Traditional Dress of My Native People

I meet a lot of new people, moving around as much as I do, and I can't count the number of times someone has said, "Oh, I've never met anyone from New Mexico." This isn't because I'm bad at math. I'm actually fairly competent (more on this later), but New Mexico is just pretty sparse.

So New Mexico is not known for people, and it's not really known for high fashion, either. In fact, I can't think of a single New Mexican occasion where it would be inappropriate to wear jeans. Graduation? All the time. Fancy restaurant? Of course. Church? Occasionally. Wedding? Well, you'd iron your nice jeans, but still yes.

And we have styles, of course. 

Turquoise and silver jewelry never go out of style. This is an antique Zuni piece from 1940 (link from this page). It might be 75 years old (math!), but it is still fantastic. It makes any outfit more beautiful.

See? New Mexicans have great visual taste-- and incredible artistry!

And unfortunately, this little video represents New Mexico's actual fashion, too:

Keeping it classy in the 505...

Then there's my home.

High in the mountains outside Santa Fe lies an enclave of the extremely intelligent, the extremely well educated, and the extremely fashion-challenged. Just think of The Big Bang Theory, but minus all the coordinated apartment decor, minus the wardrobe variety (Where is the Math Counts t-shirt from 8th grade?), and times about 9,000 laboratory employees. (See? I told you I was good with math!)

What kind of physicists have an area rug and coordinating throw pillows?!

Picture from here

I recently talked to a friend who has moved to another state and gotten married. Now her mother-in-law buys her outfits to wear outside the house, because apparently I'm not the only fashion-challenged export of Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Honestly, I love Los Alamos. I loved growing up in a place where some of my friends were fashionable, cute, and trendy, some of us wore over-sized t-shirts through high school graduation, and it was never the focus of our friendships. It was more about doing things, going places, and learning new ideas and skills. 

So really, I'm learning how to dress myself just so I can have another skill and more knowledge. So..... still nerdy!