Guest Blogger: The Pitfalls of Unemployment Fashion

guest bloggerTags: Britney Spears, Geek Entertainment TV, Irina Slutsky, unemployment

Unemployment has been unavoidable lately for almost 3 million Americans, and those of you who are working have probably been hearing about it on the news non-stop. Halleluja praise the lord, Federal Extensions have been reinstated, so for at least a few more months, some Americans can breathe a temporary sigh of relief that they can put food on the table.

But here at the Goodwill Fashion blog, not only do we worry about how we can help people find gainful employment; we also worry about how they look while they’re doing it!

Being unemployed and being fashionable aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.

The Three Pitfalls of Unemployment Fashion, according to Slutsky:

 1. WHY BOTHER GETTING DRESSED?

When you’ve been unemployed for as long as I have been, it’s not so much the difficulty of finding the affordable fashion as it is finding the motivation to care about looking good.

Waking up every day and learning that a dog-walking job requires three references (from the dogs? “Irina scooped my poop so quickly, I had no time to roll around in it!”) is hardly motivation to get out of your pajamas. So the “I don’t give a hoot, I’m wearing my pajamas and fuzzy slippers to Starbucks” look is totally understandable. (I mean, even Brit’s doing it, and we all know she’s been out of work for a while!)

The problem with this strategy is that while one doesn’t need to get out of one’s pajamas to apply for jobs online or to do a Starbucks run, or to obsessively check email and phone messages to see if the employer got back to you, MOOD FOLLOWS ACTION.

I can pretty much guarantee that if you get up, put on a pair of cute slim jeans and even just a plain tshirt with some ballet flats, you’ll FEEL more employable.  [Ed. Note: She is right, I've tried this with exercise clothes and it works.  It kind of makes you want to work out.]

Also, last week I ran into a man who interviewed me for a job. In my pajamas. At the coffee shop. At two in the afternoon. There’s just no way for him to unsee that, OK?

 2. OUT OF PRACTICE

Thinking that you can get away wearing sweatpants and sneakers for six months and being able to put together a interview outfit at a moment’s notice is a delusion. You have to keep your fashion acumen sharp! Trust me, practice makes perfect. Here’s how I left the house one day for a job interview.

  
Nuff said.

 3. OUT OF SHAPE, OUT OF CLOTHES

Being unemployed is no fun, we know that. Your employed friends get tired of hearing about it, and you are embarassed to talk about it too much. You don’t have money to do the activities you once did. So you stay home. And you wear the same thing every day. This is somewhat related to #2 since if you’re not trying on your clothes, not leaving your house for days and living in your sweats, you have NO IDEA that you are gaining weight. Then one day when you get that interview, you try to put on that suit, realizing that you are suddenly FAT. And now you have 20 minutes to construct a descent suit-looking ensemble that sort of fits but doesn’t look like a collage of decades and outfits and fashion trends.

So please, try on your clothes! Try on your interview suits. Make sure they fit!

Or, you will be sitting in a job interview trying to cover up your muffin top with a black t-shirt that you wore backwards since the front has “bebe” written in rhinestones because your button-up shirt wouldn’t button over your new ginormous boobs made of donuts.

 Irina Slutsky is the creator and hostess of Geek Entertainment TV and can be reached at irinaski@gmail.com. She is Internet Famous.

 The views expressed in this blog are solely those of Irina Slutsky and do not necessarily reflect those of Goodwill of Greater Washington. or the DCGF.