Love, Loss, and What I Wore - Type of Thing.

  Prada bow belt. I have this. I bought it a few years ago imagining I'd wear it with a black shirt dress or a leopard cardigan. It sits in the drawer, next to the H belt; I never have worn either one. A red bow belt around the waist takes confidence.

 

I used to love clothes. More accurate, perhaps, to say that I used to *fall* in love with clothes. Not just the styles, the fabrics, and the textures (though, definitely all of that), but the idea of them. Where I might be going when I wore them or who I might be with.

I've gone broke for clothes more than once. Bonwit Teller collapsed in 1989, my freshman year of college. A local wholesaler bought the remaining inventory and so did I. The only purchase I remember (but there were many more) was a pair of lime green patent leather peep-toe pumps by Charles Jourdan.

I wore amazing suits on the trading floor. One of my favorite outfits was a single-breasted Lillie Rubin black and white houndstooth jacket and black pencil skirt. The red AIDS ribbon was de rigueur and if I was feeling flush with cash I popped the collar. I had a beautiful powder-blue silk suit printed with seashells and starfish that I wore once at Hotel Dupont in Wilmington and then was ruined by my dry cleaner.

The Asian currency crashes of the 90's were good financial years for us - James had placed heavy bets on those markets and his frequent travels East meant that I went with a time or two and shopped Takashimaya with my GBP and and USD. It's not often you see Dior marked 70 percent off. Divorced, I decamped with my Armani and my luxe-quality [knock-off] bright red Kelly bag to the Texas [inaugural] ball in Washington a few years later.

In Miami, I had a Donna Karan wrap blouse in black silk with red cherries. It hugged my generous curves and, for whatever reason, I wore it the day the office visited a soul food kitchen in the Overtown neighborhood. Ka-Kow! I made friends there.

Things changed after Miami. I wasn't well, I guess. But it was more complex than that. One night, before a dinner party, I put on an Italian sundress I'd found in town. I liked it. It was a soft, navy jersey with a deep v-neck and a loose, swinging skirt. The bodice was smocked with neon pink, orange, and green threads. I'd been feeling better and working out. I felt pretty in it. My Ex took one look at me in the dress and pressed his finger into the soft lump above my scar with a smile. I took the dress off and don't remember what I put on instead. I've kept the dress in my new closet. I turned to Faconnable and Eileen Fisher and though all of it still hangs in my closet, I rarely, if ever, want to put those clothes on in this new life.

I miss the easy confidence I had in my youth. If I thought of my body in the dressing room, then, it was more about how to hide my shape at work. I could wear most things even though I chose not to. I laugh when I think of how I wouldn't wear a bikini - even when I weighed 103 pounds. That I thought I was "fat" when I hit 120. Now, I keep my back to the mirror and I don't turn around until I'm fully clothed.

Most days, I wear boyfriend jeans, flats, and a t-shirt to my office. I soak myself in Guerlain and big diamonds to compensate, but it's not the same. I'm not the same.  Either I don't want to be, or I recognize that I'm unable to be. I'm not sure which one it is. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

When I moved here, I got rid of many of my clothes and shut the door on the rest of them.Now, I skim the top off of the laundry basket every morning instead of planning outfits from things on hangers. But lately, I've been thinking that I'm ready for heels and a pencil skirt. I'm not sure how to interpret that. My boyfriend tells me every day that he thinks I'm beautiful, but it's so easy not to believe in it - once you've had someone tell you, every day, that he thinks otherwise.

Comments

[Kristen]

Well. First of all, when I once said there is more to you than recycled sweaters, I had NO idea. Second, I am moved to remark that it seems there were a whole lot more people commenting on blogs before this decade. I look back at mine during the same period and wonder if some of those friends and family members have died or something since.

I went through a couple of clothes periods - in the 60s, it was Yardly based. In the seventies, it had to do with making my own '30s pants and a very nice little white poplin single breasted jacket with a red halter top under it.

Now, I don't care. The irony is the same here - in my youth, I walked around campus wondering if I looked like a person with a back-end following on leash. The only times I've ever been consistently happy and confident in how I looked were after I'd given birth and nursed off weight till I actually could see hip bones. My great grandmother was 320 pounds easy. My own mother borrowed one of my Dale sweaters once, and the ribbing at the waist never fit me right again (not that she was anything over 150 or 60 - and since I loved her so much, it didn't matter).

There was a day - at a writer's convention actually, in Seattle, where I was the visiting famous person - when I sat in front of a motel mirror and realized that I had more than one chin. How had it happened? Crept right up on me over years and years of not paying attention. But that's about body, not clothes. I have never known clothes. Have never been tempted by labels. Once, I tried on a torso hugging navy blue dress with a sweeping skirt that sort of evolved out of the torso and became an upside down, silky lily shape. I felt darling in it. Such a strange and wonderful feeling, I was suspicious of it and did not buy.

Good thing. I'd probably still have it, and every time I'd put it on, I'd remember the day I saw a very old, almost skin and bone woman "walking" the mall - with that female under-the-navel shelf sticking out - the only fat deposit on her body - and I swore I'd NEVER have onel

I think your stinger is the slam dunk here. When we stop looking at ourselves and we really start looking at other people, then the people are no longer mirrors. And they we can see what's really in their eyes.

[The Trad]

I love how this reads. Without any effort, it glides, as if on heels of oiled glass. And anyone who writes knows that shit ain't easy to do.

[HR]

Kristen - I can't believe you didn't buy the lily dress. That's a post in and of itself. And so interesting that you noticed the extra chin (hard to believe it really exists, because you are so thin!) when you were the resident famous person. I had a meeting the other day and ten minutes into it realized the other person was acting strangely because he was nervous. I wondered how it was that I could make someone in my own field nervous, when clearly, I'm just so...well, you know.

TinTin - thank you.

[HR]

AND, I meant to say, Kristen, that I've only shared this blog with a small handful, and most were (on the old blog) always lurkers, anyway. After five years, I just about had my sister trained to say, "Huh." on posts - just to say *someething*.

[Kristen]

I went back to try it on some three times. When I'd finally resolved to spend the money, it was gone, and I've never seen anything like it since. One of the most prosaic of my regrets.