While in New Jersey I met up with the lovely ladies of R.J. Classics, the makers of the most stunningly gorgeous and affordable show clothes on the planet. (I may be biased in this assumption, but probably not.)
I wanted to meet with them because they’ve been my sponsors for more than a year, and we’d never physically met, but also because we were planning on talking about dressage fashion. Now, no one who knows me would ever imagine anyone would want my opinion on something related to fashion, but I’ve somehow conned the R.J. Classics folks into thinking I’m some sort of expert. Hah! Boy, have I ever pulled the light-weight, fashionable wool over THEIR eyes.
But seriously folks, it was quite possibly the most fun meeting I’ve ever had in my life. The reality is that in this gig, we’re rarely afforded the opportunity to be girly. I own MAYBE three dresses and two skirts. I bet I blow-dry no more than 10 times a year, and that’s a pretty busy year. Makeup for me is ChapStick. And don’t even get me started on the last time I had a pedicure.
So to talk with other women about fabrics, colors, buttons and piping for an hour was a HOOT.
“What’s the best thing about the coats you wear?” they asked me. R.J’s amazing fabric, hands down; it’s so lightweight, but still substantial, and lord knows I give my show clothes a beating.
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“What would you change about it?” Pretty buttons. Believe it or not, dressage riders are actually starting to express themselves a teensy, tiny bit.
What about piping? (Beautiful!) Colored collars? (Not my thing, but some people like them.) Colored lining? (Don’t bother—you almost never see the lining of a dressage coat.) Fun-colored shadbelly points? (AWESOME. And why not a pocket square to match?)
We talked show shirts (short-sleeved or sleeveless; we dressage folks don’t do long sleeves), stock ties (a little stiff, and maybe in a fabric with a little shine or light print), gloves, breeches, pockets. You name it, we did it. And in the end, I think they learned a lot about what we loopy dressage people do and don’t like.
But they only got my opinion. So what say you, members of the dressage world? What makes your heart go pitter-pat when it comes to dressage fashion? And what do you want to go in the way of parachute pants?
