I don’t know that I have the necessary qualifications to comment on women’s fashion. Right now, I have on a v-neck t-shirt from J. Crew that dates back to the Bush administration, men’s Gap cargo shorts with a Sharpie marker stain on the hem, a wash-and-wear chin-length bob (read: small brown haystack), and plastic bracelets from Contempo Casuals, and I’ve accessorized this chic ensemble with clumps of orange tabby hair (picks up the auburn highlights in my hair) and grey tabby hair (matches the stanky pair of Teva knock-offs that I bought at a flea market, non-craftily named “Tuvees” by the owner of the truck off of which they fell), so I suppose it goes without saying that I don’t spend a lot of time leafing through Vogue – mostly because the average issue of Vogue clocks in at around eight thousand pages and I can’t even pick the damn thing up without a forklift anyway.

But if I run to the corner deli to get smokes first thing in the morning, and I haven’t showered and I’ve got on the same skunky wrinkled outfit that I wore out the night before that reeks of stale cigarette smoke and the half-pint of McSorley’s I sloshed down the front of it, with a super-fluffy sweatshirt over it to hide the fact that the need for nicotine trumped the need for a brassiere, with a baseball hat jammed onto my head to disguise my styled-by-Cuisinart bedhead and sunglasses covering the harlequin streaks of leftover mascara under my eyes, I know I look bad. I slink across the street, I slink back, and I hope that nobody notices my mossy teeth and crumpled clothes. I find it puzzling, then, that other women can leave their houses, in full daylight, having consulted a mirror, and perpetrate crimes against the human retina so blithely. Everyone makes the occasional mistake; I’ve rushed out of the house with garments on inside-out or hiked around ninety degrees the wrong way, and I’ve repaired dropped hems by stapling them, but again, I didn’t think I looked fetching with my wraparound skirt flapping open at the side. Women of the world, listen up: the following things look bad, bad, bad, and if Joan Rivers can’t make the time to tell you, I’ll have to.

Stirrup pants. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – unless you plan to compete in an equestrian event, you do not need a stirrup. Stirrup pants look ridiculous. They look ridiculous on little kids, they look ridiculous on soccer moms, they looked ridiculous when Blanche wore them on The Golden Girls and they look ridiculous now. Stirrup pants do absolutely nothing for a woman’s shape. Just give it up and put on a pair of sweatpants.

Leggings. Wearing them to go running? Okay. Wearing them to do chores around the house? Okay. Wearing them in a “kicky” floral pattern with a matching oversized silk tunic? Not okay; not in the same zip code as okay. Wearing them so tight that we can see every pore and pockmark of your buttocks? The exact opposite of okay. Wearing them in white when you have flowery undies on underneath? Punishable by law. I can sympathize with the comfy factor, but only up to a point, especially since leggings can so often lead to

Camel toes. Before you pour yourself into the pair of jeans you used to wear in college or bust out those bike shorts, check for the presence of camel toes. If you look in the mirror and see crotch cleavage, remove the offending article of clothing immediately. Nobody needs to know that much about you, and if a man with a Penthouse subscription has led you to believe that it’s sexy, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. Swallow your pride and go up a size.

“Coochie cutters.” Congratulations on tanning your buttcheeks evenly. Seriously. I can’t imagine the pain you endured in pursuit of this goal, and you should feel proud of your achievement. I will, however, take your word for it. If you tell me that you don’t have a tan line on your ass, I will accept this without question. You need not stuff yourself into a pair of shorts from the Frederick’s of Hollywood children’s department and display the bottom halves of the aforementioned buttcheeks in order to convince me. I believe you, okay?

Yoke-waisted garments. You couldn’t avoid them a decade or so ago, but you shouldn’t keep wearing them now. A yoke waist would give Kate Moss a paunch. Ditch ’em. (See also: self-belting shorts.)

Super-sheer white rayon blouses with gold-tone buttons and obvious shoulder pads. It looks cheap – not trampy cheap, just cheap. Taking out the shoulder pads and wearing a flesh-colored or grey bra underneath helps.

and speaking of shoulder pads Shoulder pads don’t really make your waist look smaller; they make you look like you bench 250. L.A. Law got cancelled in 1994. Let it go.

“Nude” hose that don’t match your skin tone. I know, I know – they don’t make nude hose that match your skin tone. They don’t make nude hose that match my skin tone, either. I’ve tried every imaginable designer, but nobody manufactures stockings in Pale Indoor Glow With A Couple Of Unexplained Bruises, so I feel your pain, but if you can’t find an exact match, go as sheer as possible. Taupe is no friend to you.

White tights. Sep really said it best: “Nobody over the age of eight should wear white tights. Ever.” Unless, of course, W calls bulgy legs the hot look for fall. But I have a feeling they won’t.

Gigantic t-shirts with Warner Brothers characters on them. Again, not appropriate attire for anyone who has passed third grade. Just say no to Tweety.

AppliquÈ. Do I have to explain why a sweatshirt with gingham duckies on it no? How about patent leather handbags with metallic patches – any questions regarding the fugliness of that? No? Okay, good.

Too much animal print. One animal at a time, people. If you look like a Mutual Of Omaha Wild Kingdom outtake, you’ve got too many patterns going at once.

White pumps. I can’t come up with a coherent reason why the white pump is a no-no. It just looks so goofy and wrong. Brides can wear them, but everyone else should stay away. And for the love of Pete, don’t wear them with

Chintz. Every time I see a woman wearing chintz – usually a loud peony pattern with a square lace boat-neck collar and a circle skirt that hits the most unflattering part of the calf – I think of the skit from The Carol Burnett Show when Carol pulled a Scarlett O’Hara and wore a curtain as a dress, curtain rod and all. Chintz looks fine on a canopy bed, but let’s leave the dust ruffles at home, shall we?

Frilled socks. Thanks for the flashback to ZZ Top’s “Sharp-Dressed Man.” Now please take those things off.

Steroidally puffy socks with Keds. In the eighties, this constituted the women’s footwear of choice in the Jersey suburbs, and I must say, I’ve never seen a sock-shoe combo that looks as much like a pig’s little hoof as this one does. (See also: two or more different colored pairs of puffy socks, layered to match the rest of the outfit. Ugh.) You can still see the boardwalk rats in Seaside Heights modeling the puffy-socks-‘n’-Keds look, along with skintight color-rinsed jeans (tucked into the socks) and a hip belt, their boyfriends’ way-too-big varsity jackets, and

A stretched-out spiral perm. No perm in the history of the world has ever looked like naturally curly hair. I’ve had a couple of perms, and I learned my lesson after waiting over a year for the last one to grow out – a perm doesn’t look like anything but a perm, and over-processed permed hair doesn’t look like anything but over-processed permed hair. I understand the temptation just to keep perming it because of how bad it looks when you’ve got half a head of straight hair and half a head of permed, you don’t want to cut it all off, blah blah blah – please, don’t perm it in the first place, and if you permed it and got sick of it, get it straightened.

Ironed hair. Yeah, I know what I just said. Two words: Helen Hunt. Two more words: Enough already.

Hippie hair. If it reaches down to your ass, you’ve got a couple of inches to spare. Grab a pair of sewing scissors and take off the split ends. And please stop flinging it around in restaurants – I don’t need to pull your gorgeous locks hand-over-hand out of my soup. Thanks.

Two-inch nails with fanciful scenes painted on them. If anyone can explain this particular fashion phenomenon to me, please do. Truly, I’d really like to know why women spend scads of money on linen wraps that leave them unable to use their hands.

Banana clips. Take an extra four-and-a-half seconds and make the commitment to a ponytail. Fish have fins. Grown women do not.

Overplucked eyebrows. Do you often find yourself screaming, “No wire hangers!”? Do you stand in the middle of your bathroom, your face covered in cold cream, strafing the tile with Dutch Boy scrubbing powder? Then you don’t need to pass for Joan Crawford. Put the tweezers down and step away from the mirror.

Light lipstick outlined in a darker color. We already have a Janet Jackson, and a RuPaul, but thanks anyway.

Overdressing. It’s a matinee. You’ll spend the next two hours in the dark; the guy won’t spend a lot of that time looking at your outfit. With that in mind, you can probably leave the silver quilted halter top, the matching silver hiphuggers, the body glitter, the six coats of mascara, the sixteen-braids-twirled-into-a-bun hairdo, and the four-inch platforms that you don’t even know how to walk in properly at home. It’s a movie, not a Red Shoe Diaries casting call. On the other hand

If it’s a formal event, please put your hair up formally. I saw this a million times at college formals: little black dress, tasteful black pumps, pearls, satin handbag, and the hair mashed into a bun with a scrunchie. I can’t execute a chignon to save my life, so I know it’s easier said than done, but hair salons do it all the time and it’s not terribly expensive. At the very least, pull it off your face with a sparkly barrette or something.

Undergarments. Yes, you have to wear them. Please. Please wear a bra. “But I don’t need to wear a bra,” you say. Yes. Yes, you do. If you get any lateral motion when you walk, you need to wear a bra. If taking a sip of iced tea gives you a nipple-on, you need to wear a bra. You should not, however, wear a ratty old stretched-out grubby white bra that sticks out from underneath your tank top. I don’t mind that strappy look, actually, but it works best with a clean bra, or a black bra, or any bra that doesn’t look like you’ve washed it (or not) eighty-nine times. And while I’ve got you here nobody has to explain the horrors of bra shopping to me, believe me, but the next time you go, please buy the correct size. When you get the wrong cup size, you wind up with “bifocal boob” (cups runneth-ing over), and when you get the wrong band size, you wind up with “wandering-eye boob” (breasts, well, wandering off in different directions). And then we have the queen of all bad breast-related fashion, the winner of the Ann And Nancy Wilson Memorial Rhinestone-And-Fringe Award: butt-chest. Butt-chest occurs when large-ish breasts and a push-up bra collide, thus forcing the breasts sharply together and creating the illusion of an ass-crack. Butt-chest is scary and sad. Please memorize the words “lift and separate” and hold them close to your heart. And one more thing after a while, you get used to the thong. Sincerely, you do. Pick one out in a nice soft fabric and banish panty lines forever.

Of course, if you ever get your hands on my middle-school yearbook, you’ll know how much my counsel in this department is worth, but until then, carry on.

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