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All day long, I went around with my shirt inside out. Nobody said a word. That’s not all that surprising because the in-thing is for your labels to show. Maybe, folks I came in contact with just thought wearing clothing inside out is the up-and-coming thing in high fashion.

I grew up during the time when the only labels on clothing were verbal – Sunday clothes, school clothes, play clothes, work clothes and hand-me-down clothes.

Back then, we all had a seamstress – either a mother, a grandmother or a little lady down the road who took in sewing to help make ends meet.

Mama would take me to Mabel Belcher’s store or to O.K. Ramage or The Star Store to look through the pattern books to find a pattern that would look nice in flour sack or biddy feed sack print.

If we were looking for something for a Sunday dress, I might get to pick out the cloth from the big bolts of material stacked on the shelf. If luck were really on my side, I would be the first little girl to put my name on the pattern book. Then, when the new pattern book came in, I could get the old one and I’d have the grandest paper doll book any little girl could imagine.

When I had children of my own, I bought clothes that were practical and durable – blue jeans with reinforced knees and clothes and shoes they could grow into. Not one thought was given to the attached label, which often had a scissor cut through it.

Back then, if the label in your clothes was sticking out, some caring soul would, discretely, tuck it under for you so you wouldn’t be embarrassed.

No more of that.

Let your labels show! Gucci, Calvin Klein, Land’s End, Speedo, Armani.

But the funny thing about all that is most folks are like me, and all of those who didn’t notice my shirt was inside out, they either don’t care about labels or don’t know the first thing about designer clothing.

My daughter once dressed herself to meet a visiting distant relative. At the time, “stretchy” belts were the fashion. She dolled up in dark flowing pants and a dark blouse and a wide, white stretchy belt. The female relative took great interest in her attire.

After studying her for a while, she asked, “Honey, when did you break your hip?”

High fashion was mistaken for a hip binding.

My friend, Agnes, was working at an upscale dress shop that sold purses for hundreds of dollars.

I asked Agnes if anybody paid those high prices for purses.

“If they do, I just say, ‘Well, there goes an idiot,” she said, with a smile.

So, I guess I doesn’t matter whether your label’s showing or you’re wearing your clothes inside out, somebody’s going to think you’re hip and somebody else will think you’re just an idiot.