Dear Reader,
I have never written about my clothes before.
For decades, while going through the daily choices of getting dressed and always in a particular way, I held onto the idea that fashion was a frivolity. I told myself that I was committed to more sincere dictions. By that, I must have meant that I wanted to be literary, that I thought I was building a literary life. And so righteously so. As in, even at my lowest, I wanted to be someone who could boast literary choices, who would perhaps advertise having blown her measly paycheck on paperbacks rather than on a new peacoat.
But I have grown bored with myself, with my oversight of the other realms in which I was composing, in which we are composing, and with so much intentionality. The same kind of intentionality I have always wished to bring to my page, to my verse, to my literary life. And so, I want to try to understand something here, at my laptop (which is usually situated just twelve steps away from the full-wall, eggplant-colored armoire with sliding doors that our landlord gave us): what is going on — intellectually, emotionally, physically — as I daily break myself from sleep, as I nightly fasten myself to it, with my thoughts often ricocheting between the two most significant furniture containers of my home — bookshelf and wardrobe?
These monthly essays will be my attempts, my quests into the depths of what guides the filling of my closet and the seasonal pronunciation of my dressed body. In each entry, I will write under the header of a single article found in my “garde-robe” — Wool and Cashmere, Monkstraps, Polyester Blouse, Opal Earrings. Aspects of my exposition will have, as the clothes do, a material dimension, though not only. Goodness no. I will search in their line and function, their feature and locomotion, the haptic sensations I, as a reader of the garments, enjoy as I go about my dayness in them. The musings might very well include references to Parisian current events, history, and French literature, as these elements texture so many of the choices I make in organizing my outings, my teachings, etc., and how I might bedeck myself to meet the particularly interwoven thrusts of hours spent in this city.
I will only allow stories of second-hand items because my personal choice to shop almost exclusively second-hand has been an important ecological and artistic mission for me in the last decade. Because I've committed much time to scoping out Paris through this lens, I also plan to include brief interviews and exchanges I have had/will have with the people who facilitate the exchange or mending of used or vintage items.
And, ah, yes, the mending. Les retoucheries, les cordonniers, I love them. Indeed, as a poet, I will zoom in on the gaping, will puzzle over where a body—mine or the one that preceded mine — has revealed its idiosyncrasies, signature gesture, or specific revolution against the strictness of a seam. Additionally, I will be concerned with the larger discourses at hand when we think of the material. I will use my home base, a city in which clothing choices seem to have local thrift but also global economy, to consider questions of ecology, gender, and class.
This writing project is dedicated to my growing belief that having online and public spaces be watchful over the everyday choices that become our everyday fabric is of utmost value and continues revolutionary witness. I would love to imagine that I could add my voice to such a practice and testimony, and even if it’s not the most modest of aspirations, I am honored to use this Substack and my humble life to delve into one person's phenomenology of choice, behind the putting together of a personal and public persona as she prepares to meet literature, classroom, "république," home country, and world.
I hope I’ll see you here, from time to time. I hope you’ll write to me with questions, recommendations, and other intrigues. And, though I might not have said it to you before, in any other phase of my life, Will you tell me the story of what you are wearing?
Affectionately,
Carrie
Vive la fripe, n'est ce pas?
I'm wearing a red-dot shirt purchased at the Miró Museum in Barcelona. It isn't second-hand, but the money went to THE CAUSE OF ART (or so I hope)! If I give it away, does that put me in the right stable?