slip off our tennies and our terry cloth socks, and then slide our panty-hosed feet into the low-heeled pumps or chunky Mary Janes that lived under our desks for daily office wear. (Note: As I write this, I’m listening to Minnesota Public Radio’s classical station on an actual radio and not a smart device, so it’s a legit coincidence and not some mind-reading algorithm that the music that just now began as I was typing about Loft suits and sack dresses was Libby Larsen’s “Water Music.” Larsen is co-founder of the Minnesota Composer’s Forum (now the American Composer’s Forum), and she was a big dang deal to me back in the 1990s when I worked in the development office of the Minnesota Orchestra and bore witness on a daily basis to women wearing that whole suitsand-sneakers thing as they hustled from parking ramps or bus stops to their offices on Nicollet Mall. I swear there was something about “Water Music” I had to proofread back in the day, like maybe Larsen gave a talk at some donor appreciation

event and it was my job to proof the invitations? I can’t remember. But I can tell you for sure that hearing her name and her music sends me back to the mid-1990s like nobody’s business and any margin of doubt I had a minute ago about the commuter lady look we’ll call “entry level haste,” it’s gone. I’m telling you with absolute certainty and with “Water Music” as my swelling soundtrack that today’s trending sneakers/skirts look is somehow a deliberate throwback to the glory days of commuters and cubicles.)

Maybe the trend has something to do with our current exploration of remote work, like maybe it allows us to firmly locate commutingto-an-office in the past like how petticoats or powdered wigs reference bygone times. Bottom line, if you’re finding it intriguing, give it a go this summer. Approach it with confidence and curiosity and you cannot possibly do it wrong.

DEAR READER: Don’t even get me started on the anguish I experienced one recent afternoon when I’d met all that day’s deadlines and had some cash in my pocket and headed to the mall to worship at the temple of maquillage, only to find the exterior stripped of Ulta’s signage and the windows papered in big blank sheets, no “visit us in our new location” sign.

Luckily, I redirected my shopping urge toward crafts, and when I pulled into the strip mall that houses Michael’s I was greeted by Ulta’s signature orange awnings. (And wow, was that a crisis of gluttony, because now I had both makeup and craft supplies at my disposal but only 20 bucks to burn. I went with clearance lip gloss and remnant fabric because, yes, you can have it all.) No idea why they moved, but they did, and the new location appears as big if not bigger with plenty of daylight for better assessment of how great you look strolling the aisles in pursuit of self care. See you there.

Got a question? Submit it at annrosenquistfee.com (click on Ann’s Fashion Fortunes). Ann Rosenquist Fee is executive director of the Arts Center of Saint Peter and host of Live from the Arts Center, a music and interview show Thursdays 1-2 p.m. on KMSU 89.7FM.

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