Fashion Fantasies
Nov 10th, 2010
by Alexis Novak
I once had a college boyfriend who fancied himself a fashion stylist. Going through my cluttered closet he eyeballed my vast sweater collection and scolded, “Don’t buy another cream sweater….ever.” I laughed because I knew in that moment that I would never get serious with a man that told me how to shop. I also had to admit that I had a problem. I was dressing the wrong co-ed. I had been shopping for a girl that lived in upstate New York, not one that lived in steamy Florida like me.
Fashion’s call of drama and escapism has always been hard for me to ignore. My mom was a model and frustrated fashion design student herself so clothes, magazines and fashion talk colored my childhood. In my twenties, I never let my boring financial realities hold me back from my wild clothes-horse imagination and had the credit card debt to prove it. Through outfits I was creating! And it was costly.
Today, I stand in front of my closet, staring at the carnage of my younger selves I shopped for once upon a time. In full fashion identity crisis mode, I fondly remember those old friends.
There was my English teacher self- all Ann Taylor Loft skirts and knit tops with matching knit boleros. Kind of conservative but lots of color and chunky jewelry punched up the fun a little. I wore so much brown in those years that I have sworn it off since.
Then there is the evidence of the Atkins Addict I become at 27. She wore all the designer denim when it started getting really expensive and the back pockets told people how cool you were. She also loved anything BCBG, stilettos and leather hobo bags with fringe five times the size of her head.
There is also a vintage gal in the mix from shopping thrifts since high school. Dresses from the 40’s in gem stone colors with waists tinier than we can imagine girls ever fitting into. Lucite purses and bangles, peep toe shoes, swing jackets, vintage fur! I once shopped a Miami thrift hours after Madonna’s stylist cleaned them out of vintage Pucci. Vintage is my fashion porn.
I can’t leave out the Pregnasaurus of the last three years, less about porn and more about camouflaging new body changes that could only be described as shocking. Mostly stretch cotton Gap and Old Navy, but some gifted Pea in the Pod.
And of course I still own a ginormous sweater collection just in case I ever move to Vermont.
After I reminisce with the old gals, I am left wondering who the hell I am today and what does she want to wear? I can only answer chic and comfortable without tragically trying to look forever 21. The problem is that “Mommy Chic” clothes do not exist as far as my shopping eye can see. On the continuum from Frumpedinka to Fashionista, I fall on the Fashionista side but haven’t hammered out the new mom details just yet. My fun is in the reinventing. And inventing. And reinventing.
I am sure my college ex would criticize my current assortment of rarely-used camel, cream, off-white and white cardigans. What he didn’t understand was that I never dressed for him. The fantasy has always been just for me.
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