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School-time play
of dress up
lives in adult life

My first memory of school was not learning ABCs or 123s, but one of the more tactile and sensory aspects of the educational experience: learning to dress, which has proved over time to be the more difficult task.

The Kindergarten Doll Corner is a relic of a time when gender-specific play was OK, so this happy corner of the classroom offered cubbyholes full of grown-up purses, hats and shoes that made little girls feel all grown up.

Boys had their own no-fun toys like firetrucks, dump trucks and wooden blocks. I was having none of that. So much for gender equality.

I 'd forgotten about the Doll Corner until recently, but I guess I never outgrew it because I still love to play dress-up for my own amusement if no one else's.

Office ready: My mannequin in a DKNY spring '05 jacket, Bebe mesh top circa 2000, and $4 Savers tiered skirt of indeterminable origin.

Having grown up rather poor in Waipahu -- I was the eldest of five children but wore hand-me-downs from my townie cousins -- I learned early the beauty of thrift stores. That led to an early appreciation of things vintage and antique. To this day, I love the craftsmanship and detail of clothes, objects and accessories from the 1880s through 1940s, and possess an obsession with fashion that is a tad out of step with our T-shirt-and-shorts culture.

Even so, my street notion of what is fashionable is far from what is considered classically beautiful, which is what drives my sisters to threaten to ship me off to the Style Network's "What Not to Wear" makeover series. I don't expect them to understand because their aesthetic is more mall than doll.

It's not like I was ever one of those kids who insisted on wearing my PJs to school or flaunting my underwear as outerwear. ... Oh, wait. Last month when Betsey Johnson was in town, I did wear one of her circa 1990s crochet corset bras over a tank top with a three-tiered $4 Savers skirt, mostly because I lost the dress that came with the bra. It turned out to be a look that impressed no one but the designer. "Wow! Look at you," she said, stepping back to study the full head-to-toe effect. "Thank you so much for wearing this!"

RECENTLY, I picked up a mannequin in my size to assist in the creative process of mixing and matching and modeling some of the finds that have lingered in the back of my closet for years.

The first things I threw on her were a lime green sequined bolero my sister sent me from New York and a purple boa I bought at Christmas for no reason other than it was on sale, and they looked great together.

I started trying every possible combination on my doppelgänger, changing her clothes dailyy, pairing leathers over brocades, plain cottons with sequins, Dior with Old Navy, and wondering why I waited this long to try this shortcut method of styling. As the only other eyewitness to this endless parade, my boyfriend now wants his own male mannequin.

The famed stylist Patricia Field has said: "Fashion is 75 percent about styling and 25 percent about designing. From styling you get 'personal style'; from designing you get garments and silhouettes. Style is about how one looks, not what one wears."

Which is the reason I see nothing wrong with pairing a Louis Vuitton blouse with a thrift-shop skirt, though the more conservative of my friends shy away from all things secondhand. I do it as much for my amusement as to provoke and gauge where others are coming from. To me, individuals have an eye for style or they don't, and cost or provenance isn't a factor.

Unfortunately, most people don't have enough faith in their own aesthetic sense to rely on anything but price, label and magazine editors for clues as to what is "in style." I once wore a costume jewelry necklace to an art gallery where several women oohed and aahed over it. One woman asked where I got it, but her enthusiasm withered when she heard "swap meet." I thought that was funny, but a friend of mine was not amused.

"Don't tell people 'swap meet,'" she said. "Tell them you got it at a mainland boutique and forgot the name."

"Why should I lie?" I said. "I don't care what she thinks, and besides, it was gauche of her to ask in the first place."

Sadly, though, even I have my limits. The bolero and boa combo will never reach the street because it's too costumy, but I can still enjoy seeing the pieces come together in my own Doll Corner, learning more about design and becoming braver with each layer.

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