Summering

As July approaches, the New England weather continues to play its schizophrenic games. All thoughts of shorts and sundresses are hidden away temporarily as I dig through my closet for the tights I thought I would no longer need. Though I could easily use the rain as an excuse to be anti-social and stay inside performing a much needed closet cull and watching old Cary Grant films, I've decided that I should try to be social. Charming. Or at least give myself some practice at taming the sometimes poisonous barbs that escape my lips. All of this means interacting with others. And wearing a dress even when it's rainy and gross and I'd like to show up to the party I'm supposed to attend in my new skinny leg sweatpants, a belted men's gingham shirt and slip-on canvas sneakers.

Since the first taste of summer heat settled over the region a couple of weeks ago, I've been spending my days off in nothing but shorts and lightweight sweaters and various dresses while carrying around the striped canvas tote my best friend gave me for my birthday and wondering whether my gingham pants should be reserved for G&T/martini drinking. For the first time ever, summer dressing has been easy for me. Fall had always been simple, but summer often left me feeling a bit agitated. My journey to outfits was often riddled with thorns. Dressing and undressing and dressing again before telling myself that I was being silly and should leave the house and stop acting like a stereotype wrapped in a cliché. Fidgeting and readjusting and emanating discomfort. Cursing the fact that everything on offer in stores seemed to be floral or bright or white or flowy or some unholy mix of all of those categories at the same time.

But this year something clicked or coalesced or some other word that people use when things fall into place all at once, and I've been hungrily awaiting the heat that I've so often dreaded. When I see summer clothes, possible combinations spring to mind immediately. I dream of jersey and silk and paper-thin cotton. I craft various scenarios where I could wear this.

Or this.

And I look at my tights with disgust.


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Shorts Story

As the clouds rolled in and I bundled up at an outdoor brunch in April, I stated rather plainly that the time of year where I stop wearing pants was approaching. My go-to for most of that month had been any one of the numerous pairs of jeans that I own. Pegged when the temperature rose. Worn full length when there was a chill in the air. But now that May is coming to a close, my reliance on denim will begin to wane in favor of skirts and sundresses. And perhaps one more item.

Getting over my various clothing neuroses has been a long, tortuous process. The breasts. The legs. The colorful. The adult. Dealing with all of those leftover middle and high school insecurities that caused me to spend most of college either using my clothes to hide from the world and myself or to show how well I could fit in. Most of those impulses have faded away at this point. Yet for all of my steps in the right direction, all of the shaking off of the dowdy, insecure girl I once was, there are still remnants of her that appear occasionally.

In the past five years, I’ve bought exactly three pairs of shorts. A pair of denim walking shorts that fall just above the knee in the summer of 2006, a navy chino pair in a similar length in the summer of 2009, and a shorter chambray pair in early 2010. The denim pair has been worn on and off but without any real frequency since I purchased them. I spent most of the summer and early fall of 2009 in the navy pair. The chambray pair made brief appearances during the summer of 2010 and, like the navy pair before them, lived on into the fall complemented by black or gray tights. (My mother bought me a seersucker pair with sailor buttons last summer that has never been worn due to the fact that I have limits on the amount of preppiness that I allow myself to emit at one time.)

Shorts are one of the last items that I approach gingerly in stores. That I’m not compelled to bring into the fitting room with me. And I try on everything. Because I want them but can’t afford to buy them. Because they make for fun “twirling in front of the mirror" material. Because I’m simply curious.  But with my adolescent insecurities roaring through my head and colliding with my latent good girl tendencies, shorts never make it into the room.

I've decided that I should take a second look. That purchasing only three pairs of a summer staple over the past five years was a bit ridiculous considering my shopping habits. That maybe I should have more shorts in my closet than lip products in my purse. (There are six currently hiding in various pockets.) 

So there is the casual, linen pair in a sunfaded yellow from Level 99

That can be paired with a simple tank from Old Navy

A navy and white striped, lightweight cardigan by Rag & Bone

And cross-strap flats in camel from Marais USA

Then there is the more formal pair by Alice & Olivia

That can be topped off with a shimmering tank from 3.1 Phillip Lim

And finished with equally shimmery red flats by Repetto.

Or the denim pair from Joe's Jeans

That can be complimented by a Rag & Bone cable knit sweater with a bit of swing

And colorful sneakers from Urban Outfitters

The plans have been made. Now to actually go through with them.



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The Trench

I write a lot about favorite things. Those that spend little time in my closet. Those lost to the vagaries of overuse. But there are far too many pieces that I overlook every day.

Trenches are iconic. Everyone should have one. Or so I’ve learned from piles of fashion magazines and a number of pop culture icons ranging from Carmen Sandiego in her red, double-breasted version.

To Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly in her more classic take.

My trench has been sitting idly in my closet for…well I actually don’t remember when I got it. Four or six or five years ago. It spent my time in Brooklyn living in a little nook of my apartment with all of my other coats. Yet when it rained, I never reached for it.

The Trench, like almost every coat I’ve acquired since the end of college, is single breasted. Lightweight and of a more classic shade, it came with a blue and yellow striped belt that lives on a separate hanger in my closet. The belt was a bit preppy for my taste. Or, if I’m honest, more preppy than I was willing to admit that I was at the time of The Trench’s entrance into my life.

But on Sunday as I prepared to work an overnight shift, my mother suggested that I throw it on. It was warm yet misty. Perfect weather for The Trench to make its first appearance in who knows how long. I was wearing a skinny pair of olive sweatpants and a lightweight navy hoodie over a black tank. But finished with The Trench, a high ponytail and two-tone ballet flats, the outfit made it seem that I was headed off to do anything but work for the next nine hours. I walked down the street twirling my floral-printed umbrella. A tall, cute boy carrying a pizza smiled at me. I smiled back.

So often I don’t feel like the adult that I’m supposed to be. Any signs of stability or success are fleeting. But like the sparkles and shots of color that I put on to mask the feelings of restlessness and disappointment that sometimes overwhelm me when I think about all of those things happening and not happening in my life, wrapping myself in that coat gave me a momentarily lift.

If May continues on as it has, I think I’ll be wearing it more often.


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The Leftovers: Paris Fashion Week FW11

As I made my way through the photos from Paris that I bookmarked over a month ago, I realized two things. Firstly, my limited number of favorites had more to do with general fatigue at the end of fashion month than it had to do with the clothes on offer. Secondly, the threads that so closely held together the narratives of the other cities disintegrated in Paris.

There were still echoes of the trends that had been prevalent in New York, London and Milan.

The 1970s

At Vivienne Westwood

At Balmain

At Martin Grant

At Yves Saint Laurent

At Chanel

At Valentino

Color Blocking

At Gareth Pugh

At Balenciaga

At Pedro Lourenço

At Martin Grant

Red

At Rue du Mail

At Yohji Yamamoto

At Akris

At Jean-Charles de Castelbajac

But the subtle falling apart of The Story was the real narrative of Paris. Designer inspirations were scattered, and the lack of centrality produced several levels of creativity. On display was the influence of multiple decades. Of many aesthetic ideas. Of a newness that couldn’t be put into any particular category. Here, in no particular order, are those designers and designs that most piqued my interest. That left me examining everything more closely. That simply took my breath away.

At Haider Ackermann

At Carven

At Dries Van Noten

At Gareth Pugh

At A.F. Vandevorst

At Manish Arora

At Nina Ricci

At Rick Owens

At Lanvin

At Maison Martin Margiela

At Giambattista Valli

At Stella McCartney

At Chanel

At Moncler Gamme Rouge

At Miu Miu

At Louis Vuitton

It's a cliché but one that occasionally has its foundation in truth.


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