Runway To Real Life

When body size isn't dictating what black sack-like outfit I'm wearing, I am fairly fearless when choosing clothes to wear.  I look at life as a kind of series of scenes in which we set stage, improvise lines, and costume ourselves for what we anticipate is coming.  Then we look back endlessly at the stills and remember how young we were, what we were thinking as we set the blocks of life up, and we wonder what might have happened if we had worn the outfit we really wanted to that day when our entire life turned on one ripped seam.

This season there is not much for me to love.  However, I have collected six looks that I think would easily fit into my non-supermodel life of ordinary activities.  People are always saying "Oh, well, that's fine for a super model to wear but I drive a Hummer and have to chauffeur my children to five places each between 3pm and 5pm, how can these clothes relate to my real life?"  I don't see the problem.  And by the way:  you suck for driving a Hummer. 

When I was 20 years old and was living in San Francisco I dressed up to go to the grocery store.  I took special care to dress to go to the public Library (in it's old location then- a cherished remembrance).  Every activity required its own special get-up in order to set the stage of my life appropriately. 


I am completely in love with Dolce And Gabbana's pajama line.  What they don't know is that I already exploited the pajamas as day-wear thing in high-school.  1986.  My mother gave me a very limited allowance for buying new clothes for my Junior Year of High School.  We went to Macy's and I bought a couple of men's striped pajamas and wore them with pearls, gloves, and wing tip shoes.  I loved them.  I have always had an affair with men's clothes.  And men's cologne. Not even Madonna can claim to have done that one before me.  Though my friend Lucille probably wore men's pajamas when she lived in New York and worked for Interview Magazine.  Damn her. 

I have been trying to tell women for as long as I can remember that it is ridiculous to save their best hats for Easter morning.  I have been trying to get women to wear clothes that make them feel good about themselves no matter what they're doing.  Muck out the chicken run in nasty bagged out holey sweat pants?  Dude- I don't even own a pair of sweat pants!!!  No!  I say no to wearing disgusting clothes to do the dirty stuff.  Sex is dirty too but women are willing to muck up expensive lingerie for it.  So why not wear lovely clothes to do our other dirty work?

I vehemently object to the idea that good clothes are what we wear to please others, to please men, to please other women, to please convention.  Screw convention!  Screw men! I have long been dressing to please myself.  I dress with the goal of enjoying fiber, cut, texture, detail, mood, and my own inimitable spirit.  I dress to flavor my own hopes. 

II took part in the peace march in San Francisco when over 100,000* people gathered to protest the news that Bush was going to declare war on Iraq.  I wore an outfit very much like this one.  1940's style trousers seemed so appropriate for protesting another war.  My kid was two and I was full of mother-fury.  I brought another human being into the world and wanted to stand up for the kind of world I hoped could be his legacy.  There is no reason to fight battle in dowdy rags.  One should rise up with every ounce of dignity, of sartorial empowerment, and of self possession as is possible.  If you don't take yourself seriously enough to care why should anyone else?

It's a little bit ridiculous how hip the young people of Portland are.  I find them a little precious and "ironic".  They impose their deep sense of irony on themselves so much that it actually loses all meaning and instead I sometimes want to tell them not to take themselves so damn seriously.  That would seem to be in complete contradiction to what I have just said in the previous paragraph.  It is important to believe in one's self, to have self possession, and to think of one's self as an entity worth knowing.  However, as in all things: balance is essential.  I know whereof I speak.  I used to take myself so seriously that I was a complete joke.  An irresistable target for jest. 

It's still impressively easy to get the better of me.  However, I have, in spite of my fat self, come to a place where I am able to see my own humanity, my own human face, and to understand that I can never be perfect.  I have learned to laugh at myself and at others in a kind and compassionate way without losing sight of my own power.  Do not imagine that I am easy to fuck over, but I can probably stand it if you make fun of my seven same shirts.