And now about clothes again...

Or not. Somehow this gorgeous piece from Pina Bausch's Nelken (Carnations) makes me think about my desires, dreams, hopes, regrets...and dresses. Maybe it will have the same effect on you. (Or not.)



I find it fascinating how simple changes in context--from the studio to the stage, from casual wear to the suit, from the intimacy of the first clip to the unexpected intrusion of the audience's laughter in the second--affect our perception of the performance. I can't say that I prefer one over the other. All I know is that the marriage of visuals (the movements, gestures, body) and audio (the music, lyrics, and mouthed words) is beautiful. It makes me want to put on a dress and--no, not dance on stage--just be.

Loves Past

On this Valentine's Day, I'd like to pay tribute to all those girls from my past who made a deep and lasting impression on me, but who exited my life before I was able to know it or acknowledge it.

To Edna, for her pink velcro sneakers and sharing cookies in our hiding spot

To Han-Lin, for her braided pigtails and yellow jumpers

To Rachel, Molly, and Jen--true outcasts who accepted me as one before I lost my way

To Lauren, most of all for her laugh, but also for her grandmother's wooden sculptures and the serene beaches of Big Sur

To Michele, Mich, Michelle, ma belle, for defining my teenage years (and all the Manic Panic)

To the girl in my summer photography class, for her sad but brilliant eyes and her striking resemblance to my mom

To the girl in denim who took my photo the following summer

To Marie, for lending me her copy of Rilke (which has traveled with me to many strange places and still sits on my bookshelf like a stolen treasure)

To the girl in comp lit with the stunning hair and boots, who flew back to Korea, I think

To Rose, for her antics during choreography class, her red leotards, and her effusive love of Titanic

To my study abroad roommate from Japan and her mother, who sent me a scarf

To Adrienne, for her musicality and for giving me a chance

To Cynthia, who will always be as cool and as beautiful as she is elusive, for her unwavering sense of style and self

All of you together are a patchwork of innocence, awkwardness, confidence, confusion, intensity, vulnerability, vulgarity, joy, restlessness, calm, immense beauty, and fierce intelligence.

I wonder where your life has brought you, and if who you were then is still a part of who you are today. I hope so.

Thank you for entering my life, and thank you for leaving a mark.

Nautical

Let's just get it out there. I have a thing for:
1. stripes
2. dark dark navy blue
3. buttons, preferably gold (those that serve no function get extra bonus points)

So I was practically walking on air (water?) when I went thrifting yesterday and found four wonderful, nautical-themed items within half an hour. It's not that I go searching for them, they just have a way of calling out to me, like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, pulling me in and not letting go until I'm won over...or something like that.



I even found a rubber-slicker yellow, faux-snakeskin bracelet-watch for a whopping $5.99 (with working battery) to perfectly accessorize my 80s-yachting outfits. Interestingly, my husband is a sailor. Even more interesting, I probably would be quite happy--if not downright gleeful--were I to never step foot on another boat. Ah...the mysterious and inexplicable push and pull of attraction.



Truthfully, while my husband's style of Nautica and West Marine may be more authentic, I happily embrace my Coco Chanel- and Kurt Cobain-inspired stripes and will continue to wear my nautical threads with deck shoes firmly planted on city pavement.



p.s. I've recently fallen in love with these sailors' knot bracelets* that you, too, can learn how to make, thanks to Etsy!

(*photo: groundsel for etsy.com)

Year of the Velveteen Rabbit

Ever since I saw ODC's magical performance of The Velveteen Rabbit over the holidays, I have been obsessed with the character of the Skin Horse. First of all, the costume for the dancer was amazing. Secondly, I am already partial to horses. I remember Margery William's tale from my childhood, but what struck me then was not the Skin Horse and his wisdom, but the Velveteen Rabbit and his vulnerability. (That and the terrifying Fire.) Like the captive audience of mostly second graders, I was mesmerized when I heard this passage from the book narrated verbatim at the performance:

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.

Now imagine dancers in costume performing to these words. KT Nelson is my hero.

The line "once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand" seems as appropriate for tots as it is for teenagers. How many times have I dressed in my thrift store finds and thought something along these lines as I braved the halls of my high school? And even I will walk into a consignment store and be drawn immediately to a few select items while the rest just seem to hang around limply, pitifully, stained and unwanted...and I wonder, "who could have once loved you?"

Likewise, many of us have a beloved stuffed animal from our childhood that, were it to find its way into a thrift shop, may very well sit around gathering dust until it is eventually discarded. Perhaps no love can compare to that of a child's toward his snuggly sidekick, cuddly confidante, and furry friend, but would it be blasphemous to think of a beloved old sweater in the same way?



In a material world where clothes are as cheap as they are shoddily made, where one season's trend is next season's embarrassment, and where we continue to support a disposable culture in a time of economic recession, it's the Velveteen Rabbits in my closet that stand out: my holey orange Courreges sweater (by now a skin horse) that an ancient Upper West Side shopkeeper discounted for me because, in her words, "it should be worn by someone young"; my tattered navy blue blouse with the fireworks motif (a true skin horse--ugly only to others) that somehow, in my eyes, grows in beauty for the worse wear and tear; and my gorgeous Avion dress (a young velveteen rabbit...on the long, windy road to becoming Real) that my dear friend Kathy gifted to me one Christmas after ten years of irreplaceable friendship (during which time we shared meals, a tiny closet of a bedroom, heartbreaks and dreams and growing pains).

I am the sixth daughter in a family with six girls. I was destined to embrace or rebel against all the hand-me-downs. Yes, there's affordability, practicality, and nostalgia to consider...but I believe that some things were meant to be worn and reworn, tattered and torn. In a world where meaningless objects proliferate and once-coveted items fade away and are forgotten, I believe in holding onto the stories of those things that have become, or are on the road to becoming, Real.

It's the lunar new year, a time for donning new clothes to symbolize letting go of past quarrels and getting a fresh start. My sister just gave me two adorable vintage dresses. I think I'll wear one with a new pair of shoes.

(photo credit: Steve DiBartolomeo for ODC)

In the bag

I have been fascinated by Anthropologie's catalogue featuring purses and their spilled contents. Purses make a great canvas for inspiration boards, their contents giving a quick but intimate portrait of a person, place, time, and mood. They can reveal so much about the past, about who we are, and about who we desire to be.

This vintage purse was acquired ages ago. I included a few beloved objects from my past as well as stuff that came directly from my purse today. There were a lot more jelly beans (beloved objects from my present), but the kids kept stealing them as I was putting together my "purse collage." Suspiciously omitted are the diapers and wipes and the wads of tissue paper...ah, the beauty of storytelling!



As far as what's actually in my purse, my god--that's not a pretty picture. But I think even the receipts, gum wrappers, cookie crumbs, and, yes, diapers and wipes are worthy of reflection. I'm just not a good enough photographer to make them look interesting rather than disgusting.

Sometimes I think about the contents of my purse as evidence, each item like the undigested fig in Dora's stomach in The Fig Eater (minus the morbid murder mystery, I hope). What we choose to carry and what we deem essential says so much about us: our current obligations, headaches, habits, comforts, and guilty pleasures, who we love and who once loved us. Perhaps most revealing is the tension between what was, what is, what could have been, and what still can be.

**Addendum**

My friend Abi kindly noted that the inspiration for Anthro's catalogue cover was Irving Penn's Theatre Accident, 1947. Now this photo has a story to tell.

Bonfire of the Vanities

Twenty years ago today my mother celebrated her last birthday. She was 43 and I was twelve. We were both so young.

My mother. Where do I even begin? There are a zillion adjectives that I can use to describe her--mostly all synonyms of loving, warm, beautiful, and generous--but I will tell you about her clothes, or, more accurately, my memory of her clothes.







In her small walk-in closet she had what seemed to me a million pairs of shoes--all heels, sandals, boots, and slip ons--lined up and stacked on the floor and stuffed in a rack behind the door. Hanging in a corner were a few very luxurious, very seductive, and very off-limits fur coats. Belts and scarves hung on a rod near my dad's suits, slacks, and dress shirts. Up above were soft winter blankets from Hong Kong, stored neatly in their original plastic packaging and emanating the stuffy scents of a faraway place.







And then there were the rows of dresses. Oh, the dresses! There were dresses from the days she dated my dad. Form-fitting, tiny-waisted, short dresses with long slits, mandarin collars, and cap sleeves. There were the mod, mid-length knit dresses and two pieces that were her mainstay after moving to the States; the ones with decorative details in the buttons, pockets, and matching fabric belts. There were the empire waist polyester/cotton-blend dresses in all different colors and patterns that would become for me the signature of motherhood at ease. And then there were the animal prints, pencil skirts, silk tanks, pleated trousers, rayon blouses, shoulder pads, and bolero blazers--these from her days as a working mother of seven still in her thirties.







The combination of scents in that closet--a tad of my dad, perfume, fabric and fur, the past and present--was distinctively grown-up, alluring, and comforting. That is, it was Mom. I have the usual childhood memories of sneaking into her closet, trying on her clothes, and fantasizing about transforming into a woman. And the delicious memory of my sister and brother and me sneaking candy in that refuge, huddled together surrounded by my mom's presence but in defiance of her, rushed and frantic and thrilled by our shared secret and loot.







Shortly after my mother's death (it could have been two months or two years--time had a way of shifting gears unexpectedly, one day passing by excruciatingly slow, the next day racing on unforgivably fast) my father shocked us all when he announced that he had donated all of her clothes. The closet was wiped out. Every last remnant of her gone.

I have come to accept that it wasn't an intentional act of malice on his part. He was just being the practical, unsentimental father figure that he was, or that he thought he should be. But the reason for his actions doesn't matter. What matters is that she was gone.



When I walk into that closet now, I still think that I can faintly make out the familiar, mysterious scents. Part of me hopes that her clothes have found their way into the closets of women who share her same sense of passion, beauty, love, and generosity. Perhaps in my scouring of racks, I am hoping to discover some of what was taken away so abruptly.



All I know for sure is that the clothes themselves are immaterial to me now. It's the searching and remembering that remains.

Homage

I'd like to pay homage to the original Resurrection. No, not that original resurrection--I mean Resurrection Vintage on Mott Street. This is where I learned how to pronounce Azzedine Alaia and the value of a YSL dress in mint condition from the 70s. I worked there for a brief stint post college, and it was simultaneously wonderful and painful. Imagine working at a chocolate shop, salivating all day, and not getting a bite of the sweets. But despite the fact that even with my employee discount I couldn't afford one of their vintage belts (let alone a gown), it was a thrilling experience. My coworkers were somehow both severely cool and surprisingly kind and patient with me. (I was still naive enough to be brushing away visions of a tiny pink dog any time someone mentioned "Pucci.") Mostly my supervisor allowed me to perfect my vacuum-cleaning and garment-steaming skills while she gathered clothes for film shoots, but at the time it felt like a little slice of heaven to be surrounded by such stunning clothes.




On the one hand, the cost of vintage designer clothes can be so intimidating for someone like me, whose experience shopping vintage/thrift prior to Resurrection was at Salvation Army and Shark's, Wasteland and Goodwill. But on the other hand, there is no mistaking the craftsmanship and artistry in the pieces. I don't think it's too much of an overstatement to say that some of the garments are truly life-affirming objets d'art.




Though I couldn't imagine myself wearing an Alaia dress then--they really demand an hourglass figure and mine is more akin to an ironing board--the older I get (surprisingly) the more I appreciate the bold celebration of the body. That is exactly what these clothes do. They flatter and accentuate the body, and they boldly assert one's presence. Some of us may never have an hourglass figure (*sigh) but life is fleeting, our bodies temporal...why not fully accept, embrace, and celebrate what we have at the moment? From the girl just out of college that I was to the mother of two that I am today, there have been so many changes in my world and to my body. Every bit of those changes make me who I am today, and I am coming to understand that clothes are not to hide behind or make a statement with, but can be an unabashed celebration of who we are.