kids' clothing choices

I think it's about 50 degrees outside and it finally stopped raining after 3 days, but the ground is still wet. I'm cold, and not particularly looking forward to going outside. Every morning, I let [Older Daughter] choose what she wants to wear. I have to get it for her since she can't reach the rack in her closet, and would make a mess taking the hanger off the rack. Yesterday she chose to wear a brown leopard print blouse with black leggings with different colored hearts all over them. I was surprised, since she usually selects an unnecessarily fancy dress each day. Her outfit yesterday was outrageous, to say the least, but who cares - she's just a kid. Today, she selected a beautiful pink and white sundress which I tried to get her to wear last summer, but which she just didn't want to. Today's dress is not the best choice for wet, cold weather, but I decided long ago to pick my battles, since she's just a kid. ([Husband] still tries to talk her out of these choices.) This reminds me of when my sister was in 3rd or 4th grade, I think, and it was summertime. She wanted to wear jeans and kept asking if she could put jeans on. My father blew up, took her away, and brought her back dressed in jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and windbreaker zipped up. I remember her standing there crying, and him laughing. When my mother visits and [Older Daughter] asks to wear season-inappropriate clothes, my mother still brings up this incident, "Remember when [my sister] wanted to wear jeans, and what Daddy did?" and laughs. She still thinks this is funny. I finally told her it wasn't. I don't think she ever realized how hurtful this was to us. I guess she probably thinks the tirades, explosions, throwing things, and ass-kickings were funny too?