When my sister moved to Chicago a few years ago (eight years ago now? ), she surprised us by inviting my mum, cousin, and I to join her for her bachelorette party. Instead of heading to Vegas like everyone else seemed to do (ahem, Erica, Jenny), she decided she wanted to spend a long weekend exploring regional nightlife culture by spending each night bar-hopping in different parts of town. My sister was studying sociology at graduate school at the time, so naturally she was explaining things like we were JUST VALUES FINDING SUBJECTIVE MEANING IN REGIONAL DRINK MENUS.
I thought she was SUCH.A.PHONE. Also, drunk people are drunk people, no matter where you take them. Spoiler alert: she was totally right.
Our first night was spent in Nashville, which coincidentally is where I’m from. We started the evening totally confident in our boho-chic/maxi-dress approximate parity; my sister had brought an assortment of dresses she rotated between all weekend, my mum found a cute dress at Target, my cousin sported a jersey wrap dress that almost kicked us all to the kerb… And then we got to our first stop.
A honky tonk on Broadway.
Holy.
Sheeplicken. I mean, everyone looked amazing (guys, my fellow Nashvillians, I see you and salute you).
But what I didn’t understand until that night was HOW these women looked so AMAZING. The hair: perfect curl pattern that took hours and hours to achieve. The makeup: major eyebrows, flushed cheeks, contoured faces.
It looked natural but ALSO LIKE IT COULD HANDLE A CAMERA AT ANY SECOND. The clothes: OH. MY.
GOODNESS. The pieces they were wearing were FINE. Dresses that actually fit and skimmed the body in all the right places, boots that were undoubtedly $300+, necklaces and earrings and rings that seemed to catch the light just right.
These women sh*t sparkled. I felt dowdy. Under-dressed.
Like I’d tried to go to Prom in sweats. My sister’s childhood friend Kate laughed at mydeer-in-headlights look. “Y’all didn’t dress for Nashville,” she said. And she wasn’t being judgmental, just factual. “You come to Nashville to party and you BETTER look amazing.
It’s a requirement. Everyone spends all day getting ready because being fabulous is part of the nightlife.” And she was. So.
Right. Not only did women ooh-and-ahh over each other’s outfits; we watched them snapping pictures together, genuinely celebrating each other. There was camaraderie around the process of getting dolled up that I didn’t know existed until that night.
Because back home in Minneapolis if you’re too dressed up to go barhopping, people give you sideways glances. In Nashville, showing up under dressed is like showing up to a birthday party without a gift. The next night we travelled to Atlanta, and my naive little brain thought I had things figured out.
I borrowed one of Kate’s frocks, spent an HOUR on my hair (alright, more like 45 minutes, but when my hair routine usually consists of wash + scrunch with mousse + hope for best, anything over five minutes is an hour), AND PUT ON LIQUID FOUNDATION. Confidence soared as we walked into our first stop. That is, until I realised that I had made a totally different mistake.
Atlanta style; or at least the ATL we experienced via dive bars in Dekalb county… is a whole new beast. Everyone in Nashville could have stepped off the same IG high-fashion fam portfolio, where as in Atlanta we saw women mixing band tees with sketcher skirts, chin length braids I’d never even heard of, art-school-inspired eyeshadow, and statement earrings that made their outfit selections look basic in comparison. I had dressed for Nashville when I should have played it up for ATL.
And that darling little dress I borrowed from Kate that had seemed SO put-together night before suddenly seemed… plain. Not wrong, but boring. Vanilla.
Like wearing a beige pantsuit to an art gallery opening. Luckily for me, my sister’s friend Maya had moved to Atlanta from Cleveland a few years back and graciously joined us for brunch the next morning. “Atlanta girls have gotta style story to tell,” Maya said, laughing as she explained my naivety. “Everything here either has to be vintage OR scream outfit. There’s no in between, and basic is just…. well, boring.” OKAY Y’ALL.
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When we rolled into New Orleans for night three, I was already feeling très insecure about my entire wardrobe choices. Thank goodness Maya talked us into going out shopping that afternoon because what began as full of shame spiraling turned into me realising that what we put on our bodies means different things in different regions. New Orleans was another story altogether.
From the women we encountered everywhere we went, it felt like everyone wandered into restaurants and bars dressier than we ever did on semi-decent nights at home. Hair styled, but NOT in any sort of tried-and-true way I knew how to achieve. Dresses that draped instead of clung but still managed to look expensive.
Statement jewellery that looked like they had meaning behind them rather than came from the Banana Republic jewellery bin. Natural makeup that still popped. “I feel like everyone just looks put together without trying too hard,” Sarah, another local friend of Maya’s said as we sat drinking coffee. “But also NO ONE wants to look like a tourist. You wanna dress like you respect the city.”Sidebar: please watch Taylor Swift’s video for Gorgeous right now and know that NOLA gave us that.
Needless to say I spent a lot of time thinking about what I “normally” wear once I got home. As a mum living in Minnesota my go-to outfits are dictated by one thing; will this get destroyed by child? Will it hide spit up?
Can I run around in it without too much comfort? And while all of those are obviously still valid things to consider when you have kids (kid are nasty, people. Don’t forget childcare when YOU dressing), I realised I’d been looking at clothing through this really narrow lens.
What our weekend taught me was that regional fashion isn’t dictated by weather or shopping availability. It’s about community values. In Nashville, dressing up and putting in visible effort is part of the culture.
In Atlanta, making unique style choices that set you apart from the crowd is a cornerstone of fashion. In New Orleans, dressing to respect the history and culture of the city you’re visiting is key. Even we Meyer girls have a regional style back home.
Growing up in Minnesota, I noticed we cared about looking put together without much fuss. Good boots were a necessity (and still are, let’s be honest), layers because fuck you Mother Nature, and functional fabrics that could stand up to whatever we needed to do that day. There’s something to be said about the Midwest mentality that prizes dressing well without showing a lot of skin, investing in quality pieces that will last for years, and valuing comfort over flash.
Once I landed back in Minnesota I started noticing Midwest mum uniform when I compared it to what I’d seen throughout our trip. Well-structured jeans or leggings, cute trainers or booties, cardigans or fleeces, neutral jewellery, natural makeup. It’s not boring like I may have originally perceived it (gasp! ), but it’s tailored to our weather and lifestyle and values.
But what our weekend also taught me was that I’d been using “functional” as a buzzword to NOT think about what I wore. Sure, I wasn’t dressing up to “turn heads” but I also never really thought about how my clothes made me feel or what they were saying about me. I started playing around with jewellery (because even if my kiddos destroy my shirt they’re not likely ripping off my earrings), trying jeans with different rises and fits to see what flattered my figure, actually THINKING about what colour I was wearing that day rather than just grabbing whatever was clean.
The bonus was that once I started looking at other cities through a fashion lens I ALSO became more confident in my wardrobe at home. When we took a family holiday to visit my husband’s family in Phoenix last summer I packed completely differently than I would have pre-bachelorette trek. Things that are casual in AZ are not the same things as casual in MN; different colours, different fabrics, less polish required.
I felt more badass because I spent some time thinking about how to dress for my surroundings versus mindlessly tossing random things into a suitcase. I even catch myself doing it when I travel for “mum things.” Last summer when we took Maddie to that football tournament in Denver, or when I visited my college roommate in Portland I noticed the unconscious uniform each city had but also how they each related to fashion differently.
There’s no wrong or right way to dress depending on where you are, but there is an “everyone kind of knows this unpoken dress code that no one talks about” way to get dressed when you spend enough time in a place.
Our bachelorette weekend taught me to appreciate regional style differences.
I love that we value comfort and function so much up here in the Midwest. We don’t have to wear heels just to run errands or put hours of thought into getting ready to drop our kids at school in the morning.
But I also admire places where getting ready is a ritual and wearing cool clothes is part of the culture. Now when I get dressed in the morning I think about it a little differently. Sure, I’m covering my limbs and hiding stains like I always did.
But I’m also THINKING when I get dressed. About what my outfit says about me. About how clothing can help me fit into a place I’m visiting, as well as express my own personal style.
Sure, I live in suburban Minnesota and have two kids and work with Target priced clothes in mind. But that’s still my niche to think about and channel when I get dressed every morning. P.S.
Next time Sophie plans a multi-city bachelor / bachelorette weekend, I promise I will be way more prepared.
