We are living in dark, confusing times. Regardless of our individual perspectives and opinions, I think in the last 18 months or so, we’ve all felt some heightened uncertainty and fearfulness about the future. Because there’s a menace out there, and it’s a real, tangible, imminent threat to all that we, as Americans, hold dear.
I’ve mentioned it in passing but have tried to avoid talking about it too much, because dwelling on it does nothing but get me upset. But now, I feel I must speak out. Because just when I let my guard down, when I thought it was safe to breathe a sigh of relief and proclaim the danger passed, out of the shadows jumped the very thing I fear—the thing that, if we let it, will jeopardize our happiness, our comfort, and our personal freedom.
I’m sure you know by now what menace I’m referring to: the jumpsuit. And also, it’s warm weather counterpart: the romper.
I mean, I can kind of see the theoretical appeal of this most heinous piece of clothing: you don’t have to worry about matching a top and a bottom, yet you’re free to do things you can’t really do in a dress, like, say, ride a horse. And I get that the fashion industry must constantly come up with new things to sell us that we don’t need, and there are only so many possible different articles of clothing to bring in and out of style, which means that even the most regrettable fashion inventions—like rompers and culottes and ponchos for men—are bound to cycle back around in order to keep the endless gears of consumption grinding along.
But this is where we have to take a stand, ladies. It’s like the missing pockets on women’s clothing. It took a few brave, ground-breaking, outspoken women to question the status quo in order for the fashion industry to finally take notice and begrudgingly add functional pockets to women’s pants. Today, you can even find some skirts and dresses with pockets. That would’ve been unheard of a decade ago.
We can do this for jumpsuits too, but we have to be in it together. All it takes is one stylish woman to break down and wear one of these contraptions, then someone else to see her and feel anxious about not being on the cutting edge of this trend to go out and buy one, until, one after another, women are falling like dominoes under the dark spell of this thing that—let’s face it—is essentially an adult-sized onesie.
Here’s the thing: most women look ridiculous in a jumpsuit. Unlike newborns, our bodies have vastly different proportions, and odds are your romper is going to be cut too short in some places and too long in others.
But this goes much deeper than aesthetics or physical discomfort. Let’s say you’ve managed to find a jumpsuit that fits you to perfection, with nary a wedgie or weirdly drooping crotch in sight. Before you charge triumphantly from the dressing room to the cash register and throw down your credit card, take a moment to really think this thing through.
At some point during the course of your day, you’re going to have to go to the bathroom–actually, multiple times, unless you’re seriously dehydrated. Some of those times, you’ll be away from your home, and you’ll have to visit a public restroom. If you happen to be wearing a jumpsuit, you will discover that you have to get fully undressed just to empty your bladder. This complete undressing and re-dressing will at least double your potty time, decreasing your productivity at work, wasting precious minutes of your too-short time on this Earth that would be better spent doing anything other than wriggling out of and into a jumpsuit, and having a disastrous effect on the lines to the women’s rooms at large events.
And you know how a lot of public restroom stalls don’t have a hook for your purse? Well, now it’s not just your purse you need a hook for, it’s your entire outfit. Sooner or later, you’ll be forced to just drop your jumpsuit on the floor while you relieve yourself. You know, the public restroom floor, the kind that’s visited by hundreds of strangers a day and that may or may not have been mopped since the last time the toilet overflowed. Then you’re going to have to shimmy yourself back into that jumpsuit, which is now basically a cocoon full of germs and filth, and somehow not let any of the fabric touch your face or your hands for the rest of the day.
I don’t want to frighten you to the point you never sleep again, but think about this: do you ever attend concerts or football games or outdoor weddings? How, in the name of all that is holy and pure and uncontaminated in this world, do you think you’re going to fare when you have to extricate yourself from a jumpsuit inside a cramped, disgusting port-o-potty?
So listen to me closely: jumpsuits must be resisted. It’s time we, as a society, recognize them for what they are: benign-looking but deadly instruments of destruction designed to bring about the downfall of womankind. Between the fights and violence that are bound to break out in those ridiculously long women’s room lines, the deadly E.coli infections suffered by those who unwittingly cloak themselves in public restroom floor gunga, and the UTIs and kidney infections suffered by women trying to avoid these newfound hassles and risks of urination, we are in for a trifecta of doom.
If jumpsuits win, we all lose.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you: This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a romper.
Maria Linn 