A strange phenomenon is sometimes popping up on the shoulders of better-dressed women and I feel it is my duty to address it!
Some things in life come without instructions. Somehow you’re just supposed to pick up by osmosis their meaning or intended use. But occasionally this can elude even the most sophisticated person. It happens. And lately it’s been happening with those little hanger straps found inside dresses and tops.
The clear plastic straps are meant to be used to hang the garment because using part of the dress or sweater will either a) stretch it beyond its regular shape or b) cause it to slip off a regular hanger. The strap is actually a loop that’s generally attached to the inside of a side seam.
However in a few instances lately I have seen women wearing these plastic loops as shoulder straps! That would require a bit of physical origami because the loops are not attached in a shoulder-strap-like way, with one end at the front of the dress and one at the back. There would be a bit of wrestling needed to get it over the woman’s shoulder. She would have to do a strange interpretive dance to make it happen. That in itself ought to make her go hmmmm.
Seeing this gives me the strange forgot-to-wear-pants-to-work feeling of a bad dream. It’s a lot like the time I wore a pyjama top when I went shopping, only I didn’t know it was a pyjama top until I went back to the store where I bought it and saw a similar one hung in its proper section – the pyjama top section. It felt as if a giant floodlight had been flicked on and pointed at me while a caption was superimposed, Jerry Springer style, that read: Doesn’t know she’s wearing a pyjama top! However, this hanger strap feeling is, thankfully, merely empathetic.
For years we had trouble interpreting what in the heck manufacturers meant as care instructions for garments until they finally came out with little symbols and educated us on their meanings. Maybe the same is needed for these straps, extra buttons that are poorly placed leading one to look for the non-existent corresponding button hole, etcetera. I don’t want to suggest that people aren’t smart but we aren’t clothing manufacturers so one cannot assume we will automatically know. As proof, I offer a few ladies’ shoulders with plastic straps on them.