Saturday, October 11, 2014

A Fashionable State of Affairs


In the past year, I've gone from being a silly girl in my twenties to being what feels very much like A Woman: married, working at a non-profit, traveling with my husband, planning for the future. It's startling how fast that all happened. And, in the midst of that, I wonder if my wardrobe has had time to catch up.

Trust me, I know how superficial that sounds. After all, there's nothing inherently different about me now that I'm in a fresh new decade, or have a snazzy new gold band as an accessory, or working in someone else's office instead of at home. None of those things should matter vis-a-vis my wardrobe, but, somehow, they do. Something that felt right even a couple years ago now leaves me feeling like I'm playing dress-up: cyberpunk dresses, which I love, suddenly don't fit me like a second skin. I find myself yearning for a pair of skinny black velvet trousers and asymmetrical tanks in natural fibres, and I know it's time to play Name That Style.

For years—years!—my guiding style principle was "post-apocalyptic farm girl." I wanted something that could conceivably take me from a warehouse rave to a turnip patch. Oddly, this isn't a look that most places carry off the rack, so it means assembling a closet from thrift-store gems, hand-me-downs, weirdly styled wardrobe staples, and the very occasional bought-new splurge. And this worked, mostly, with a few missteps (once, while getting ready for a night out, I wore high-waisted leather-look leggings and a black, collared wrap tank top; my hair was big and blonde and blown out to the heavens. M took one look at me and said, "You look like Sandy at the end of Grease," which meant it was time for big LOLs and also back to the sartorial drawing board).

Now, while I still want that general flavour, the farmgirl look is losing steam. I keep thinking about modern-art gallery owners at openings, or goth Japanese hobby-farmers, and 1970s camp counsellors in poorly made horror movies. My closet now is just bonkers: a Garfield sweater nestles in beside a drapey Helmut Lang tank top. My drawer overfloweth with black tank tops, and yet I've also kept a pink sweater I've owned for a half-decade and worn maybe three times. I have miniskirts from that slutty store at the mall, I have booty shorts to be worn only in the winter (and only with tights), I have pants that fit horribly that I can't figure out how to replace, and I have a drawer full of tee-shirts despite the fact that I wear tee-shirts about three times a year.

M is a maximalist in many ways: he loves toys and souvenirs, he buys a tee-shirt at most concerts he attends, he gets the super-special edition Blu-Ray of whatever movie he's buying. We have more box sets in our living room than most video stores (RIP) have on their shelves. And I love our jumble of interlocked stuff, like our wall full of concert posters and our comic-book shelves. Sometimes, though, I wish we had the ability to curate our lives a little more effectively, to remember that the toy/poster/tiny bowl/lanyard that reminds us of a special moment isn't the memory itself.

I struggle to get rid of gifts, like hand-me-down pillows or gnarly old rugs. I hang onto books that I bought during my undergraduate program that I never got around to reading. The things that represent relationships, or things I wanted for myself ("I'll have a season where all I read is steampunk novels!"), are especially hard to ditch. It feels like a betrayal.

Which brings me back to my closet. Most of the clothes that go unworn were gifts: either too fancy for every day wear (a stack of party dresses from my mom), or things that don't quite align with how I want to present myself in the world (that pink sweater). I'm a person who often crafts stories about her outfits: today, I want to look like a safari guide; today, I want to look like a posh beekeeper. (The fact that I rarely want to look like an office manager could be dissected, I know.) When other people's narratives don't match up with mine, it can throw me for a loop. I struggle to shape a story where I wear a heathery Irish sweater and a one of my six black knee-length skirts. I wonder if my clothes are too young for me, or not quite office-appropriate, or too staid. I wrinkle my nose when it comes to go shopping, because I'm at a loss for where to buy new clothes. Mostly, I just want to feel like myself, but  with all these changes in the past year, I'm not totally sure who I am, and who I want to be.

But when I see something I know is right—oh, that's a nice feeling. A recent trip to Value Village scored me a pair of Sorel boots that tickle me completely. I can picture wearing them as I walk through the snow on the way to a client's office, or on a winter walk around my parent's farm, or to brunch with a bunch of girlfriends. I could also picture them on the feet of a magazine editor, or a lavender farmer, or a consultant, or a writer, or any of the other zillions of alternate-reality Kaitlyns I use to shape the vision of how I want my real, messy, married, working, laughing, loving life to go.

Image via mybeautyandfashion.com