Women in Clothes

by Sheila Heti

  COLLECTION

  VERONICA MANCHESTER’s earplugs used over the course of one week

  SURVEY

  ADVICE AND TIPS

  “You’ll never look like you’ve fallen apart completely if you’re wearing a good pair of shoes.” —SASHA GORA

  JYTZA GUZMAN I never try on my clothes beforehand and I know that no one would ever follow that rule because it sounds crazy, but for some reason, I have this sense where I know if something is going to look good on me. I’ll put it on the day of the event and everything is perfectly fine.

  JENNIFER ARMBRUST Clothes that list more than one fiber are undesirable. Too many fiber types seems like a sad statement of late-stage capitalism, like, “We had some surplus angora, nylon, and elastane lying around so we threw in five percent of each with your wool sweater. Hope you like it!”

  MARGAUX WILLIAMSON Wear whatever makes you less sad and feels right when it’s on. Don’t wear too many things that serve no function. Wear what you can wear on a bicycle. Wear what you can run in or survive in if necessary. If something feels right, wear it all the time. Don’t look too cool. Keep some things in!

  MAYA FUHR I have never shopped online, and to be honest, I don’t understand it. The fun of shopping to me is feeling every piece of fabric, jumping to the colors that intrigue me, trying them on in a relaxed fashion, taking my time to decide if this is a good “investment” and if I could see it hanging on my very own hanger, then walking out with a little bag in my hand. I am obsessed with shopping for secondhand clothing. Nobody else has it, and it has a story that comes with it. Spending money excessively on really expensive pieces sort of ruins shopping for me, because you feel a certain guilt afterward. Some of my favorite pieces were five dollars. No matter what, I think that the wrists should be shown, and the ankles too! Just rolling a big sweater at the cuffs makes the whole look more elegant and feminine. My dad always said, “If the colors go together in a flower, then they work together in an outfit.” I agree. Colors that you see in nature, or in a flower garden, give a tremendous spectrum: mustard yellow, browns, beiges, dusty pinks, greens. The bright colors that pop in flowers, like red or yellow, those are usually the colors in my wardrobe that stand out. I like “timeless” pieces, so that each purchase is an investment and adds to the collection that is my wardrobe. If something is in style and obviously will not last, there is no point in buying it.

  PATRICIA MARX My mother said red and black was for drum majorettes.

  AUDREY GELMAN When wearing a skirt or slacks, I often tuck my shirt into my underwear. It’s a trick my mother taught me to hold shirts into place. After moving in with my boyfriend, he witnessed me pulling up pants with my underwear over my shirt, and asked if I was having a seizure.

  CAILIN HILL There was a time when I first moved to New York when I blew money on dumb shit like $1,200,200 heels and $700 coats. I reflect on these occurrences as huge regrets. If you’re going to blow a huge chunk of dough on designer goods, make sure it’s “timeless,” like a black pump. I wore those neon-orange platforms twice before I decided I was over them. I always try to look a little too dressed down for events. And if I really need makeup, I just stop by Sephora and use theirs. I don’t fuck around with mascara testers, though.

  KARIMA CAMMELL So many psychological problems fell away when I started tailoring my clothes to my body instead of the other way around.

  SARAH NICOLE PRICKETT I believe contradictions make you attractive. So if I wear something short, it’s not also tight, or if it’s both short and tight, I wear it with old boots. If I wear skinny pants, I usually wear big sweaters, and if I have a fancy dress on, I like it when my nails chip. I love a gorgeous necklace with an old gray shirt. Try on many things, and stop saying, “Oh, that’s not me,” or “I could never.” So boring! TRY. It’s fun sometimes to have on one thing that feels off or like you borrowed it from someone else. It shows you’re not that precious about yourself, and it throws the rest of you, the “real you,” into relief.

  ANA ZIR My mother-in-law once said, “Save all the pictures of yourself you hate. In thirty years you’ll think you looked fabulous.” She was right.

  LIANE BALABAN Dressing is about helping yourself do the work you were put on this earth to do. Everyone has their own relationship to beauty, but I would say: Don’t be obvious. Try not to buy things that are mass-produced. Flea markets, church bazaars, or local boutiques are good. Curate rather than shop. Your wardrobe should be a collection of beloved pieces you wear for decades. When you witness beauty, it’s visceral—there is no second guessing it. Plato says that feeling of absolute knowing can inspire the beholder to quest after a similar revelation in other disciplines of life—poetry or music or science, for example. The ultimate experience of eros, then, is one that inspires you to live in a questioning, questing way, seeking truth in all areas of life. Ergo, true beauty turns you into a philosopher!

  ERIKA THORMAHLEN When I was younger, I believed in a reverse psychology of dressing: a night out on the town meant a black wool turtleneck or a skirt worn over pants for maximum coverage. I wore a grey cashmere turtleneck and a white knee-length slip skirt to the Playboy Mansion when I was nineteen. (Though part of me wishes I had worn a baby-doll nightgown in those early, slamming-body days when I shook hands with Hef.)

  HEIDI HOWARD I feel like the biggest part of style is making do with what you have.

  ANU HENDERSON I’m with the French, who supposedly believe that less is more when it comes to makeup, and that a healthy complexion shouldn’t be covered with foundation. I spend much more on moisturizers and facials than I ever would on makeup. The more I look like a messy, pretty boy, the more attractive I feel. I actually break most rules: loose threads hang from where I sewed buttons; bleach stains on a new tunic, from cleaning floors; torn pockets and holes in the cashmere shirt I refuse to stop wearing. The joke about men wearing their underwear till it’s in shreds is true for me and clothes. I suppose in my head I’m imagining I look like a disheveled adult matchstick-seller. This is acceptable so long as the clothes are clean, so say I. It’s advisable to strike some balance between being comfortable and captivating. I once met Isabella Rossellini, who was stunning in her usual uniform of an Italian men’s suit; however, when she crossed her legs, I saw that she was wearing white tube socks, which I found reassuring.

  CONVERSATION

  ANYONE CAN LOOK COOL

  MUSICIAN KIM GORDON OF SONIC YOUTHS PEAKS TO NOVELIST & EDITOR CHRISTOPHER BOLLEN

  CHRIS: I want to talk about when you were starting out as a musician. What were you wearing at the time?

  KIM: I was just really poor at the time. (laughs) My mom grew up during the Depression and she really never bought new clothes. So all my life, I bought clothes from thrift stores, or she made them. I had kind of a mishmash fashion. I was kind of a tomboy because of my older brother. Button-downs and ’70s corduroy flares or boot-cuts.

  CHRIS: I feel like women who have older brothers tend to have a more tomboyish look. Some of the brothers’ clothes mix in with theirs.

  KIM: Yeah, that’s possible. But when I started performing, I really got into the idea of playing against type. We were playing this very dissonant music, so I liked the idea of wearing a dress onstage because it didn’t really look punk rock or hard rock. It was kind of vulnerable. I think you have to make yourself vulnerable in order to do a good performance.

  CHRIS: That’s interesting, because rock ’n’ roll has a history of costumes involving armor or shields or vectors of confusion. But you were trying to go in the opposite direction. You were trying to open up.

  KIM: I didn’t have a persona. I was just being normal. When we went to England, that was really baffling to them. Everyone had personas. That was how they escaped the class system.

  CHRIS: Were people surprised that you weren’t going with the standard punk rock look of ripped leather, safety pins. . . .

  KIM: I guess. Being a woman in music you were meant to present yoursel
f as a freak or something.

  CHRIS: So you would wear dresses. With what kind of shoes?

  KIM: Motorcycle boots. I was always influenced by people like Anita Pallenberg or Marianne Faithfull. People like that.

  CHRIS: Do you still try to find vulnerability with what you wear on stage?

  KIM: I guess. I don’t know. I have this one dress I wore in 1991 when we did the tour that was in the film 1991: The Year Punk Broke. It was this striped dress that looked very casual and sporty, but it was also really short, and at every show I would sweat and it would shrink and get shorter and shorter.

  CHRIS: So the dress became a document of your stage performances. Did you notice a big difference when you went from living in Los Angeles to living in New York?

  KIM: Yeah. In a way it was really hard for me to find my fashion groove in New York. As soon as I moved back East, my hair turned dark and I was wearing glasses all the time. I just felt really nerdy. I didn’t know how to dress for the cold.

  CHRIS: Were there people in New York you knew well, or was it lonely?

  KIM: I didn’t really know that many people. I had just met the artist Dan Graham and he introduced me to other people. And I had one friend who was the sister of a friend of mine in high school. You know, it was like that.

  CHRIS: I wonder about the genesis of the fashion label you started.

  KIM: Oh, X-Girl. We knew the X-Large guys through Mike D and the Beastie Boys. I think Daisy [von Furth] was actually working at the X-Large store, and one of the brothers knew that we talked about going to thrift stores together and looking for 517 boot-cut cords and perfect-fitting T-shirts. He asked Daisy if she’d be interested in doing a girls’ line, and she asked me if I would do it with her. Daisy was into really preppy stuff, which was part of her teenage world growing up. Mine was more like ’60s and ’70s stuff. So it was a mix. The other thing I was really into was the look of Godard movies and Anna Karina and that timeless ’60s way of dressing.

  CHRIS: Was there a specific kind of girl you had in mind as a customer?

  KIM: We wanted to make shapes that any size girl would look good in. It was a reaction to all the really baggy streetwear coming out of the boys’ skater world. Everything was so big. We wanted to do things like the perfect A-line skirt or an A-line dress. If you’re a big girl, it’s better to wear something that is more fitted. It was tomboyish and cool, I guess. Sort of Françoise Hardy–ish.

  CHRIS: X-Girl was concurrent with high fashion exploding, as well as the supermodel ideal and extreme beauty. Did it feel like you were presenting the other option?

  KIM: X-Girl was more low-key about fashion. But it was totally non-grunge. There were clean and deliberate lines. There were no muddy colors.

  CHRIS: You’ve mentored a lot of women in terms of style and attitude. I know you probably don’t want to claim that. (laughs) Has anyone said you’ve been an influence on them—younger women, or women of any age?

  KIM: Um, I’ve heard that. (laughs)

  CHRIS: Does that surprise you?

  KIM: Kind of, yeah. But I don’t really feel anything from that. I don’t like becoming too self-conscious about what I’m doing. And I guess I feel that I’m always still evolving. I don’t really know what I am, exactly. In my mind I’m much younger than I am. (laughs) You know, it’s great.

  CHRIS: Do you think your style had anything to do with the fact that you were playing with men? You probably had more male peers than women peers back then.

  KIM: In the beginning, I did wear lots of T-shirts. I remember Mark Arm from Mudhoney saying to me once, “How come you don’t wear T-shirts anymore?” I felt like I exhausted that. One gets sick of wearing band shirts. It probably has something to do with not wanting to be too flashy. When I think of style icons or people who were influential, I think more about Chloë [Sevigny]. To me, she was very adventurous and creative.

  CHRIS: It’s sort of an unfair thing that happens to women more than men, but if you’re considered stylish as a woman, there’s this expectation that you’re always going to show up at a party and be stylish.

  KIM: That you’re going to what, I’m sorry?

  CHRIS: Show up at every event or party and be stylish. There will always be someone who’ll want to take your picture.

  KIM: Oh yeah, that’s a whole other world that I’ve only dipped my toe into. It’s very strange. You can’t just go somewhere, you know.

  CHRIS: Do you ever feel, “I have to dress up for this thing, I’m going to have to take it to number ten on the register.”

  KIM: No, though I do feel like I want to look good. It’s very hard to just look good. Also, you don’t know how your outfit is going to photograph.

  CHRIS: I know. Sometimes you match blacks that seem like they’re suitable enough, and then someone takes a picture of you and you look at it in the bright light and it’s disturbingly different.

  KIM: I wore this Rodarte dress that they gave to me to wear to the Girls premiere.

  CHRIS: Was it something you chose or—I know Kate and Laura Mulleavy at Rodarte admire you, so . . . ?

  KIM: They sent it to me, and I was like, “Well, if I don’t wear it here, then where am I going to wear it?” You know, aside from my living room. (laughs)

  CHRIS: Is it strange to have people send you clothes—that whole fame and fashion complex where it’s like, “We need you to wear this. . . . Now go out and smile in it”?

  KIM: I mean, I know them and they’re friends. I really like what they do and I could never afford to buy their stuff. And it’s fun to wear their dresses. But they’re the only ones. . . . (laughs) Nobody sends me things to wear.

  CHRIS: You were also in that Yves Saint Laurent ad.

  KIM: Oh yeah, that’s true.