Maybe it’s lockdown, maybe it’s middle age. Maybe it’s just the same conversation I’ve been having with myself since the slow slide to dishevelment began, back when the kids were little. I desperately need new clothes. I want a little style.
What is my style?
I hate shopping. Nothing ever fits and the best things are too expensive. It’s exhausting, the lighting is bad, and I always feel like a rat in a capitalist maze. Online shopping is better, but for me the success rate remains low. The only fun I ever had shopping was in college, rummaging through giant boxes of vintage at Classic Clothing, a featureless warehouse in 1980s Washington D.C. I bought some stellar pieces for pennies in those days, but almost none of it fits anymore. And where does one wear a 1940s black crewel fitted dress with velvet piping, anyway? It’s not like I go anywhere anymore.
I’ve been living in thrift clothes and bargain threads for years and it’s been fine. My mother, an inveterate thrifter, brings me bags of second-hand finds (or used to, before the plague). I rejected much of it, but kept things that are close enough. Not quite me, but in the neighborhood. Someone else’s style. Throw in some seven dollar pants and cast-offs found at Naked Lady parties, and you have what has become “my style.” Whatever is at hand and comfortable, if somewhat hideous.
Pre-kid, mine was a sort of anti-style. I went for artsy, unstudied, casual mess, which of course was a study in itself and required hours in a vintage warehouse and enough mirror time to comfirm that I looked unstudied. Anti-style is, of course, a style. No makeup, artfully holed jeans, and that amazing military jacket with the gold buttons from the bottom of a Classic Clothing box was its own uniform. Smash the patriarchy, but look accidentally hot while doing it.
Right now, I’m wearing a large, soft, orange cable sweater that I found in my nonagenarian mother-in-law’s closet. In a store, I would never select orange or cable. In a mirrorless closet, however, when I pull it over my head and realize it’s the most comfortable sweater I’ve ever worn, a soft loose embrace, it’s my new fave. There are, however, mirrors in my house and I pass them many times on my endless lockdown circle route, the Great Pumpkin wafting by. It’s fine, I tell myself, because it’s so comfortable, and it is. Fine. Until it sort of isn’t. Until I start having that conversation with myself, more frequent in these middle years, about how I’m going to die and this is my one and only shot and maybe I don’t want to be remembered in orange. Intellectually, it doesn’t matter and I will fight this point all night. But something other than the intellect is sick of these clothes.
I finally decided to seek help with an online personal styling service. Given that this is the sort of thing that I’ve made grand fun of, it should be interesting.
The service I’ve chosen is the cheapest, of course, because I’m cheap. For twenty dollars, I get a stylist to help me and, if I buy the clothes, the money will go towards the cost. What’s to lose? Only twenty dollars and any hope that I will ever be stylish.
The first step is a quiz. It feels like a comic insult, answering questions about my style while wearing my uniform of torn separates. I don’t like any of the outfits in the quiz. I don’t know how to answer some of the questions (are my arms long? average?). I reject every category except casual (date night? evening event? what?). I have no idea what my bra size is and never want another bra. I pick the cheapest tier and have no interest in bags and accessories. I begin to worry that this is all a mistake, but then they ask me to write a profile. It’s my time to shine. I can tell them everything. I push the limits of the character count. I write, and re-write, and read it aloud repeatedly. Body shape, size, style taste and budget. Then, I am given the option to share a Pinterest style board and Pandora’s box is opened.
Oh unsuspecting twenty dollar stylist, you sweet summer child.
I am delighted to share my Pinterest style board, a collection of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Brooklyn Museum clothes, Kate Hepburn playing tennis, Isabella Rossellini on the farm, Sophia Loren in the kitchen. Linens and silks, wools and tweeds, unstudied vintage glamour. Of course, they are wearing O’Keefe, Hepburn, Rossellini, and Loren, none of which the stylist will ever find for me. It’s like the time I took a picture of Rossellini to a hairdresser and said, “I want this.” She looked at me unblinking for a minute and said, “but your face is a different shape?” Make me her never works.
I want ageless, timeless, classic and elegant. Make it cheap, comfortable, only natural fabrics please. Slouchy but chic, serious yet charming. Earth tones, but sometimes color - never orange, probably not white. I like the fitted look, but don’t want anything touching my body. I like it loose, but not like a tent. I want to look fashionable but I don’t want it to be fashion. Style is a mood, a way of life, and I want one.
Good luck!
I believe that my stylist, Kristen, is earnestly trying to help me and I love her. She uses lots of exclamation points and talks about making me feel great about myself! She sent me a preview of suggestions after looking at my quiz and my Pinterest, and I responded with detailed feedback. Emphasis on detailed.
Thank you so much for your help, Kristin - this is fun!
Is it, though? Is it fun? I haven’t heard from her in days. At 3 a.m., I think maybe she hates me. Maybe this underpaid worker, with the job of dressing a lockdown maniac who wants throwback glamour for a dime and no work, hates me. Of course she does. My problem, which is now her problem, may be that I want the impossible. Comfortable, cheap, signature, classic, and unstudied. Study it and find it for me.
My husband thinks Kristen is an algorithm, but I think she could be my friend. My first box of clothes will arrive soon and, while I’m expecting the worst, I’m allowing for a little hope. I may send it all back and trudge on in my bad colors and torn pants, twenty dollars lighter. Or maybe there will be one thing - just one thing, please fashion goddesses - that feels like this orange sweater, but looks like mature, confident beauty. I don’t really care. But, also, I kind of do.
Things to share:
It might be time for a caftan. Rachel Syme’s fab essay in the long lost Awl (RIP) is inspiration. I found the perfect one on Etsy a few years ago, when caftans were in, and now it’s sold out. I will find one, though. It’s my mission.
I just read Camille Guthrie’s poetry collection, Diamonds, a “glorious feminist midlife scream …” (in the words of Cathy Park Hong). “The Ideal Form” echoes my frustrating search for the right outfit/armor (and elevates it by leaps).
A little obsessed with Isabella, who has added farmer to her impressive resumé. “With her demand as a performer increasing once again, she has less time for academia.” And she’s a farmer. I mean, come on.
Cheers!
Lisa