No it’s not you - it is really the trend. Christine Albrecht

I was clothes shopping in Army & Navy and thought I had mistakenly wandered into the maternity department. But nope - I was in the right place. It just so happens that smocked tops (or pregnancy tops) are back in style, in a ‘big way’.

My first thought when I saw this style was of my father. When I was a teen, I bought a gray, very trendy, smocked top and my father (who normally never said a word about my appearance, let alone an article of clothing) told my mother to inform me that he did not like me wearing that particular top. Why, I wondered? Apparently my father detested the colour gray, and he also felt the top made me look pregnant. (I guess he didn’t feel this was a good look for his thirteen year old daughter.) So I rarely wore the top and within six months the trend was passé.

After my futile search for something less ‘smocky’, in the aforementioned clothing store, I briefly wondered what my deceased father would think of today’s department stores bursting at the seams with all sorts of smocked tops - available for all females whether she be six or sixty. Actually, I do not need to wonder as I can imagine his look of disgust.

After my immediate response to the sea of smocks, I realized I have a bit of my father in me as well.

images from az.central