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d_aulnoy... but, frankly, why waste my youth wearing black alone?*
I'm a New Yorker. It's my primary affiliation. It tends to come before nation, and go hand in hand with gender, ethnicity, orientation, career and religion. And, naturally, for years, I've dressed to honor that association in wonderfully adaptable all-black.
Black is great. It's slimming, for those who care about it (sometimes me) and doesn't show stains (always me) and tends to match everything (me, and everyone around me, as there's nothing worse than, a) showing up in the same top as every other person in the department, which occurred during last weeks Town Hall meeting, when every woman there showed up in green, making me think of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, or b) showing up in a lovely watermelon top only to find your best friend wearing tomato red). It's the color of camouflage in an urban environment, and having more than my fair share of defensiveness, I like that. I like blending in.
But, for some reason, it appears that some color-starved portion of my persona has decided to emerge, with potentially mixed results. I really don't know why this is happening now: maybe I've grown less self-conscious, slowly and insinuatingly, until I no longer care about fashionistas scoffing at my antiquated and unstylish choices, at my disregard for the fact that black is the new black. Maybe I'm less scared of attracting negative attention, or better able to deal with it: for a fact, I get fewer catcalls now then I did when I was fourteen, and that's both comforting for me personally, and terrifying for my perceptions of society, as a vulnerable barely-adolescent should not attract more attention skulking down a street then a grown woman striding down it confidently. Maybe I just care a lot less about looking silly now, when I balance it against the tangible pleasure of color-saturation and silky, satiny textures. Maybe it's all of the above, but suddenly, like some modern Dorothy, I'm all in color.
I think that I had an inkling of the changes in the wind sometime around this time last fall: a fellow grad. student who'd been away for a year wandered across a bunch of us smoking on the steps of Philosophy Hall and started noting random changes, and handing out random compliments.
"Oh, you've lost so much weight!"
"Wow, the new haircut looks awesome!"
"Hey, are those new glasses?!?"
And then she got to me, and said: "And, wow, Helen, even you're looking less ... monochromatic!"
It was true. I was wearing a black skirt, but I had paired it with a green top. I comforted myself by calling this an aberration, but I saw further symptoms of it when I went out shopping with a friend and the saleswoman who'd kept our extraneous items divided us by asking who had the red and who had the black, and I found myself in the former category, but I comforted myself with the idea that, when mixed with my existing wardrobe, I'd just be dressing like something out of Stendhal rather than like a bruise.
But then, it grew. A vivid pink velvet frock coat snuck into my closet when I wasn't looking, the sneaky bugger. It called out for a friend, and it got that friend and also its annoyingly tarty SO in the forms of a red chinese brocade jacket with gold embroidery, and a gold brocade corset with red highlights. Then they invited their matriarch, The Enormous Golden Cardigan of Doom, to come and sit for a spell.
It invaded my lingerie drawer with pretty frilly nightgowns in dusky rose and midnight blue that I, preferring to sleep in oversized button-downs, almost never wear and must needs reserve for visiting friends. It attacked my shoe-trees, leaving me with primary-colored footwear of all shapes and sizes. But, it all seemed to go moderately well together, so I let the movement be.
Today? I crossed a line.
Tie-dyed velvet.
Oh, yeah, baby.
It's all variegated green and gold and orange and it has purple flowers around the neckline. It's outrageously hideous, and I'm looking forward to wearing continuously it to celebrate the fall, should it ever descend (blessedly!) upon the poor martyred citizens of a city suffering from indian summer.
It's not a matchy piece of clothing. It's not sexy, not in the slightest. It say nothing about professionalism or maturity: in fact, it may well say, in a self-congratulatory manner, Color-blind and proud of it! But it still makes me quite happy, in and of itself, and for this I do not apologize.
Just be happy that I haven't gotten to the red hat.
Yet.
* I like to think that this fulfills my part in the poetry meme.
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brandy & summer gloves
Date: 2005-09-21 04:51 am (UTC)Re: brandy & summer gloves
Date: 2005-09-21 02:29 pm (UTC)Re: brandy & summer gloves
Date: 2005-09-21 11:20 pm (UTC)I expect to even be around once in a while, starting some time in the winter, and I'll buy a red hat for this.
Re: brandy & summer gloves
Date: 2005-09-22 01:32 am (UTC)Re: brandy & summer gloves
Date: 2005-09-22 04:06 am (UTC)Well, you surely don't think I can turn the girlfriends loose in the city without ongoing basic organizational support? And there's a lot I can keep up from here, but not nearly everything. So I'm just gonna hafta go down there a few days every month. Awful, innit?
Oh, frabjous day! I can't wait ...
You're too kind, m'dear. I'm looking forward to it!
Plotting and conspiracies in future installments...