Week Five: I Have So Many Clothes Because So Many Occasions Are Special… And So Many Women
Petticoats in Paris
Like the gorgeous, silk, cherry skirt I wore in the first week of my Why So Many Clothes experiment, ZH convinced me to buy the red, patchy, floral dress nearly ten years ago. This time, it was for a specific reason, rather than her brilliant ability to make me think of a piece of beautiful silk as a practical investment (she was right there, mind!): to wear on a trip to Paris for an old boyfriend’s birthday. Twenty-one year old me sauntered round with nowt but a matching bra. My sense of how much skin to show changed considerably when I worked in Lebanon, some years ago, and so, although I don’t cover up in the way I would have done in Lebanon, now I find I often can’t quite shake the feeling I need a bit of modesty. Sometimes this is reflective of a way I learned to express and value myself – but sometimes I worry whether I’m expressing my past experiences with clothes, and what they show about how I value myself, or whether I feel dutiful, but not genuinely expressive. It’s a question that might need asking.
The sheer top, like the dress, I bought new in the sales; the dress from House of Fraser, the top from Monsoon. I haven’t worn the dress for a couple of years, and don’t feel as fab in it as I was expecting to when I pulled it off the hanger. I’m not sure it sits quite right, although the concept of the different layers is appealing. An older, Irish woman of about ninety approaches me, in Camden later today, with a horrified expression: she tells me my petticoat is hanging down. She finds it hilarious when I explain it’s the design of the dress. While the dress is a valued artefact of that Paris holiday, I have other, better, souvenirs – a pretty ring, metro billets, a concert ticket. This dress, though pretty, doesn’t feel quite me anymore… Not Keep.
So Many Women to Celebrate With Clothes
The asymmetric Lipsy skirt has only been worn twice in over ten years, because I get antsy about the hemline showing sudden flashes of upper thigh. Both times I wore it, I wanted to nod to Marilyn Monroe: firstly with a cream, feather-collared cardigan, then peeking out from under an off-the-shoulder jumper dress. This Tuesday, I’m wearing it with leggings and layers to channel the hotties in the British Library: women of all ages, working with rare books, wearing themselves inside out in thoughful, unpredictable and beautiful outfits. I’ll keep the Lipsy skirt, tricky though it is, because it allows me to dress up as female icons. The mask was made by my very talented friend MG, an inspiring woman who finds ideas everywhere.
Modesty comes into play genuinely on Wednesday. The pinky orange silk skirt is a classic ‘Clothes Make Me Happier’ specimen. The grey jumper is, I have to admit, exhausted. It has an unshiftable coffee stain and the fabric is worn to bobbled thinness. It was about £6 in H&M seven years ago. The skirt is made to last, but blows up, however, and so the leggings to match the jumper help a lot with travelling on the tube, those pesky, blowy escalators. I love the silver glads, not sure how long they’ll last but then again, I do still have a lot of shoes to wear…
Reading, Wedding and Reading (redding)
Thursday’s satiny frock went from the office to the launch of South Bank Poetry 10, the poetry magazine I assistant edit. As the tenth issue, it was a real celebration, and I wanted to pay tribute to the excellent poets and poems with my garb as well as my gab. Happy Birthday SBP! As for the frock, I’ll keep it. When my mum gave it to me a few years ago, it fell off immediately as there was nothing anywhere to hold it up. I can’t comprehend how much smaller I must have been then. I went for supper with the very kind EH fairly recently wearing this dress (pre-blog), who kindly recommended I stay my current shape, to fit in it.
Friday was the wedding of a very beautiful wedding magazine editor and a very nice man, friends of the Wolf. I was at work in the morning, and needed clothes I could move about in and move stuff about in. I didn’t like the red tunic when I bought it, but it’s grown on me. I adore the blue dress, and the shawl. I bought them both for the wedding, from ebay, before this project started – while bed-bound after the op, which definitely influenced the time I spent looking for the right dress and accessory – and preserved them to wear today. I loved every movement made in them – a wonderful, beautiful wedding, a very happy day.
Saturday’s outfit is a travelling back from a wedding one: comfortable, easy. I did enjoy this dress in its lifespan, but it’s a bit worn out now and it’s probably time to let it go.
Sunday was a day for a catsuit. Mum and I both wore our catsuits to see Grace Jones, in Hyde Park. I say Reading because Mum helped set up the original festival, and I wanted to note her absolute grooviness. Not that I need to, given how groovy she is in her catsuit! Her floaty sleeves inspired me to put the cape with mine, which I bought in the market in Lebanon. I think perhaps my experiences are more embedded in my wardrobe, in all their complexity and twists and tensions, than I’d realised.
By Sara Nesbitt Gibbons
