As I reinvent myself yet again, this essay I wrote a year and a half ago feels especially relevant: 35 Years in Fashion Labels. I just turned 35. Amidst the crisis of getting older, the last twenty years run through my head like a makeover montage from a late night TV movie. Sometimes it is a blur just trying to remember all the people I have been. Who was that person in junior high with the bright orange leggings? Who was that sullen girl with black lipstick and combat boots? And the biggest question of them all -- who am I now? Junior high was personified with a longing for the clothes other girls were wearing. Labels, more than garments themselves, determined social status. So I coveted that first Swatch watch. I insisted upon that first Benetton top. Because they were the membership cards necessary to living how, and being next to whom, I wanted. I still remember the first Benetton shirt I ever bought, and how I felt like I was finally part of the club. I may not have been able to sit at the same lunch table as the cool kids, but at least we were wearing the same brand. Sophomore year brought a new set of labels -- and a different set of cool kids. My new labels were Bauhaus, Siouxsie, and the Cure. I stopped trying to fit in with the girls around me and started accepting that I was the odd one out. My membership card shifted from the front of my shirt to the plastic sleeves around my steadily growing record collection. I attached myself to a different sort of club. It was called the Roxy and Wednesday night was Goth night. I started shopping at thrift stores and army surplus stores. My only shoes were a pair of well-worn combat boots. I wore black. And black. And grey. I wore black velvet jackets and black velvet skirts and lots of concert t-shirts. My favorite bands were on my chest. (My mother bought me a pale yellow sweater at some point during high school, in what may have been a noble effort to push her daughter towards more cheerful fashion choices. It didn’t work. I dyed it grey and forged ahead, to more Joy Division and KMFDM.) Sophomore year of college could best be summarized by a shaved head, which later became bright pink as the hair grew in, baggy army cargo shorts taken from a boyfriend on indefinite loan, a white tank top, and those same combat boots. The labels now were Fugazi, Riot Grrl, Bikini Kill, Team Dresch. I preferred The Warsaw version of Joy Division. Occasionally, I wore a dog collar. Sometimes two. I felt the appropriate rage and attitude. I perfected being sullen. I started bleaching my hair. The later college years were a mélange of the above. My hair changed every month, documented painstakingly in a range of Polaroids. My identity was my art project. I became someone else with a new collection of accessories or a different fashion label, and I loved it. Labels did not define me, but I enjoyed trying them on for size. Eventually, I thought I would figure it out. By junior year of college, there was no coherence or consistency. Sometimes I wore thigh highs and dog collars, sometimes I wore cargo shorts and went dyke. Other times, I cleaned up and went preppy. Nothing felt fake; it all felt real. It felt like me, and yet nothing like me at the same time. At least, I was not trying to keep up with anyone else anymore. Even if I did not know who I was. When I left college and moved to New York City, the disparity did not dissipate. I worked my corporate day job in corporate attire. I bought suits at Filene’s Basement and went to sample sales. But it was what I wore outside of work that made me feel alive. With my punk band, I reveled in my goth and punk roots. I played with S&M apparel. I brought out the chains and dog collars, the knee high boots and thigh highs. I went avant garde. It was the goth me of high school, mixed with the punk me of college, with a splash of the sophisticated me of New York. I searched for resolution. Sometimes I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. When I moved to Berlin in my mid-twenties, the avant garde and S&M took center stage. I was trying to be someone new, so I had to wear something new. I had to up my game. It was Berlin, so I maximized impact. I went electro-cabaret with wigs and colored lights and spray painted my clothes. I went for as much memorable drama as I could muster, even if it was all a performance. After so many years of spectacle and extremes, it feels a little strange to me now, at 35, that I have become someone who wears yoga pants and (sometimes) Ralph Lauren. That I love Zara and Eddie Bauer and Mark Jacobs (even if I buy it secondhand). I’ve gone lazy and preppy at the same time. I wear pearl earrings, Levis, and all organic cotton tops. I rarely wear heels. I have a closet full of blazers. “Who is this person?” I ask myself. Who am I growing up to be? Will I drive a Minivan? Turning 35 is weird. Getting older is strange. But figuring out who you are is the hardest question of them all. We spend more time with ourselves than anyone else, so you would think that we would have all the answers by now. At least by 35. But I do not. I still look at my clothes and wonder who I am going to be today. When I put on the dark electro music and turn off the lights, I pretend that I am still that person again, that early twenties firecracker, and I consider going out to lose myself on the dance floor. And then I look at the time, and remember that, these days, 10pm is bedtime. Tomorrow I will probably wear corduroys. But I will never drive a Minivan.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 01:24:09 +0000
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