Game, Sets, Match
This is another story that has not been altered in any way for Alexandria Stylebook and it involves my sincerely Southern friend Jane Spence. It actually involves a lot of my friends.Watching youth rec league basketball is one of my favorite things to do. I look forward to it every year. Some of it is timing. The store is slow in January and February, so I get to go to games on Saturday. It is also a timed sport, which when your kids play un-timed, hours-long softball and baseball games, as mine do, you revel in the joy of knowing a start and finish time.Anyway, it was a Saturday in 2019 and I had gone to bootcamp that morning, which I usually don’t get to do since oftentimes there is an early game to attend. I was dressed and pleased as punch that I wasn’t wearing workout leggings and a sweatshirt. I had showered, blown out my hair, and put on an Ulla Johnson grey tracksuit with white embroidery with white slip-on sneakers. I was hot to trot.I walked across the basketball court to the bleachers when literally a group of friends burst out laughing. An earlier game was finishing up, and a lot of my friends’ kids were on those teams, and then most of the parents of our team were there in the bleachers, including, but not limited to Tricia Holley, Megan Brown, Courtney Cox, Emily Jones, and of course Jane Spence - the truth-teller. I am not sure if I have this quote exactly right, but she said, “Sometimes it is funny how you dress.”It was a polite way of telling me that my dressy tracksuit was, let’s say, surprising. I would like to think I was ahead of my time. Simply stated, I have always loved tracksuits. Now, here we are in 2021 and there is no bigger trend. Even when the world re-opens, I don’t think this trend is going anywhere. At least I hope it doesn’t, and I know it never will for me personally. I actually have decided that at a certain age, probably around 70, I am only going to wear tracksuits. Of course some will be dressy and silk or cashmere and, God willing, Gucci. But it might be all I wear. It is kind of all I wear right now, to be honest.Well, this season is my season to stock up because we have lots and lots of tracksuits. It is hard to find a clothing line that did not do a tracksuit in this year’s collection. Even TIBI did one, which I didn’t think would ever happen. They did a great video on how to style it in different ways. There really are so many ways to break up the sets or wear them together. I bet even Jane Spence is going to get one.
