would you risk it all for a dior dress?
You saucy little Mrs. Harris, you. This one's about fashion, sort of.
I bought a pair of shoes a few months ago and I’m still paying for them over the course of six monthly installments. It’s a scam, probably, but it’s a scam that has paid for the cherry on the bottom of many of my outfits this spring and summer. They’re brown and leather and oddly shaped, kind of like two platypus bills, and their perimeters are lined with silver studs. They also come with thin silver ankle cuffs, oval-shaped, kind of like a pair of hoop earrings. They’re stunning. They’re divisive. They’re a dream.
They inspired a notes app entry: “What if the most interesting thing about a person is their shoes?” They’ve started conversations with strangers. They’ve won me the highest compliment — “I love your style” — from a man who works in a farm shop. I have a philosophy that all clothes are meant to be worn (and mended) and therefore am rarely precious about wearing my expensive or delicate items on normal walks around the neighborhood, where I risk aging them with sweat and friction and general use (gasp!) EXCEPT when it comes to my platypus bills. They must last. And so they’ve even become an exception to my rule.
I’ve been having a lot of conversations about money recently. I guess twenty-four is the age when some people (not me yet) start getting jobs that are a tick above entry-level, and above entry-level pay, and the age at which I’m starting to think it would be nice to own property one day. (This age changes based on one’s geographical location, naturally.) I’m also saving up for a trip in the fall and so I haven’t been shopping, as I mentioned in my last newsletter. Tiny violin time. Using my leftover income — it’s not a big number — on wearable treats that I’ve picked out months in advance, sneaking little peeks at them all grouped together on my secret Pinterest wishlist, has always been one of the sweeter aspects of my life. In many ways, I’m no different than a dog with a bone; I need a goal and a prize at the end. I think we’re all like that. But I do want my bone to be pretty.
During one of those recent conversations with friends about money — I’m really trying to figure out how I feel about the stuff — a friend was talking about spending hundreds on a concert ticket. Not for me. We found common ground in weddings. Not for us. And disagreed on shoes. “No one will look back on their life and think, ‘Man I’m really glad I got that pair of shoes,’” she said. Immediately, I pictured my leather feet bricks by Jil Sander. “Except for me,” I said.
I would never lead you astray with my movie recommendations. Remember Turning Red? I have another wholesome, feminine, PG-rated movie to discuss: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.
Briefly: Mrs. Harris cleans houses for a living. She has a remarkably positive attitude towards life and therefore everyone she meets loves her. She’s also an adorable woman in her 60s. Her husband died in World War II but she just finds that out at the beginning of the movie. We’re in 1950s London, by the way, and she’s lived alone for years because she was always hoping her husband would return home. Anyway, she’s cleaning the bedroom of one of her worst clients one day and spots a Dior haute couture dress in her closet. The camera zooms in on Mrs. Harris and you can just tell that she is in LOVE. Maybe for the first time in years! It’s purple and sparkly with floral appliqué. She asks her employer how much it costs: 500 pounds. Mrs. Harris can’t believe it. “For a dress!?” And then she’s like: me too. I want that, too. I’m going to get a haute couture dress from Dior in Paris and I’m going to wear it to my local Legion dance. She starts working many more hours to save up for the dress. It becomes her biggest dream. (That’s all in the beginning-ish so no spoilers. ;)
After the movie, my mom and I took turns recounting its entire plot to my dad, who had been waiting for us in the air-conditioned food court at Whole Foods, reading. “Obviously, the idea of Mrs. Harris spending her whole life savings on a dress is ridiculous,” said my mom. “No. I completely understand,” I said. “But she doesn’t have anywhere to wear it.” “To the Legion dance!”
If you subscribe to the idea that fashion is a form of art and that good fashion is an investment, then her Dior dress starts to make a lot more sense. She’s not throwing her money away on a dress. She’s working towards a goal, investing her money in something beautiful that she can both stare at and wear, which in my opinion is better than it being in a bank but you should never, EVER, take financial advice from me. A Dior haute couture dress like the one Mrs. Harris wants would retain its value — but that’s not the point. Maybe I’m a bit of a nihilist, but I see the appeal of spending all of her savings on one beautiful dress. I see its appeal as an item that adds spice to her life. After all, she doesn’t really need to spend her money on anything else. Her living situation seems comfortable enough and she doesn’t appear to have a family. She can invest in one beautiful moment: her fantasy of coming down the stairs at her Legion dance wearing Dior. If I were her, I’d wear it all the time. I’d wear it while reading in her quaint, English kitchen. I’d throw a boiled wool turtleneck over it and wear it as a skirt with boots. I’d savor the taste of something odd and opulent. I never want to be someone surrounded by opulence, but I’d always like to be someone who can find it and appreciate it in small bites. In abundance, it disappears anyway.
Sweater Weather (noun): the opportunity to wear wool while eating outdoors at your friend’s house because it’s sixty-six degrees. The pleasure I derive from wearing sweaters, for me, is on par with the way I feel when I tune into the chirping of the birdies outside my window, which I hear clearly every day because I don’t have air conditioning, and that just shows that every good thing has a bad thing because I can hear the birdies but I can’t wear my sweaters. Maybe the birdies would like little sweaters. What would happen if a birdie wore a sweater? Vest? Wings. Duh. I look up “bird wearing a” and Google fills in “hat” but it still can’t predict me because I finish: “sweater.” Oh birds love sweaters! @rhea_thenakedbirdie, an Instagram influencer, receives handknit sweaters from people all over the world because she lost all of her feathers from a rare disease and people think she’s cold, although I’m not sure that’s sound science. “do featherless birds get cold” No clear answer is articulated within thirty seconds of scrolling and so the answer, to me, is maybe. Every spring I leave some of my sweaters, even the wool ones, in my closet for summer, and then I usually don’t retrieve the rejects, and that’s how my style evolves. Natural selection. Sometimes I pull one from the abyss and that makes that one even more special than the others that were left out to be worn. You can wear sweaters in the summer when it’s: early morning (with shorts), late evening (with jeans), raining (with anything), air-conditioned (lucky you). You know what’s fun? Having a crush. (On sweaters.) The kind of crush where you start writing a newsletter about them when you’re supposed to be working. All-consuming. It’s the drape; texture; warmth; colors; tickle; babaà editorials. Once on a sheep and now it’s on me. My friend Dora can relate and now she knits them herself. She’ll probably love my sweater tonight but remind me that I could have made it myself and then I’ll tell her that I want to learn and this time I’ll mean it.
(My boyfriend installed a window air conditioning unit in our living room since I wrote that and it’s for the best. Now I play bird sounds on TV while I work.)
From the notes app:
“Do you think I’m having a good face day?” I asked my boyfriend and thought to myself: that would make a good line in a sitcom. He laughed at the concept of good and bad face days but I told him this is a thing people think about, or at least a thing that girls and women think about, or at least something that some of them think about, or at least some of the ones that I know think about it. We’re told it’s hormonal. Some days of the month our faces look better than they do on other days. I know this just like I know that my face looks better in the mornings when I’m hungover from drinking. The dehydration pulls my skin taut and plumps my lips, I think. (It’s subtle.) Tracking the trends of our beauty stock prices in our mirrors while men don’t even wash their faces before going to bed.
Thanks, as always, for reading! xx