Pretty in Plaid

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Jen Lancaster’s cultural inferiority complex had to come from somewhere…and now fans can find out where in this hilarious New York Times bestselling memoir from the author of Bitter is the New Black.

Before she was bitter, before she was lazy, Jen Lancaster was a badge-hungry Junior Girl Scout with a knack for extortion, an aspiring sorority girl who didn’t know her Coach from her Louis Vuitton, and a budding executive who found herself bewildered by her first encounter with a fax machine. In this hilarious and touching memoir, Jen Lancaster looks back on her life—and wardrobe—and reveals a young woman not so different from the rest of us.

Prepare to take a long walk in her (drool-worthy) shoes in this humorous and heartwarming trip down memory lane.Praise for Pretty in Plaid
 
“After three laugh-out-loud memoirs chronicling her adult adventures in unemployment, city living and weight loss, Lancaster looks back at the poignant moments of her youth and what she was wearing while living them.”—People

“Scathingly witty.”—The Boston Herald
 
“Laugh and cry at this hilarious collection of essays that chronicle Jen’s fearless fashion faux pas through the ages, her 11 (yup) years of undergrad, and her not-so-glamorous entry-level jobs. You’ll revel in the lessons she gleans from her travails: primary among them, that the ability to laugh at your mistakes is the best skill you’ll ever learn.”—Redbook
 
“She pegs her memories to outfits—a green dotted swiss dress, some stylin’ Jordache jeans, crocodile skin pumps—in a way that will win the hearts of all of us who still remember the dusty green of our 1980s-variety Girl Scout uniform (with its fetching beret and knee socks!).”—San Antonio Express-News
 
“[A] hilarious look at the poor fashion choices that can, so sadly, define and saddle us with ridicule far beyond our formative years…Lots of readers will find her brown tasseled clogs a disarmingly perfect fit; you can laugh at your own fashion foibles as Lancaster pokes fun at herself.”—The Sunday Oregonian
 
“A powerfully frank, mutant strain of chick-lit that resonates.”—Charlotte ObserverJen Lancaster is the author of Bitter is the New Black, The Tao of Martha, Twisted Sisters, and many other bestselling works of both memoir and fiction. Jen can often be seen on The Today Show, as well as CBS This Morning, Fox News, NPR All Things Considered, among others. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and her many ill-behaved dogs and cats.

PROLOGUE

When I was a kid, my mother’s mantra was You are what you eat.

Considering that I broke the long silence from birth until my thirteenth month of life by uttering the word “cookie,” it was safe to say even then that it would not become mine. I knew I wasn’t a bruised banana pulled from her handbag while waiting on line at the post office, nor was I an unsweetened bowl of Cheerios topped with wheat germ from the foul-smelling hippie health food store. Sure, I’d have happily been a Hershey bar or a bowl of mouth-shredding Crunch Berries, but a poorly boned bowl of homemade chicken soup or a salt-free lentil casserole? No.

Right about the time I was able to cut my own meat and make my own sartorial choices, my Auntie Fanny gave me some of my cousin Stephanie’s old clothes. I was instantly enamored; there were colors and styles I’d never seen before.

Instead of the ducky-and-moo-cow tops my mother bought or made by hand, I took first grade by storm in Steph’s old purple suede fringe vests and rainbow-striped corduroy bell-bottoms and peace symbol T-shirts. I mean, why would I dress like a baby when I could look like an extra from Sonny and Cher Show reruns?

I may not have been able to tie my shoes or spell my last name, but I knew one thing for sure—I was not what I ate.

I was what I wore.

You never can tell when nostalgia might strike. For many people, it’s triggered by a long-forgotten scent, say the nose on a glass of wine that evokes the aroma of ripe grapes hanging from the arbor in their great-grandmother’s backyard. For others, memories come flooding in when a fancy small-plates restaurant conjures up an ironic bread pudding that happens to taste just like the one Mrs. Maguire brought to that block party the day Nixon resigned. For some, it’s a snippet of a song: Three bars from Toto’s “Africa” broadcast from a passing car and they’re no longer swinging a Halliburton briefcase down Michigan Avenue to get to a branding meeting. Instead, they’re huddled in their high school commons at lunch, cramming for a fifth-period chemistry test.

And me? Well, more often than not a piece of clothing will spark my memory.

I clearly remember what I had on when I learned the Challenger exploded, and I know what I was wearing when President Reagan was shot. I saw my husband, Fletch, for the first time when I was waitressing in a pink polo and low-waisted men’s green chinos, and a year later when we had our first kiss, I was in a red Ralph Lauren turtleneck, loose sand-colored 501s, and had a red and blue grosgrain band around my watch. I can even tell you the exact gauge of the sweater set I wore the day I made the mistake of carrying a Prada bag to the unemployment office . . . no matter how much I’d like to forget.

The sizes on the tags of my clothing may have changed over the years, but the memories are a constant.

In Pretty in Plaid, I recall the outfits (and events) that ultimately made me the kind of condescending, egomaniacal, self-centered smart-ass who would bark orders at waitresses and make assistants cry. My road to hell wasn’t paved with good intentions—it was cobbled with gold lavalieres and Gucci purses.

As I examine my life through this book, I can’t help but wonder if my mother was right. Maybe I really was what I ate. And maybe if she’d let me eat a little more sugar, I’d have come out sweeter.

But, really, who knows?

All I can say for sure is that my story begins with kneesocks and a lobster bib. . . .

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