Fashion: In which I respond to a question nobody asked me

I've been binge-listening to the podcast Pop Fashion. This post was inspired by a thought from their... lemme check... April 10, 2014 episode.

Don't mock me. Stop it.

They discussed "normcore", a term I'd never heard before. My understanding is that it refers to regular, normal, boring clothes, sometimes worn deliberately as a statement, sometimes just worn. This was contrasted with not-found-in-nature colors in hair and nails and makeup and such, seen as an "anti-normcore" movement in beauty products. One question was why the same person may have "normcore" clothes, but also pink hair and 3D nails and glitter makeup. To quote, "How can we be both normcore in dress and and then...crazy sparkle land in beauty products; why is this happening simultaneously?"

I have a theory: I think it's about creative ownership of your own appearance.

My feeling has always been that the world of clothes is owned by the fashion industry. You--well, at least I--go shopping or go online hoping to find something that fits, that's affordable, that isn't hideous. If "fits" and "affordable" are challenges, adding the requirement that you like the item or that it expresses anything about you, is often an un-achievable luxury. Good enough is good enough. That's especially true in the early fashion-awareness years, junior high and high school, where taking a risk that might not come off can feel like a life-threatening risk.

I keep wanting to veer off into several more paragraphs, including references to Paul Graham's essay Why Nerds are Unpopular, and my own fashion experience, and that stuff about my mother, but I'm just going to conclude: For some people, including me in past decades, expressing oneself with one's clothes isn't an option that comes up at all.  Maybe a message tee or a Santa hat or an ugly Christmas sweater, but not on a regular basis.

But nail polish doesn't come in sizes, and most people can afford it. Makeup can be washed off before school or work. And if you gulp and straighten your spine and take the risk of showing up wearing it, and it doesn't work out, at least you didn't burn a year's clothes budget on it. So it's partly about budget, as the podcast discussed, but I think that budget is just a stepping stone to creative ownership.

And continuing on the theme, I think that this also explains why people who don't care much about their everyday clothes will pour heart and soul and all their spare cash into cosplay. Cosplay is about creative ownership. OK, it's a little odd to say that when you're imitating someone else's fictional creation, but art always imitates art. Cosplay would lead me into a discussion of sewing, which moves creative ownership of your clothes back to you, but I'm going to chew on that for a while.

My path to kinda-fashion, as discussed on this blog, started with utterly (utterly) abandoning all efforts at fashion. I wore black. Black skirts, black sweaters, black mock-turtle tees, black tees, black flats, black tights, black socks, black coat. By abandoning all effort with regard to clothes, an area that I didn't understand and wasn't comfortable with, I opened up space and time and money for experimenting in areas where I was more comfortable, or at least more interested. Perfume, of course. And scarves. And rhinestones. I could easily see a different version of me instead going with nail polish and pink hair. Ooh, no, deep intense plum hair!

Hmm.

No, that's not happening.

But anyway, that's my theory on normcore clothes with anti-normcore trimmings. To pull myself back into the discussion, I'm about to go out wearing Mom jeans, a polo shirt, a grey cardigan, a knit hat, a pair of black Merrells--and a spray of Papillon Salome (the perfume that Angela at Now Smell This gave a 7 on the skank scale) plus something with rhinestones.

So there.

Link Roundup from my own blog: Being a Girl, Fashion Voice, and The Huh? and the Predators and Reality TV.

Image: By Evi Michailidou. Wikimedia Commons

SOTD: Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle. And many off-topic remarks.

(Actually, this was the scent of this past Monday, but I didn't get to the posting part of the post until today.)

Mmm, gasoline fumes.

OK, that doesn't sound good. Does "Mmm, mothballs" sound any better? At least mothballs aren't used as a mood-altering drug. I think.

This was my first Lutens bell jar. But I didn't go to Paris and buy a full bottle in a box. I ordered it from a decanter, with the last half ounce in it. The same for my second bell jar, half an ounce of Iris Silver Mist. That's the end of my bell jars.

What's my point? I don't have one. I'm just trying a SOTD post for old times' sake.

Of course, Tubereuse Criminelle is floral as well as petroleum. I seem to recall reading about oil-bearing grasses being raised for fuel. I imagine Tubereuse Criminelle being the scent of that grass's flowers.

Mmm.

Luckily, I'm not among those that get a rotting meat note from this. I love the weird, the chemical, the sweaty, the skunky, even a carefully tuned bit of the fecal. Rotting meat, not so much.

I've been thinking about starting a diary. See, on the one hand there are lots of things that are either too embarrassing or too boring to post here on the blog. And I often find myself wishing that I remembered certain things about my own past life. And sometimes I think that those memories might be useful for that theoretical book or books someday.

On the other hand, I struggle with the idea of all that writing never being read by any audience. Writing, to me, is communication, and how can you communicate when no one is ever going to listen? And, equal and opposite, I worry about the diary accidentally being accessed by someone and being read. It's a thicket.

Then again, it would be good for me to get over my addiction to being read. If I'm ever going to write a book, I'm going to need to write a whole lot of words that won't be read for a very long time. I should get used to that.

No, this isn't relevant to Tubereuse Criminelle. Probably. Except that the idea of resuming SOTD posts made me think of a diary.

Of course, a diary still would't be The Whole Truth. It would occupy some middle ground between what I'm willing to publish and what happens in my head. Does anyone really tell a diary everything that can be put into words?

I just deleted a paragraph in this post, because it felt off topic--the post seems to be about Tubereuse Criminelle and SOTDs and a dairy. So I deleted a spare paragraph about jewelry. Would I do that in a diary? Would I feel the need for coherent narrative flow?

Not that this is all that coherent.

Actually, I'm going back to jewelry. You've seen me thrashing around about clothes as my current phase of Being a Girl. But the problem with clothes is that a large part of the overall package is me. My shape. My posture. My movement and position. (Does it look OK when I sit down?) My shape. My maintenance. (Did I press it well enough? Are these shoes too scuffed?) My shape.

Yeah, that shape thing is an issue.

Perfume is less of a "me" performance. Especially for me, it's largely a consumption activity--usually, I apply so little that only I can smell it. And even when that's not true, I don't need to perform--I just make a choice in private, and the perfume performs independently.

Jewelry is a sort of middle ground. It's visible, so it's not all about personal consumption. But there's not much performance involved. Unless you have a pendant flirting with your cleavage or some such thing, the jewelry is mostly performing independently, like the perfume. My contribution, again, happens in private, when I make a choice.

Maybe that's why I'm moving on to jewelry--to challenge myself with choices. I'm no longer nervous about going out in public smelling like gasoline or mushrooms or a garage floor. But I am nervous about wearing those rhinestones with that Oxford shirt. Does it work? What do you think? It's a decision. It's a mild expression of taste. But still one that keeps me at a comfortable distance.

It occurs to me that I was more comfortable with "performance" decisions--clothes--in winter. Hmm. I guess wool tends to make one's shape feel less exposed.

Anyway. With perfume, I love the whacky. Now I'm trying to edge toward the whacky with jewelry. And someday I hope to get there with clothes.

Now, "the whacky" doesn't mean "Oh, my God, what is that thing crossing the street? Is it human?" It just means a step or two away from the completely safe standard. Ideally, the kind of thing that makes you turn your head and say, "Hmm. That's an idea."

That is all.

First Image: By Christine Matthews. Wikimedia Commons.
Second Image: Mine

Fashion: What I Wore Friday (Plums!)

I'm often (contrarily) annoyed when I like something that's in fashion. Last year, I spent weeks craving garments in a particular plum-like color, then realized that I was craving them not because I had conjured up that shade from my imagination, or from seeing an actual piece of fruit, but because that shade was everywhere, in store racks and on people. Once my craving was revealed to be a Caving In To Evil Consumer Forces, I resisted for a while. Resistance was aided by the fact that I could never quite find the right shade in the right garment in the right size.

Then I found what I wanted in a tee, and a darker version in a sweater, and I realized that I already owned a lighter version in a scarf, and the caving was complete. I wore them all today, with the my now-customary knee-length black skirt, black tights, and what I call my Dutch Girl Shoes. (A pair of black Dansko flats, but not the clog-shaped ones.) I enjoyed all the color, and am now tempted to go find three shades of green.

That is all. I suspect, frankly, that I just wanted to post the photo.

Image: Mine.

What I Wore Friday: 21st Century Jeans (And a Note on Aftelier Cuir de Gardenia)

The world must be ending. I wore non-Mom jeans.

I don't mean that I wore those scarey low hipster jeans. But the "hug" of today's jeans ends two or three inches lower than I'm used to. It's giving me the sensation that my pants are falling down, and I keep checking to make sure that my top is long enough to hide my underwear. Because I'm still wearing Mom underwear. (I'm providing too much information here, aren't I?)

I didn't buy the jeans for the non-Momness, but instead for the (compared to my other jeans) narrower legs and heavier fabric, and a much nicer solid black "wash". (Why is it "wash" and not color? I'm sure there's a good reason.) My other jeans are a weird streaky light blue that signals gardening grubbies no matter what I wear them with.

The Momness or otherwise of the jeans is largely irrelevant, because today's top, a drapey cowlneck sweatery thing, hangs to somewhere around mid-hip. But it feels weird all the same, both rebellious (against my determinedly fashion-blind stance) and compliant (for exactly the same reason.)

Purely for entertainment, I took off the drapey sweatery thing and considered how the jeans looked with just the dark-pumpkiny tee underneath, and to my surprise, there was some good there. While I wouldn't wear that combination without (shudder) "shapewear", I was surprised to see that my overall bulk has a half-decent curve in to the waist and out to the hips. I'm not a column. Who knew? Then I put the sweatery thing back on and there's a subtler version of the curve even then. So I'm rather pleased. This is by far the most close-to-current-fashion jeans look I've worn since--I was going to say "since forever", but there was a moment in my teens, in snug jeans and a gauze top...

Momentary "have I told you this before?" divergence: You know how sometimes on What Not To Wear, they'll ask the subject of the show when they last felt beautiful? If I were the subject, that would have been my answer--that moment when I was fourteen, more or less, looking in a full-length motel mirror while on a driving trip to meet one of the parents' relatives. I thought that I looked beautiful--and I thought that, therefore, the mirror must somehow be defective.

All right, moving on. I didn't feel beautiful in today's jeans, but I felt good.

Did I mention that after I bought boots, and more boots, I remembered that I already owned boots, and more boots, purchased several years ago? I now have four (four, count 'em, four!) pairs of little short boots. Aparently I've been having a little-short-boot craving for quite some time, one that I didn't know how to actually deploy.

Today's boots waited a very long time (five years? ten?) to get to work. I wore them for the very first time a couple of weeks ago as part of an undocumented skirt outfit, with brown tights, to avoid the effect of, "Oh, my God, someone cut off her foot and glued on a boot!" that I got when I tried them with plum-colored tights. I wore them again a few days later with the gardening grubbies jeans. They didn't seem all that happy about that; I think that they crept in while I was sleeping and instilled a post-hypnotic suggestion to buy the non-Mom jeans. Except, I'm told that brown boots with black jeans are not ideal, so perhaps they got the message a little muddled.

It snowed today and I needed a hat when we went to lunch. I quite forgot that I owned this one, a sort of plaid newsboy cap, so I didn't wear it. However, that may be just as well--I'm beginning to conclude that a newsboy cap with long hair is "cute", and I definitely don't want to be cute. It's better if I put my hair up, but my hair generally declines to stay up.

The perfume? Aftelier Cuir de Gardenia extrait; I've started buying samples again. I didn't give it a proper review-esque monitoring, even by my rather slack review standards, but I like it very much. It started out both feminine-ladylike and delightfully animalic-dirty, two separate aspects that managed to mesh perfectly. It was fairly emphatic, though it still wasn't a projection bomb--a good thing, in my book, though I realize that many people wish that naturals would speak a little louder.

Over a few hours the ladylike aspect grew stronger, and I got a whiff of New Barbie Doll Note. I always assumed that this scent came from something synthetic; now that I've experienced it in a natural perfume, I'm determined to figure out exactly what produces it, similar to the way that I figured out that Pencil Eraser Note is iris.

New Barbie Doll Note was accompanied by Smelly-Doll Note--that is, sweet peas. That tiny doll in the photo, one of my favorites as a child, came pre-scented in a perfume-bottle-shaped plastic clamshell. Officially, she was a Liddle Kiddle, but we called her Smelly-Doll. I always assumed that she just smelled of "perfume", until I encountered my first real life sweet pea at a relatively advanced age and immediately flashed on "Smelly-Doll!" Did Mattel really spring for a photorealistic sweet pea scent? I can't evaluate her scent any longer to try to answer that question; it's long faded.

So Cuir de Gardenia shifts, for me, from a delightful animalic-ladylike melding to equally delightful childhood nostalgia--dolls, flowers, and candied notes. I love it, but I doubt that anyone else will share exactly my experience of the drydown.

And that is all.

Images: Mine.

Fashion: Suspicion, Armor, and Rebellion. And Oregano.

When I put something away in the kitchen right after using it, my brain often mocks, "Well, aren't you fancy. Who do you think you are?" It's a voice from childhood. Refusing to tend a home was part of Mom's identity--she was a Modern Woman and an Intellectual Woman, and for her, that went along with an abiding suspicion of housekeeping. There were inconsistencies, such as her avenging offensive on the floor with the vacuum, but in general housekeeping meant knuckling under to the sexist and plebeian standards of others. Putting the oregano away promptly was a surrender.

I mock Mom for this, and I mock my brain for trying to maintain the habit. Why reject the opportunity to have pleasure and comfort in your own home just because you might (gasp!) fulfill a community standard at the same time?

Yesterday I put on a denim dress that kinda fits me, and the green Dorothy earrings, and a green blatantly-fake-emerald necklace that I've been trying to find an opportunity to wear. And that didn't feel like enough color, with the necklace and earrings mostly being hidden by my hair and collar, so I grabbed the floofy-flower scarf and tried it on. And my brain demanded, "Well, aren't you fancy. Who do you think you are?"

Hmm.

It's been saying that a lot since the fashion experiment started. And it's not Mom's voice--you all know that I'm ready to blame Mom for everything, but she didn't model a lack of interest in putting together an outfit. A lack of joy, yes, but not a lack of interest. It's not the voice of the kids who told me day after day in school that I was ugly. I know that because I never gave them the chance to mock my fashion ideas. Because I mocked them first, alone, and put a stop to them, before anyone else got the chance.

In other words, it's my voice, defending me from what is no longer a threat. The voice mocking me when I put away the oregano is Mom's dysfunctional defender, unwittingly transferred to me. The voice mocking me when I consider the effect of a scarf is my dysfunctional defender. It thinks that mean girls are waiting around the corner and that I still need to keep my power close and my armor buttoned up.

It means well. I want to treat it gently. But it's being retired from an executive to an advisory position--Advisor on Fashion Rebellion.

Rebellion is what gets me past those nervous moments. If I want to do something "right" I don't have the confidence to go through with it. If I want to do something whacky, it's much easier. I often realize afterward that it really wasn't the least bit whacky, but that's OK--once the experiment has been completed once, I can do it again even if I'm (gasp) fulfilling community standards.

There's probably more to say. But it's been more than two weeks since my last post, which means that I've reached the "write something!" deadline. So that is all.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.