Cheers everyone and welcome to Friday’s Morning Open Thread. Yesterday, the grandson of the owner of the company I work for got me a laptop for home use—so I am not confined to the small screen and virtual keyboard of my iPhone and the annoyance of wresting with this site’s hard-to-get-to editing tools. And which means I may meander a bit more than usual.
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Notes from Below Sea Level
“A Short History of Clothing”
Last night, my partner and I had a conversation about clothes—not mine, particularly, but mostly about her work that day, which involved preparing winter clothes for a client to be frozen for a couple days before they were packed away and the spring wardrobe was rotated in from several storage areas in various places. Honestly, it’s mindboggling to me that some people own that many clothes (though, as an international entertainer, it’s expected and necessary). But I will preface, this next part by pointing out that I, myself, am not such a bad dresser.
I’m not claiming any heightened sartorial sense or, but if you saw me on any given day you wouldn’t immediately think, “classically rumpled with a hint of nouveau bum chic.” (Well, you might think something along those lines, but I’m hoping not.) My style has developed over the years. You see, I grew up wearing hand-me-downs and clothes donated to my family—except for my church clothes. My church clothes were black shoes, black socks, black pants, and a white (short-sleeved until I was 13) Oxford style shirt. I wore that from 11:00 until 1:00 every Sunday until I sorely outgrew them and gave them to my next younger brother.
My school clothes were Keds (originally white I assume) with white socks, corduroy pants (brown or blue) and one of three button up shirts. A bright red and blue and yellow plaid one was my favorite and I looked down right sporting in it all through the fourth grade, after which it essentially fell apart because I wore it two or three times a week. And this was, essentially, how things went until I got a job at 13 and had enough money to buy jeans and some long-sleeved cotton shirts (light blue or white). At 18, when I got my first real paycheck from my job with Otis Engineering (as an offshore wire line helper), I bought my first pair of shoes: some beautiful Deerslayer Lace Up Slip On Moccasins that I had until about a decade or so ago when, after almost 28 years, I just couldn’t get them repaired any longer. [Finding a truly gifted cobbler these days is harder than you might think.]
So, I guess I should revise my original statement above and admit that I’m not really such a good dresser—but I am presentable.
By the time I made it to college, though, my clothing style was partially solidified, a basic but presentable ensemble of what I felt comfortable wearing. The Deerslayers, dark socks, blue jeans (I had one pair of black jeans), a tee shirt (typically black), and a button-down long sleeve shirt—to which I would add a dark blue pull over sweater when it got cold. The variations on that were dependent on the second-hand stores in whatever neighborhood I lived. This might surprise you, but basic light blue or white shirts are relatively rare in charity shops, so most of my shirts these days are some weird patterns tending toward muted colors. And yes, almost my entire wardrobe comes from second-hand stores and has for pretty much my entire life. Except for my shoes, which to this day are bought new and always leaving a dent in my budget (though the black wingtips I own are 37 years old and look only slightly used—the plus side of spending a fair amount for accessories).
The weird part, too, is that, though I worked in a professional office for 30 years, I only had two suits (one I found used back in ‘89 for around $45.00 plus tax and a really nice one my friends bought me years later for my first Supreme Court argument). To those, add a genuine Harris Tweed jacket with leather-covered buttons I picked up for $4.00 at Appalachian Village my senior year at Berea College and you have my collective formal wardrobe. [Working in poverty law has certain advantages, like being able to wear jeans and a white shirt to the office everyday.]
Okay, I’ll be a bit more honest at this point: I’m an absolutely awful dresser.
I really am. Replace the Deerslayers with work boots and white socks (blisters can become a problem with colored socks), add a ball cap, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in my clothes today if compared to a typical outfit I threw on the morning of May 10, 1979. It’s that bad. My parents were necessarily bad dressers—I think most children of the depression dressed neat and staid, but with a hint of guilt sewn into the seams. My dad mostly wore inexpensive suits for work (principal clothes, to be sure) but my mom had a bit of a Jackie-O flare going on until she got much older and less stable when capri pants and white linen blouses were exchanged for cotton-blend house coats and slippers from Woolworths.
This short history of mine—recounted on a warm, humid morning while I sit on my patio dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a black tee shirt—is my way of trying to understand why it is my love is constantly presenting me with gifts of clothes, though I’ve made it pretty clear I have more than I could ever wear and certainly all I need. I’m thinking this morning that maybe, just maybe, it isn’t the number of clothes I own but the clothes themselves. Maybe?
You see, she’s got a certain style as well. Always has. Not only can I remember exactly what she was wearing when I first met her 49 years ago, I remember, down to the scuffed black boots, precisely what she was wearing when I showed up at her mountain cabin 22 years later and 1,300 miles from where I lived just to say I missed her voice—and the times between those times and the times since those times. I know for a fact she owns more shoes today than I’ve owned my entire life; and while I don’t know for sure, I suspect she has more clothes in her closets and dressers at this moment than I’ve owned my entire life. [Don’t tell her I told you, but that woman owns more than one pair of heeled shoes just for dancing samba. Who does that?]
Her style is vintage as well. And the funny thing is that it always has been. I have photos stretching back almost a half century and no matter at what age, her style is classic and, even when young, vintage. A picture I have here from when she lived in Spain or later in Portugal would make you think it’s a movie still. She has GoGo boots Nancy Sinatra would lust after, silk blouses that make you want to reach out and rub the fabric between your thumb and first two fingers and ask where she bought it, dresses that remind you of Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night, and outfits that look like they were cut from old issues of Vogue. One of the problems I’m having, as you may have guessed, is that most of her wardrobe is also from secondhand stores—though not exactly the ones with GoodWill or St. Vincent’s emblazoned above their entrances. [When I tell her that her style makes me look pretty shabby, she always tells me I dress just fine, which might be love over reason or a harmless white lie.]
Our styles, our lives, are so different.
I’m fine with this, though; and she says she is as well. Then again, there is this latest gift: a classically cut quilted shirt with remarkable buttons and a style that would remind you of an out-of-place American in 60-year-old glasses stranded in Italy trying desperately to get the attention of the one woman in the entirety of Florence that outshines the treasures secreted in the deepest recesses of the Uffizi. But I’m here, on the gulf coast of Louisiana, and it’s time to go inside, put on the next in line of my seven shirts, and head in to work.
(May 2024)
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My hope for the day is that each of you celebrates life in one way or another and finds peace in these turbulent times. Be well, be kind, and appreciate the love you have in your life.
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Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?