Fashion for the unconscious

There was a wide variety and ages and voices at younger daughter's holiday recital. Well, seventeen sopranos and one very brave baritone, but a wide, curving range of ability, style and motivation. Three little girls with anxious mothers, half a dozen mature singers pursuing pleasure and self-improvement, and adolescent and post-adolescent young women in search of...themselves? A vocation? A career in music and theatre? Probably all of the above.

This was my third visit into this rarefied world of performance, the first two being younger daughter's first festival competition and the spring recital with much the same crowd as this one. As younger daughter becomes used to this sort of thing, so do I, and I found myself relaxing more and taking in the whole performances.

Which includes, although maybe it shouldn't, what the singers chose to wear. The little girls were, of course, in variations of little-girl-party-wear which these days seems to be a sort of shift affair with ballet shoes or Mary-janes. The mature ladies went for dressy-casual, some dressier, some more casual; usually a scarf was involved.

Nearly all the young women were in black minis. And here's the problem. It was an afternoon recital. In a church. Not a church service, mind, but the key words here are "recital" "afternoon" and "church".

I was most startled when I heard a clomp-clomp-clomp and up hobbled a girl in a spaghetti-strap chemise-top over a body-con miniskirt, complete with lace stockings and backless shoes with six-inch heels. She did wear a sort of black cardigan over this ensemble, but she still looked -- oh, how aged do I sound? -- kinda like a hooker...

Looking back without checking the programme, I can remember what the little girls and the mature ladies sang. I only remember what most of the adolescent girls wore.

(Oh. Younger daughter sang a gospel song, and a clear and expressive version of "Jingle Bell Rock". She wore a hot pink tee-shirt and mini-skort with dark pink tights and flats. She looked lovely. Her totally objective mother thanks you for asking.)