Sweater dress logic
That's me up there, in our
office/guest room/exercise space, dressed in
full stay-at-home mom regalia. Baggy cropped
pants? Check. Shapeless long-sleeved t-shirt?
Check. Hair in desperate need of a cut or at
the very least a comb? Oh, yeah. And then of
course, there is the room itself, the armoire
mirror obscured by smudges, the
partially-made bed, the pillow propped on my
desk chair so that I don't get a backache
when I write, the old boxes in the corner
that my mother puts in the back windows at
night during her visits to block out the
neighbor's porch light (she likes to sleep in
near darkness). Welcome to my glamorous
world.
I don't tend to get dressed up during the
week (or ever), because what's the point?
Most mornings I sit around writing or letting
my mind go in four or five dark directions,
and afternoons are kid time. I'm not going to
put on my fancy spandex pants to go to the
library. Over the years I’ve worn many short
and form-fitting outfits, but since my son
was born I've apparently given up on looking
good. It isn't worth the bother or the
expense, and who am I trying to impress? My
husband finds even frumpy-mom me attractive
and I have no female coworkers to dazzle. The
game of dress-up, of wrapping myself in
appealing fabrics and styles, is no longer
familiar.
But feeling frumpy is depressing, so I'm
starting to think about what I wear, to
attempt to dress like I'm still in the game,
like I haven't given up completely on feeling
attractive. It takes work, sometimes it isn't
worth it, but I make the effort. I've started
to go shopping for clothes in person again,
not online or at outlet stores, but in resale
shops, places like the Crossroads Trading
Company, where I might find
funky, offbeat duds on the cheap, where
I'm likely to find interesting options in
small sizes.
This is where I found the sweater dress.
The dress was short, slate blue and
formfitting, with a princess waist and a cozy
turtleneck collar. It went well with a pair
of knee-high black leather boots that I
bought at the same store. When will I wear this
thing? I thought, but clothes
shopping often puts me in fantasy mode, a
sunny place where I shower seven days a week
and get my hair cut four times a year, where
I remember to brush my teeth hours before I
pick up the kid from preschool, where I
decide to put on cute dresses every day
instead of baggy pants. The dress was under
twenty bucks, so I went for it. I made an
investment in fantasy. My husband and I were
planning a nice dinner at Oliveto
to mark the
completion of his dissertation, so I had
an occasion.
On the evening of our
dinner, I laid next to the boy as usual,
waiting for him to fall asleep, for his
breathing to become even and light before I
tiptoed out of his room to change. Boy
asleep, dress safely on, I applied the
tiniest bit of makeup and pulled my hair
back. As I creaked down the steps, my husband
was talking in the living room with our
babysitter. She is freshly twenty-one,
effortless with both adults and children, and
as I came closer I realized that I was
wearing a
dress, that I was wearing
the
dress. It was
as though I had just put on a buttless
formfitting leather jumpsuit. I felt exposed,
like I was pretending to be something I
wasn't, a young person, a stylish
person, non-maternal.
I had brought a coat with me downstairs and I
whipped it on before the babysitter could see
me, then ran behind the magazine rack to put
on my boots. Indecency covered, I fluttered
out the door with my husband before she could
notice that I was dressed as an imposter,
that I was attempting to play the part of an
attractive, stylish woman. And in the cold
restaurant, I kept my coat wrapped around my
shoulders, covered my cheap disguise.
Did the blame for my discomfort lie within me
or was it the dress? Was I over-thinking the
whole thing? (Remember how
neurotic I can
be?) The dress had one
more chance to prove herself. We had a
cocktail party to attend.
The party took place in a typical Berkeley
house, a small two-bed, one bath, and it was
hopping by the time we arrived at 8:30. It
was my kind of crowd, mainly parents that had
escaped their kids for the night, a mix of
thirty- and forty-somethings. The women were
brightly plumed, showing off cleavage and
shoulders, wearing dresses in thin colorful
fabrics. The room was a tangle of bare legs,
and men in dark colors, of manicured toes
peeking out of exotic shoes. I felt
positively demure in my turtleneck sweater
dress with black tights and scuffed black
boots. The princess waist seemed too
youthful, like I should have had an oversized
lollipop in my hand instead of a beer. And it
was hot in there, so steamy that a bloom of
sweat broke out on my wooled-over torso. I
could have removed my boots and taken off my
tights, could have swung the tights
seductively around my head, grazed the faces
of the other partygoers before tossing the
hosiery out of an open window. But instead I
pulled on my turtleneck, looked enviously at
the bared collarbones around me.
Apparently clothes are all about context.
I haven't given up on my sweater dress or on
regaining my fashion mojo. But I might need
to start fresh, to begin with the foundation
garments. Next week I will jettison my
vintage underwear collection for a more
contemporary look.
You won't be reading about it here.
First image: Me, in
the office, this morning. The
frump-quotient has gone up since then. I
got cold and put on a fuzzy sweater and
socks.
Second image: Sweater dress.