They Were Audacious and Who Was I to Think I could Wear Them?

On trying to connect with something essential, something deep beneath the surface.

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A while back,

Sarah Fay

invited followers of her Substack to post a question we'd like to read about.

Cierra

asked, "I'm curious why people choose outfits, makeup, etc. to wear out?" She said, "I hear, 'it makes me feel good.' But do you know why?

I've written two pieces, here and here trying to answer her question. What follows is the third. 

I got a new pair of glasses three months ago, just before my 51st birthday. I tried on 37 pairs (this is an estimate) and narrowed it down to A) watermelon red frames or B) these big, round, black frames. To see what they looked like on me, I had to lean forward, almost touching the mirror because I wasn't wearing my contacts. So I needed help. I sat at the little counter in front of Barbie, my favorite optician's assistant, put on the bold frames and asked her, "What do you think?" She immediately smiled and said, "Yes, those are the ones." As soon as I got home though, I thought about returning, telling Barbie I made a mistake, that I just wanted new lenses in my old frames. That these were too big, too attention drawing, too much. They were audacious and who was I to think I could wear them?

Barbie called me when the glasses came in and she was excited when I tried them on for her to adjust. I was excited too. But as I walked into my house, I tucked them into their case, put my old glasses back on and hid them in my bathroom. I didn't put them on again for two weeks and when I finally showed them to my husband, I almost turned away, but then he smiled and said, "I love those! They're perfect for you!" 

I've been seeing a network chiropractor since late April. She works with my spine, and also with the subtle energies of my nervous system, unraveling the way my body has memorized trauma, so it can open itself to the world again. A few sessions ago, she said something that has informed how I think about the world and myself in it. She said, "Once we start pulling our thoughts and our energy from our future selves, our wise selves, and stop pulling our energy from the past, from our trauma, from a place of protection, we start to be free." 

I was in a dressing room at Nordstrom Rack yesterday trying on clothes, but mostly noticing how much my body isn't the body I've been looking at for the past 30 years. I slipped a thin sleeveless dress over my head, racer-backed and high-necked with loose and flowing layers. Think Mrs. Roper meets The Row. 

Nothing was pushing against my skin–this is an important detail, people–because sometimes when a woman wears a bra that's a little too tight, this lump of skin and fat will pop out just in front of her armpits. Ladies, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I looked at my reflection in the bad dressing room mirror covered with sticky fingerprints and dust, and noticed I had the little armpit poofs and thought oh, I should take off my bra. But here's the kicker. I wasn't wearing a bra. 

When did this particular puffiness appear? It's a question I've started asking ever since I turned 50, well 46 really. That's when parts started heading south. Here we are living life, minding our side of the street, doing HIIT or yoga or pilates or all three or nothing at all, and one day, our body sprouts a new bulge. 

I took off the dress, (I still liked it by the way, bulges or no) and stood in the dressing room looking at my body. It's wider than it used to be, but that's because I'm eating more now. After years of starving to be a size zero, or sometimes double zero, I've decided it's time to see what eating feels like. 

What eating looks like is another story entirely. I noticed the little bit of cellulite on my belly as I bent to adjust the hem of a pair of flowy pants, noticed the fine lines layered down my legs and the bumpy surface where the fat now shows through. I noticed that I couldn't see my ribs unless I bent over, and that there was even a little roll of fat when I twisted around to put my tank top back on. Completely gone are the jutting hip bones, the skinny thighs with a gap, the firm skin free from cellulite. 

When I do this, take stock of where my body is, I want my old body back, I want to be able to put on anything and have it look good, I do. But I am also weary from the effort. I grew up in the era of the supermodel and Kate Moss, and I've wanted her tiny boy's body since I was 19.

I went out for a friend's birthday recently. It was just four of us and I was the only one in pants. I quit drinking a few years back, so I don't go to bars (I was never big on them in the first place), but I know what one is supposed to wear to a bar. Something sexy, something pretty, something fitted, shoes that give us an extra inch or two and make our calf muscles stand out. Short skirts that reveal those calf muscles.

The women I was with were all beautiful, all in their 50s, wearing makeup and tight dresses, their long legs smooth and shining. The subject of Botox came up and I was the only one who didn't have anything to contribute except my lined forehead.

I noticed a woman in a perfectly tailored pair of white, wide-leg pants with muti-colored roses heavily embroidered at the cuffs, with a belt to match. When I asked where she got them she replied, "Oh, these? They're a Spanish designer and I got them at a sample sale." Right. Of course. 

I had on men's style wingtip shoes, baggy pants and a tuxedo jacket over a tshirt that was not made by anybody in Spain. And my glasses. I had decided to wear them out. And I felt really good. Not sexy, exactly, but kind of. Sexy in a me way, not in a male-gaze way. I felt intelligent and slightly off putting to the press of men looking at the single ladies. I'm not single but I'm also not sure that matters to all the men.

When I was in California in May, I spent three days lounging on the beach at Lake Tahoe, swimming and hiking. I'd just driven the four hours down the mountain and across the San Francisco bay, determined to put my feet in the ocean on the same day the rest of me had been swimming in Lake Tahoe. 

The mountains had been warm, in the 80s, and the drive sunny and hot. The northern coast of California in June, in the evening, is the opposite. Foggy, windy, 55 degrees. I pulled into a McDonald’s for a bathroom stop and to change from my shorts into jeans. I got my jeans on in the front seat, and as I went around to my trunk for the rest of my warmer clothes, a guy in a big truck next to me said hi. I said hi back and got out my long sleeved t-shirt, my hoodie, my summer-weight down vest and put them all on. He told me his name was Russell and asked if I'd been swimming. The bikini dangling from the passenger seat headrest must have given me away. I told him yes, in Tahoe earlier that afternoon and I was on my way to stand in the ocean on the same day. He seemed impressed and told me he'd just been up there camping, over in Bear Valley. We talked about the mountains for a minute and then he said, "Is that a wedding ring on your finger?" I smiled and replied that yes it was. 

I went inside the McDonald’s, took my contacts out and put on my big, black glasses. As I walked back to my car, Russell said, "Listen, you gotta give me your number. You are just smokin' hot." I laughed and told him I was truly, deeply, very happily married. He smiled and said, "That's really wonderful." I agreed and said that it had taken me a long time to get there. I wished him well, gave him a wave and drove off to the beach. 

As I drove, I wondered what he'd found so attractive. My hair was matted and tangled from three days of lake swimming and no shampoo, my jeans were my favorite pair with blown out knees, my shirt had dirt all over it from where I'd used it as a towel and I had my big, daring glasses on.

But I was, in that moment, fully myself. I was probably glowing. From being in love with the lake, from being with a soul-mate friend for three days, from being in the Sierras and breathing that piney, dry, sage-tinged air. I was alive. In every part of my being. My soul was deeply fed.

So I don't think Russell thought my body or my face was beautiful, though he might have, maybe he loved the glasses, who knows. I think he thought my entire being was beautiful.

And I think that is at the core of what we're trying to do when we dress. I think we are trying to connect with something essential, something deep beneath the surface. And we are looking for connection, to feel like we belong. Our clothes are a type of signaling, a calling card that tells people who we are and what we care about. I'm not sure that's fair, but I think it's true. And beyond that, I think we hope that our clothes can speak for us, can tell a story and help us be seen. 

And that is why I think so many of us have such a hard time feeling like we ever get it just right. I think it's why I shopped for so many years trying to find the dress, or the pants handmade in Spain, or the jacket with a fancy label that would finally make me feel whole. 

I think we're trying to do the impossible. To tell ourselves and others our story by a few pieces of material. Because even though I can reach out to the future self I want to be and listen when she tells me to wear a pair of glasses that make me stand out, no one can possibly know all the notes of a life by just reading the music.

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Wearing The Glasses for the first time in public. At a taco truck in Austin, of course.

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Visuals for the refences, just for fun, and one question:

Kate Moss in the Calvin Klein days, circa 1992.

Mrs. Roper from Three’s Company.

Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen wearing their exceptionally expensive line, The Row.

The Row “Tadao” Dress in Cotton $4,250.

Can someone please explain to me:

1) Who is wearing this dress IRL?

and

2) Why it’s $4,250?

See you in the comments,

xoxox

j