Today’s  Home Chocolatier is both practical and fashionable.  No longer content to look like a homeless misfit dressed in a dustrag, but neither willing to risk the Armani to chocolate splatters and drips, the contemporary Home Chocolatier wears a chic ensemble of washable brown.

When selecting your chocolate-making attire, follow these guidelines and you are sure to look more delicious than your own delectable confections:

• Make sure your chocolate-making uniform is brown or  psychedelic; if it is not, no worry, it will be.
• If it must be dry cleaned, you must be rich and crazy; find something washable.
• Avoid long sleeves.  They will end up stained at the cuff.
• Take a look at your shoes and imagine chocolate dribbled all over them.  Then change into a pair you can live without.
• If you have long hair, pull it back or put it in a scarf or shave it off or get a heavy dose of chemo and let it all fall out; otherwise, it may very well end up in your melted chocolate and from there in your chocolates, and your friends will never tell you but they will tell each other and smirk and snear behind your back.
• Wear gloves.  Not leather gloves or big yellow dishwashing gloves and especially not mittens.  Wear latex gloves, preferably black.  You can find them at beauty supply stores or porn shops.  Buy a big box, they’re great for all kinds of cooking and make you look sexy and sociopathic.
• Wear an apron.  Again, brown or psychedelic.
• Take off your watch and rings and bracelets, because they will become embedded with chocolates.
• Don’t forget kitchen fashion — make sure your towels, pot holders and curtains go well with brown.  Pinks, aquas and greens are especially attractive when splattered with chocolate.

If you examine the photos on this site, you will find that all the above rules have been routinely violated.  That does not mean you should not adhere to these guidelines, it only means your dear befuddled blogger has a disposable wardrobe and no sense at all.

And here are a couple of women who have found the perfect chocolate attire — I hope they don’t sue me when I trademark the ensemble as the official Chocolate Covered Kitchen Chocolate Making Uniform.