Style Catastrophe on King, Line 1?

Last weekend, I found myself shopping King Street.

... For the three of you who don't know, this is basically ground zero of Charleston fashion and therefore tends to attract a certain type of shopper. Y'all know who I'm talking about, I know you do. Perfect hair, perfect makeup, perfect clothes, perfect shoes, perfect accessories, perfect, well, everything. And on top of that, they somehow manage to not sweat, shine, or get dirty while wearing a fabulous pair of designer skinny jeans in white paired with some kind of long sleeved flow-y shirt. How, HOW do people do that? I cringe at the idea of even trying, let alone trying it on King Street. Because typically my time on King involves eating out (which I'm great at btw) or heading to an appointment for work, so I'm not really focused on shopping and image.

Anyways... back to last Sunday. On this particular day, like most weekends, I had my hair in a ponytail and was wearing a hat, workout shorts, sneakers, a v-neck tee, and minimal makeup. I have to dress business casual all week long, so this is pretty much typical weekend "fashion" for me. 

My daughter and her friend wanted to hang out. First, we attempted a stroll near the Battery, but about 10 minutes into our walk, a clap of thunder rang out so loud that I'm pretty sure I levitated (and may have peed my pants a little too). We raced back to the car and reworked our plan. The girls, who are both 11, decided that we needed to go to King Street and window shop. We started at Forever 21 (which blows my mind by the sheer quantity of stuff that is in there), then made our way down King to a few random places, eventually ending up at the Charleston Place. Wanting to cool off a little, we meandered through there, too.

Here is where things went south. The girls decided somewhere along the line that they were going to "style" me. They played this game in several of the places we went into. I began picking up whispered bits of conversation from my daughter about how "she never buys anything, she thinks she doesn't look good in anything, she doesn't like to shop," etc. It stung a little, but these comments were passed off rather easily, as she is in the throes of tween-dom and lives and dies by TV shows like "What Not to Wear," "Fashion Star," etc. I didn't give it much thought.

This game continued as we went into a store in Charleston Place that is actually one of my favorites.

The very nice salesperson greeted us and asked if she could help, and I told her about what the girls were up to and that we were just poking around. She persisted a little, and then asked me: "Soooo... would you say your style is uhh, (looks up and down at my now sweaty and rumpled ensemble)... casual?"

Ouch.

So then, because I'm me, I felt the need to explain that I have to dress up all week casual on the weekends blah blah blah. Then I bolted. By the time we got home, the girls had decided that they were going to give each other makeovers (which means painting on ridiculous amounts of makeup) on each other, and then that they were going to give me one too. Awesome. They were extremely impressed with my collection of eye shadow, which was cool because they are getting to the age where nothing that an adult does is cool anymore. And it really was kind of fun watching them slap on the war paint (though I was a little worried about the safety of my eyes given the way they were wielding the make up brushes). We all emerged unscathed and looking somewhat reasonable.

I thought I was off the hook until they broke into my closet. Then the whispering cranked up again.

My daughter's friend: "She has SO many clothes!" My daughter: "Yeah, but she never wears any of them. She wears the same five dresses all the time." Friend: "Why?" Daughter: "Same reasons that she never buys anything. My mom never really does anything with herself."

Double ouch. Like, a lot.

I kind of understand what she was saying but I kind of don't. I thought I did my hair and I know I put on makeup. I do wear my summer dresses constantly because I am hot-natured and am an outside sales rep, which means lots of in and out of the car. During the summer that can get, well, gross, if you don't take care with the wardrobe, so I aim for as cool as possible. Plus, I'm not super charged up about fashion in the first place, and my hair is challenging—thick, long, wavy/curly/coarse. I'm also not made of money, but I want to look nice and be cute and all that. Not sure how to bridge this gap because it does appear that I'm not exactly knocking 'em dead, but I also am not interested in spending tons of time and dollars on my appearance.

Where is the line between those things? Anyone? Or are there other 30-something moms a little stuck on this, too? Is it just that my give-a-damn is busted? I don't know... I'm not one of those moms who tries to do it all, have it all (as evidenced here)—but when it comes to me, I may not be doing enough. Anyone else in this predicament?