lilmissnever

Vintage clothing does not travel well, which is why my wardrobe has slowly morphed into an easily-squishable pile of stretch cotton jersey dresses and 20-hole boots that can survive the treacherous cobblestones of Europe. When I am in ess eff, I take out my much-loved early sixties cotton shirtwaists and t-strap heels and wear the ones that don't clash too terribly with my violet hair. I wear what I have, but I don't buy new ones, so I don't spend a lot of time trawling ebay and etsy, vintage shops and second-hand stores--well, not like I used to.

I do not buy old dresses anymore, but stories about old dresses and costumes rediscovered still make me happy. For example, the wig worn by Alla Nazimova in the 1920's film version of Salome, inspired by the Aubrey Beardsley illustrations, was recently found in a trunk in Georgia. And the New Yorker has just written an article about 21 Callot Soeurs recently found in a Florentine villa. The Callot sisters made haute couture dresses in Paris from 1895 until the 1950's, but I mostly know them from offhand mentions in Proust, and photos of their beautiful late Edwardian, early 1920's gowns.

The Callot sisters beaded the holy hell out of everything. It turns out that beading is hard to preserve. "The sequins on two dresses are plagued by 'inherent vice'—a degradation of cellulose nitrate," according to the New Yorker. "These gowns appear to be melting." Dresses also suffer from "memory," the technical term for "wrinkles left in garments by repeated wear." Gowns never really get over the imprint of the body that wore them--their sweat, their shape, the places where the fabric stretched. Our brains never really get over the imprint of our habits--our terrible childhoods and misshapen relationships and too much time spent on planes and in empty hotel rooms. We too suffer from memory. And from inherent vice. And perhaps we look like we're melting.

That was a bit of a sudden turn, wasn't it? I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to break old habits, how to do things differently--maybe how to do this all without melting. This is not something I would tell a stranger at a cocktail party. Dear stranger, I have about a million acquaintances, but only a tiny circle of very close friends, and the person that I talk to when I need to tell someone the things I would never tell a stranger at a cocktail party is someone who does not live in ess eff, someone I do not see or talk to for months at a time. When we are in the same place at the same time, our expectations are so high that failing to meet them sends both us into a spiral of passive-aggressive distancing and silence. Oh, you haven't talked to me in six months? I didn't even notice, I was so busy poppin' bottles at the club because my life is so full and fabulous without you. I am possibly still angry about that time you moved out of the country without telling me, but I am not very good at finding or identifying my feelings while I'm having them, so I will never bring it up.

Someone once told me that every fight that E and I have is really about who loves each other more. Maybe it's true, at least in the sense that I am sensitive to the sighs and tiny silences of my tiny circle of close friends, but it's not an observation that does much to show us a way out of this. Every fight that E and I have is really about our mutual inability to say "You've hurt my feelings" and "I'm sorry." And so, like professional engineers, like goddamn adults, like people who are trying to be better than we are, we have agreed to the following:

If the other person has done something that upset you, let them know at soon as you realize this. Do not make accusations. Don't yell. Don't make assumptions about how they must feel about you in order to do such a cruel and terrible thing. Don't stop talking to them for months at a time because if they really loved you they would reach out and ask what they've done to upset you. Just tell them when you can.

When you've been told that you upset your friend, apologize. Say that you are sorry. Don't get into a Jesuitical argument over the interpretation of your words or actions or whether or not they have a right to be upset. You are sorry and you will do your best not to do it again. Full stop.

At this point, you might hug. Hugging is optional.

We suffer from memory and inherent vice, but I think that maybe it is possible that we don't have to melt and rot and fall apart. At the very least, I'm going to find out.

I don't know who Simon Doonan is, but I do know that he believes we are living in the End Times of style:

How did we end up living in this all-bets-are-off world where sockless Brooklyn hipsters with Edwardian moustaches make artisanal pickles while, across the bridge, desperate office chicks believe they have no social currency unless they own 398 handbags and 268 pairs of shoes, the heels of which are so high that they would previously have been worn only by a woman who was lying on her back wearing nothing but the pumps in question and a ball-gag?

I may not agree with him, but I give him full points for cleverness. Maybe that's the way it looks from the New York runways. Maybe fashion has gone permanently schizophrenic and weird in Paris and Milan. I never had much patience for fashion -- I just like clothes.

This season, all of the trendiest squid-headed ess eff girls are wearing high-heeled oxfords with ribbon laces. My new shoes are canary yellow leather with little houndstooth insets and brown ribbon. You can see them from space. The trendiest girls have also purchased Fluevog Bellevues because squid-headed Nevers are suckers for a little Art Nouveau vamp detail. I have refrained from purchasing a pair of ludicrously high open-toe lace-up wedges, but only because I believe that purchasing three pairs of shoes over a period of two months is a bit excessive. Also, I may go broke.

Because some strange god has chosen to smile upon me -- the same god that brought back the shirtwaist dress, no doubt -- the stores are filled with little military-styled jackets. Anthropologie is up to its faux-vintage armpits in belted cardigans, some of which make me look like a 1920's sportwear ad. Juicy Couture (of all places!) is selling a black cashmere princess-cut trench coat with enormous mutton sleeves, the likes of which have not been seen since Cleo de Merode. In addition to selling bandage dresses, sequined mini-skirts, and other items of questionable taste, Bebe is offering a variety of reasonably-priced leather jackets that I plan to tell everyone came from Skingraft or Five & Diamond. At Retro Fit on Valencia, there is a cache of green velvet trench coats from L.A.M.B that could easily be mistaken for the uniforms of the guards of the Emerald City, if the Emerald City was guarded by women who do not mind wearing a little bustle.

Maybe somewhere in New York fashion is very confused indeed, but for me, the fall is a happy time. It is a time to wear jaunty scarves and purchase new jackets, to wear raucously-colored heels with plaid-patterned tights, and to perch wee little vintage hats atop my headsquid. It is a time to eat artisanal pickles made by sockless Mission hipsters with Edwardian moustaches. Try one. You might like it.

Bad angle in mirror
Congratulations!
You've won a panic attack

-- go-go dancer haiku

Somehow, I was able to overcome my anxiety over the fit of my striped bloomers (just a little more snug in the hips than they were last year) and dance at Baxtalo Drom. I know it is a good show because the go-gos have to fight each other to get on the boxes. We shimmy on the dance floor to Balkan beat box while we wait for one of the other go-gos to give up her spot even though has been claiming that she will do so after just "one more song" for the last fifteen minutes. The music is just that much fun to dance to.

The girls of Sister Kate were highly professional in the face of technical difficulties. Molotov swallowed swords and threw knives. A man in an eye-patch, fuzzy hat, heels, and a short skirt told a variety of "erotic fortunes." Real belly dancers did real belly dancing that I was ill-equipped to properly appreciate. W arrived and danced in spite of her uncooperative knee. The bartender kept me supplied with beverages that tasted like cucumber and felt like a kick in the head. Some girl ran off with the $125 hat which was rightfully mine. I consoled myself with a much cheaper and still-pretty hat which is also rightfully mine. I am able to wear the hat perched jauntily atop my squid and still have room for a variety of enormous fake flowers and feathers. My head looks like Fantastico exploded on it.

Events that combine drinking and shopping are profoundly dangerous. It is a wonder that I emerged from the DNA with a dollar to my name.

So afflicted was I with money burning a hole in my pocket that the next day I went to Haight Street and browsed its many stores. Strange new shops have opened, including a store dedicated entirely to Betty Page, filled with poorly-made 50's and 60's reproduction attire. J and I ate delicious Cuban food at Parada 22, and then I disappeared into a book store. I am now the proud owner of a book about Edwardian comic illustrations, Bonk, which is Mary Roach's book about the scientific study of sex, and Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh. I spent the rest of the day reading Bonk instead of cleaning my house or going to MEAT/Bootie, hours punctuated by occasional giggles and quoting passage aloud to J. Sex researchers are brave and sometimes strange and often funny. I tip my (tiny, jaunty, newly-purchased) hat to the acrobats who managed to have sex in my MRI machine for science. You are pioneers.

On Sunday I rehearsed my new act until my arms were ready to fall off. I think that I will have to move a lot of the choreography around, but I found my way around a tricky transition, so great progress was made. The dance troupe rehearsing in the room next door invited me to perform at their showcase, which pleased me. I am afraid to talk about the act in detail, given what happened the last time I waxed rhapsodic about an aerial act for the Hubba Hubba Revue. Let us pretend that this paragraph never happened. Let us pretend that I came home on Sunday night ravenous for no apparent reason and consumed an ocean of fish at Live Sushi, where the live scallop was buttery and melty and fresh in a way that convinced me that all is good and right in the world.

Yes, that is what we will do.

I've said it before: I was not born to run. I thought that it was perfectly normal for running to involve about ten minutes of relative comfort, followed by a sensation not unlike trying to breathe while drowning in the Arctic Circle. This sensation continues for however long I can stand it - usually another twenty or thirty minutes - until I stop, stretch, and put in an additional hour on the elliptical machine, which has a far lesser impact on my ability to breathe. I have to admit that in recent months, difficult and stress-filled months for the meat suit, I did not always find the time to go running, so it was no surprise that my 5k was becoming more and more difficult. But when the drowning sensation began to kick in after five minutes of running and I simply could not continue for more than a mile without stopping, I thought that perhaps this might be something worth mentioning to my doctor.

The Medical Authorities have declared that I have exercise-induced asthma. The Medical Authorities would like to know why I never mentioned this before. The Medical Authorities think I am an idiot, but they have prescribed an inhaler for me, which makes running bearable once more. My typical cardio workout -- run 5k, stretch, put in 10k on the elliptical machine -- is a lot more exhausting than it used to be, but at least I can do it without dying.

The meat suit is bigger than I'm used to it being. It's a little soft in places that I'd secretly hoped I would never be soft again. It is lumpy in clothes, which I suspect is because those clothes are a little too tight. There is part of me that holds on to my magical inhaler talisman and imagines that my pudgy bits will now melt away. There is part of me that thinks that if I just work out for a few more hours a week, or if I stop eating burritos, that I will be back to my normal, natural, svelte self in a matter of weeks. It is critically important that I take this part of me out behind the woodshed and hack it to death with an axe.

This way lies madness. This way lies dieting. This way lies exercise bulimia and years of expensive therapy. The meat suit will do whatever it wants to do. For now, just be thankful you can breathe.

I have a coat problem. I've had a coat problem for years. By the Bunker door, there used to be a great big Art Deco wardrobe filled almost entirely with my coats: green velvet trench coat, brown double-breasted raincoat, be-grommeted black leather trench coat inspired by watching too many episodes of Farscape, regular black leather trench coat, black leather trench coat with enormous fur collar, blue velveteen double-breasted coat, black wool opera coat, black velveteen coat with faux-leopard collar and cuffs, and a couple of things owned by J. I may have more. These are merely the coats that I can remember. These are the coats that I need, which is a bit of problem because the contents of the Art Deco wardrobe are sitting in a vault in Oakland, where I will not have access to them until it is time to move back to the Bunker.

The cold months are upon us, my few remaining readers who not yet fled livejournal. Rain is falling from the sky and all I have are jackets! Which brings me to a whole new coat problem, a coat problem which has me scanning the vintage clothing section of eBay for something stylish, mid-length, and reassuringly warm which will cost me not too much more than the $50 fee I would need to pay in order to gain access to the Oakland vault. The black velveteen New Look coat has already passed me by. I have been outbid on the black-and-white striped mod trench coat. The blue leather coat with the (say it with me) enormous fox fur collar is too expensive. I pile on sweaters and jackets and scarves and gloves - where are my gloves? - and wonder why my toes feel like little icy pebbles.

To make up for having taken away my many coats, the Clothing Gods have dropped a Victorian (possibly Edwardian) parasol in my lap. There I was, sitting down to lunch with W. at the noodle shop closest to my Mysterious Workplace, when I spotted what looked like a somewhat beat-up umbrella propped up against the wall. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a rectangular Victorian parasol, half rusted out and heavily sun damaged, neatly trimmed with grey fringe. I alerted the noodle shop waitresses, who denied all knowledge of this item. I waved it around at the other customers, asking "Whose parasol is this?" and they looked at me, in my black dress, striped tights, and headsquid as if I had grown a second head.

Whose parasol is this?

It's mine, of course.

Unless you happen to have lost a Victorian parasol in your local noodle shop, in which case you should contact me so I can give it back to you. Then maybe the Clothing Gods will send me a coat.

I own a lot of clothes.

Really. A lot.

Imagine the amount of clothing that an ordinary person needs in order to stay reasonably well-dressed in all of the typical situations she may encounter over the course of the year. Now, double that. In fact, you may need to double it again. Admittedly, I require clothes for some situations that a normal girl doesn't ordinarily encounter. When the call goes out for a zombie/nurse/clown trapeze artist, I am there. I need a variety of zombie wear, blood-splattered girdles for MEAT, dirndls and showgirl costumes and schoolgirl outfits and that terrifying elf costume for Hubba Hubba Revue, a variety of corsets to wear clubbing, practice clothes for aerials (which include completely un-ironic leg warmers), performance clothes for aerials (which include fantastically expensive leather ankle corsets from Dark Garden), gowns for the opera, gowns for the Edwardian ball, and 1920's tea dresses for Gatsby. I need clothes to wear to work, suits in which I can look presentable, and dresses in which I can attend parties without looking like I am a refugee from Death Guild. I own three kimonos and two lounging robes. I have three trench coats: two leather and one velvet. I could not tell you how many black skirts or 1950's shirtwaists I own, but it is a very large number indeed. I have a problem.

And I'm not the only one. Once or twice a year, some brave soul mounts a call to arms and we all gather, poor costume-addicted creatures with bulging closets, for a clothing swap.

I could have packed more, but I diplomatically chose to limit myself to filling a trash bag and a suitcase with clothes that have fallen out of favor, or which never looked as good on me as I thought they did when I purchased them, things that I'd picked up at previous clothing swaps, clothes that needed hemming or taking in/out or a complete rebuild that I had never finished, and things that had been left at my house.

As clothing swaps go, it was a smashing success. My fellow aerialist inherited a number of my vintage dresses that did not suit me - baby blue is not my color. Dr. S passed large chunks of her six-years-age wardrobe on to A. Some girl I did not know ran off with my polka-dotted silk dress, in which she looked quite lovely. Dr. J found a red top which looked like many things she already owns, which makes it perfect. I inherited a number of black tops for much the same reasons. D found the sweater with the holes in the elbows that she left at my house during MEAT five years ago, which is good because I've been wondering who it belonged to for quite some time.

Halfway through the swap, A walked up to me with something green and gold and flesh-colored and said, "Here. I thought you might want this."

I held it up, this thing covered in gold spangles and old green rhinestones: the 1940's trapeze artist's costume I left at F's apartment the night that I broke up with him. There were more rhinestones missing than I remembered and there were places, many places, where it was coming apart at the seams, but it still fit, which was a pleasant surprise for something that I had bought when I was nineteen. I don't care that it will require all kinds of repair and that I cannot perform in it for fear that it will fall apart on the spot. I will re-stitch every inch of it if I have to. I will pull it apart and draft a new pattern from it. I will find new rhinestones and spangles and maybe a wider halter strap. It doesn't even matter that I cannot wear it anywhere. All that matters is that I thought I had lost it forever and now it is mine again.

Thank you, clothing swap. Thank you, A. Thank you, ex-boyfriend for not throwing this beautiful thing in the garbage, even if you did tell all of your friends that I hated them. Thank you thank you thank you. The Circle of Clothes is complete.

They say confession is good for the soul, so the time has come to stand up and confess: I am Lil' Miss Never and I love clothes. I love clothes more than I love sushi or fog or a new word that I've never come across before or an elegant argument or a Blue Bottle latte. I think I may love clothes more than books - well, maybe if they're really great clothes. Or not particularly good books.

I love clothes as a mode of self-expression. I'm wearing that black velvet scarf with fringe or that 1950's New Look shirtwaist or bright red Victorian boots not just because they prevent me from freezing (I do not function well in chilly climates) or being arrested for public indecency, but because I am try to tell you something. I used to think that that something was, "I am like nothing you have ever seen before," but that isn't it. That isn't it at all. When I get dressed in the morning, I am trying to manifest a creature inside my head. I am trying to manifest an aesthetic - and maybe you've seen that aesthetic before - maybe I'm wearing Spanish hair comb because I've been looking at Goya's Duchesses, or a bullet bra because I've been watching re-runs of Mad Men, or I'm answering the door in a slip and a kimono because in my head I'm Auntie Mame or Sally Bowles, or I've left the house looking like a post-Apocalyptic Elegant Gothic Lolita. Clothes cheer me up. There is no more reliable gage of my mood than the amount of time and care I take in getting dressed before I exit the Bunker and face the world at large. Some people self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. My poison of choice is vintage silk velvet.

Not everyone feels this way about the clothes they wear. I know it may seem obvious, but this is a very big step for me in the theory of mind: people do not experience the world in the same way. It is not merely a matter of preference for one style over another, but a completely different relationship with the entire concept of style. There are people whose meticulous dress stems not from the need to express some deep-seated personal aesthetic, but a need to display one's status (are those Manolo Blahniks?), or a compulsion to conform to whatever look is being flogged to death this season in some fashion magazine. There are people for whom the notion of clothing as a form of self-expression is just plain weird - people who express themselves in painting or writing or code - people who regard the human body as an inconvenience and attention to dress as vanity. There are people who love fashion - people who can tell you that saphire blue is in this spring or what the hottest teenage models are wearing in Milan or why Verace is totally irrelevant but Catherine Malandrino is a genius.

I hate fashion, but that is a story for another time.

The world is wonderous and weird and encompasses a bewildering variety of attitudes. For a very long time, I accepted the fact that J views clothing in a largely utilitarian sort of way. Pants are jeans. A good pair of jeans is the kind without too many holes in the pockets. Shirt are tee-shirts. Tee-shirts are purchased at concerts and are used as a marker of your scene cred and musical taste. Tee-shirts come in Size Large, even if you are J, who is decidedly Size Small. This is alright. We do not have to love all of the same things. We can love cooking and submarine movies and cryptography, but I do not have to understand why he must always have the latest, shiniest gadget and he does not have to spend his afternoons at the Vintage Clothing Expro in the Masonic Center searching for an alligator purse with the alligator's head still attached.

The other day, J purchased a pair of Shawna Hoffman pants. Then he went back to the store because there was another pair that he wanted, but they were out of stock and he had to wait for the next shipment to come in. He opened up a Ted Baker jacket and saw the contrasting silk lining and I think that for the first time, J might have felt something very similar to what I feel when I'm looking at beautifully-made clothes - that they can be art and that by wearing them, you become art. And then he said the words that made my heart flutter like a bird in my chest: "I'm going to need a shirt to go with that."

Oh my friends, we lived happily every after - happily ever after and immaculately dressed.