I did a bad thing once.
Well, no: I’ve done bad things lots of times. Obviously. But this time sticks out in my memory both because it was a bad thing that I did on purpose, with total awareness of said badness, and because while on the scale of “bad things that one can do” it wasn’t all that bad, having caused no grave physical or emotional harm…it was still something that I think was both immoral and dishonest. I also thought so at the time, when I did it.
And that’s bad.
Back in 2007, I moved to New York to live with Kendrick and started desperately pursuing any and all leads that I thought might land me at a desk in the Conde Nast or Time/Life buildings. I sent emails, begged friends for introductions, sent out resumes, made phone call after phone call…and ended up with exactly one actual interview with a major editor.
I was so nervous. I knew – I mean, really knew – that when it came to fashion I was more of an interested and enthusiastic participant than the kind of impossibly cool experts whom I imagined roamed the halls at the big magazines (dressed head-to-toe in designers whose names I couldn’t even spell, let alone afford, of course). I was terrified that I would be revealed as the interloper I felt certain that I was, and fixated all this terror on one thing:
What in god’s name was I going to wear?
I mean, I had cute stuff, sure: but not necessarily fashion-y stuff. No major labels. Certainly nothing from the “current season” (whatever that even meant). And I also didn’t have any money, and didn’t have the confidence to head down to a vintage store and put together something unique. And so on the day before my interview, after my bartending shift at Hogs ‘n’ Heifers ended, I crossed the street to the DVF store on Washington and bought a ludicrously expensive green silk blouse and white bellbottoms, fully aware that my plan was to wear them to my interview and then return them.
And that’s what I did: wore them to the interview, and then folded them back up, wrapped them in the tissue paper that I had managed to remove without tearing the stickers, and trucked them back down to Washington Street.
I still feel bad about it.
Except not that bad, because you know what happened? Karma intervened rather definitively: I both did not get the job and did not get to return the clothing. The manager took one look at the clothing, said “This has been worn,” and dismissed me from the store, extremely red-faced and the not-so-proud new owner of an outfit that I really seriously could not afford.
Serves me right.
So despite the fact that snow-white bellbottoms that cost approximately half a month’s rent are perhaps not the most practical thing to own, own them I do. I never wear them because I’ve built them up in my head into Those Expensive Pants That Must Not Be Harmed…
But it’s been six years now that the things have been sitting in a box labelled (I kid you not) “Jordan’s Special Clothing.”
That’s ridiculous.
When a reader commented under my Leather Bralet post that I should try wearing my new find with high-waist pants, my initial response was, “That’d be cute, but I don’t really own any.”
…And then I realized: I TOTALLY DO.
And so I wore my fancy white bellbottoms with my inexpensive leather bralet and my crazy/awesome new hat. To a doctor’s appointment (re-exploring the CBT thing) up in New Haven, of course.
I loved it. I felt great in it. Confident.
Like myself.
I even felt…a little bad.
On me: Express faux leather bralet; DVF bellbottoms (similar); beret c/o Hat Attack; Tom Ford sunglasses.
