Women in Clothes

by Sheila Heti

  JONATHAN: Do you think fashion is a waste of money? Or a waste of time?

  DINA: No. It’s not a waste of money or time.

  JONATHAN: Okay, what do you admire about how other women present themselves?

  DINA: They just look well put-together. A lot of people wear their good clothes to work. When I buy something new, I save it. What I’m saving it for, God only knows. I’m afraid I’ll get paint on it, so what? It’s meant to be worn. Enjoy what you have now! So it gets dirty, so I buy another one. I didn’t pay a million dollars for these garbage clothes.

  JONATHAN: Are there any figures from culture, past or present, whose style you admire or have drawn from?

  DINA: (sighs) I don’t remember, Jonathan. I haven’t gone to the movies in years.

  JONATHAN: What’s the first “investment” item that you bought?

  DINA: When I was forty my parents bought me a fur coat.

  JONATHAN: And do you still wear it?

  DINA: No, it’s in the garage. I didn’t take really good care of it. It smells like the garage.

  JONATHAN: How many seasons did you wear it?

  DINA: Oh, a long time, I loved it. But fur coats—you have to send them to storage or put them in a cedar closet, which I did not.

  JONATHAN: Do you think there’s a reason why you lost interest in it?

  DINA: I don’t know. People were talking about how bad it is to wear fur and that sort of stuff.

  JONATHAN: So you lost the taste. Do you remember the biggest waste of money you ever made on a clothing purchase?

  DINA: I’ve wasted a lot of money. I’ll buy something, like a long top, because I think, “Oh, I’m going to wear it with tights.” And I never wear it, so that’s a waste of money.

  JONATHAN: How much money was that waste?

  DINA: Twenty dollars. I never spend more than twenty dollars on my clothes. (laughs)

  JONATHAN: What’s the most expensive item you’ve ever bought?

  DINA: Oh, the dress for Margie’s wedding. Four, five, six hundred dollars. When you get married, I’ll spend the same thing.

  JONATHAN: (quietly) Okay, I’ll count on it. Was there a point in your life when your style changed dramatically?

  DINA: When I got married I stopped dressing to kill. When I was nineteen, I went to Florida and I had an outfit for every day! I loved to look nice. Oh my God, clothes were so important to me. It was everything. When I got married, I had a closet full of clothes with the tags on that I had never even worn because I was buying and buying.

  JONATHAN: So what happened to that impulse?

  DINA: I don’t know. I just suddenly lost interest once I got married. Weird, eh?

  JONATHAN: You don’t have insight as to why? Was it because you’d gotten married, so you didn’t feel like you had to attract somebody?

  DINA: I guess. I couldn’t stop buying when I was single. I just couldn’t stop buying.

  JONATHAN: If Dad was more complimentary, would you have felt encouraged to continue?

  DINA: No. He thinks that I’m dressed nice and I’m happy.

  JONATHAN: Is it nice to be with someone who kind of doesn’t care?

  DINA: Yes, of course.

  JONATHAN: Do you care about lingerie?

  DINA: No, not at all.

  JONATHAN: Okay. What are you trying to do or achieve when you dress?

  DINA: People think more of you if you dress nicely, this is what I’ve heard. I guess I do dress nicely for other women. I want to look as nice as everyone else.

  JONATHAN: When you were younger, you were a bank teller. Did you dress . . . ?

  DINA: Oh yes, I used to stand on my high heels all day long, I don’t know how I ever did it. That’s how everybody dressed. You wore high heels and dresses. That was fifty-two years ago, oh my God.

  JONATHAN: Okay, what is your cultural background and how has that influenced how you dress?

  DINA: Well, I’m Jewish. How has that influenced me? I guess I dress like other Jewish women. But I don’t look like those well-kept women. They all look sort of alike, and they all have makeup. They wear their hair in a ponytail, their clothes are just so, and their shoes are the latest . . . I can’t be that type.

  JONATHAN: Do you judge those people?

  DINA: No, of course not.

  JONATHAN: Can you talk about how your mother’s way of dressing has influenced you?

  DINA: Well, I used to borrow a lot of my mother’s clothes when I was in my thirties. I always liked what she wore, and our figures were similar, so if I had somewhere to go—like a wedding or something—I would always borrow her dresses. She would say, “Why don’t you buy your own?”

  JONATHAN: How would you answer her?

  DINA: “I like yours.”

  JONATHAN: I’ve seen a few photos of her mother, who seemed like a put-together, fancy lady.

  DINA: Yes. She would never go out of the house looking like a mess. She always fixed herself up. My other grandmother didn’t fix herself up at all. I think I take after her more.

  JONATHAN: Is that something you decided on, or is that just the way you’re built?

  DINA: That’s just the way I’m built. But I wouldn’t leave the house without my pancake on my face.

  JONATHAN: Oh, so you do put on makeup.

  DINA: Not now! Then! Now I don’t care.

  JONATHAN: What’s the situation with your hair?

  DINA: Lately I dye it darker. A little bit red.

  JONATHAN: Does Dad notice these things?

  DINA: Yeah, he does.

  JONATHAN: Do you like when he notices? Most people like to be noticed, to get compliments. . . .

  DINA: No, I don’t care. He’s good, I don’t care.

  JONATHAN: Describe your figure.

  DINA: I have thin legs and a big belly.

  JONATHAN: (laughs) That’s not . . . You’re very unkind to yourself.

  DINA: I am, aren’t I?

  JONATHAN: Is there any article of clothing, piece of makeup, or accessory that you wear or carry with you every day?

  DINA: No.

  JONATHAN: I guess Purell doesn’t count.

  DINA: I guess not.

  JONATHAN: Would you ever do anything like cosmetic surgery?

  DINA: I used to think about it, but now I don’t even think about it.

  JONATHAN: Really? For what?

  DINA: I would have liked to have my nose fixed. I find it not nice. But I find that people who have their nose fixed are not as pretty as they were before, so now I think God gave you the nose because it fits in your face.

  JONATHAN: Do you have a unified way of approaching your life?

  DINA: Appreciate what you have. Some people are smart enough to know what they have and they appreciate it. They don’t let it go by. They’re lucky and they know it. That’s what I’m trying to say. You have to know it.

  JONATHAN: Can you speak to how all this is important?

  DINA: It makes life more interesting. It’s nice to go somewhere and think, “Oh, I look nice,” as opposed to, “Oh, I see a hole in my dress.”

  JONATHAN: Okay, please say anything you’d like about your life that might put this survey into some sort of context.

  DINA: I don’t know. I’m very happy.

  JONATHAN: It makes me a little bit sad when I hear you be harsh with yourself.

  DINA: Aw. Actually, sometimes I’m really—I’m in love with myself sometimes. (laughs)

  COMPLIMENT

  “JEANS”

  (Dog barking)

  STARLEE: Are your knees cold?

  WOMAN: No. I know it’s weird, but I’m sort of used to it.

  STARLEE: Did you make the holes yourself?

  WOMAN: No. I bought them this way. (laughs)

  STARLEE: They look good!

  WOMAN: Thank you. I know it’s ridiculous to buy them, but you couldn’t make them yourself. I mean, you could, but not that perfect.

  STARLEE: Because by the time they ripped naturally, they’d be
all stretched out. Did they reinforce them to make them not rip more?

  WOMAN: No, which is also what I kind of like about them, they just sort of do their thing.

  STARLEE: Do you think someone would have to be your height for them to hit the knee just right?

  WOMAN: Yeah, I think because I have long legs they hit in the best place.

  STARLEE: Do you ever try and find jeans with the holes in a different place?

  WOMAN: Oh no, that’s just too much. (laughs)

  ON DRESSING

  CALAMITY

  RENEE GLADMAN

  I began the day “a woman in clothes” wanting to be a woman in clothes, because Danielle had had a certain body all her life. And I had had a certain body, but where she had regained the body of her life, which she had temporarily lost, such that she carried a memory of the other body but didn’t have to see it, I had this body, which had been mine for a long time, but which may not have been my body, in that sense of Danielle’s—a body she liked to drape in clothes. My body was wearing the red pajamas and hers the dark green and hers made a shape around her butt with a line bisecting, and the line wrote “ass” all over everything. My line wrote “penis-pocket,” because of the slit, the pouch at the front of the red pajamas. And the day was getting on. I was wondering how to be a woman in my red pajamas and thick red wool sweater, my skintight pajamas, my striped sweater. I was wondering how, if the bell rang, I would run down the stairs a woman in clothes, as if someone had written a story about our day, where we stayed on this side of the snow that was falling, and the inside was our city. We wanted a city full of living, so we walked quickly back and forth in front of the full-length mirror. She swished past me; I swished past her, with hours passing. We were women in clothes for a time (despite my undershirt being tucked into my skintights), and this made you want to get to know a person. “You are red everything,” she said, looking all the way to my socks. But my slit, my pocket, made me shy and I was dizzy from the speed of my walking: I was in my skintight pajamas and carried, in them, a voluptuous body that was probably an impostor. My sweater sat on top of my belly; my socks slid across the floor. I was red-black-red-red-black in that order and something else in reverse. Then several hours passed. “She was now in a white shirt,” wrote the story, “a blouse, intersected by blue infinitely. And though the woman was dressed. . . .” it carried on. And though Danielle was now in bed—I began writing my own story—she was wearing jeans, and this was her body. To find mine, I had to push my hand through the slit, the pouch of the red pajamas, and show the ring on my middle finger: it was something along the road to getting there; it was a feminine gesture—if you looked only at the grace of the hand—an accessory.

  COLLECTION

  DELIA MARCUS’s friendship bracelets

  SURVEY

  DRESS FOR SUCCESS

  “I wear bicycle gloves at the computer as if it were professional writing gear.” —ANN BOGLE

  GENEVIEVE FERRIER I’m a doctor and I read somewhere that patients don’t want their doctor to look like a successful businesswoman. That liberated me from buying any more “dress for success” suits that women were told to wear in the eighties. But patients also don’t want you to look like a clueless frump. So I have a casual professional look that shows off my own style.

  RONNIE ANGEL POPE Once, I dressed up in this crazy, kooky, wild outfit with the intention of going into Vivienne Westwood’s shop in Cardiff and asking for a job. I went in, looked at the clothes, looked at the people, and after smiling nervously, just walked out. I was so, so, so nervous. Even to this day, it still makes me shake just thinking about it. I haven’t been back since.

  JOANNA WALSH By the time I was six, I’d formulated a theory: The good people grow up to be men, and the bad people grow up to be women. Men had so many rewards, I thought, and women so few, that I could intuit no other reasonable explanation. So I bullied my mother into buying me boys’ shoes throughout primary school, and in dresses, I felt fundamentally uncomfortable. When I started doing readings in public, I was unable to wear anything but pants or overalls. As I’m not particularly butch, the effect tended toward the cute, but in the overalls I’ve been erotically as well as professionally successful. When I launched a collection of stories recently at a bookshop in Paris, I wore a dress for the first time—one I bought on impulse the day before. It’s hardly ultra-feminine, but it’s perhaps a sign that I feel more relaxed about marrying the idea of “femininity” with an event at which I’d like to achieve a degree of professional success.

  ALESIA PULLINS Sometimes I feel like no matter how I present myself, I look threatening. I think it’s just because I am a black woman. So sometimes I’ll want to dress to seem more approachable. Like for job interviews or meetings or something that’s more corporate, I tend to wear lighter colors, even though I don’t really feel it in my soul.

  AMY BONNAFFONS I had a terrible temp job at a real estate office where I was completely invisible except to the openly sexist boss. I coped by adopting a fake persona. I wore ugly slacks and button-down shirts. I bought dorky non-corrective glasses for five dollars at CVS. I decided that if I looked not like “myself” but like an uninteresting temp, it would be the uninteresting temp-girl character who did the job, not me. I felt I was putting one over on everybody.

  HIMANEE GUPTA-CARLSON After I finished my first marathon in 2000, I wore the finisher T-shirt as a nightshirt for about a month. I rediscovered the shirt in August as I was training for my tenth marathon, which also was my first one in five years. I wore it to sleep every night for about a month before the marathon, to remember that first one and to inspire and psych up myself.

  MARILYN BOOTH I remember having to dress very formally for a job interview that was going to last two days. I was freaked out about making sure I felt comfortable, so I bought two suits. Though I got the job, I can’t stand to wear them now because they remind me of the stress.

  ZOE WHITTALL I have never really achieved a polished look no matter what I’m wearing. There is always some cat hair adhered to me, or too many bruises on my legs, I have split ends. I’m five feet tall, and I’ve never had defined triceps. Clothing can’t change those things about me.

  ANA ZIR My world is hospice patients and their families. First, I want to present professionalism, openness, warmth, and cleanliness, but also a little style that sets me apart from the other nurses on the unit, whether that means matching clogs or the latest scrubs with the latest gizmos and gadgets in my pockets. I hope they remember me not just for what I do, but because I left a positive impression by the way I dressed. People do notice. Even very sick ones.

  REBECCA ACKERMANN I work in a field, technology, where there are very few women and even fewer in power positions. It’s cool for dudes to wear flip-flops and T-shirts, but I’ve found that it really helps me project authority when I dress up slightly. It’s so strange to me that dressing down can signal power for men but never for women.

  JAGODA WARDACH My first year at university in Poland, it was just after my trip to New York, and I had so many nice things. I was like, Okay, now I’m at the university, I have to reinvent my style—’cause I’m not a high school student anymore. I was nineteen and I felt this responsibility to be a real student. I had so many new things to wear, and then I found myself isolated from the group, because the girls were jealous. I heard them sometimes saying, “Oh, there’s our star coming,” but I was not—I just wasn’t wearing clothes that I would wear to the club.

  ANITA POWELL When I went to my last job interview (for the job I currently have) I wore a classic, rather boring interview suit. The boss was surprised because I had been working for her as a freelancer for six months and she was used to seeing me in my normal, more elaborate attire. I told her I felt I should show that I appreciated the seriousness of this situation, then showed her how I had paired the suit with my bright red shoes. She said, “Oh good, I wanted to make sure it was actually you so I can offer you this job.”

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nbsp; MELISSA HENDERSON I grew up around educated black people who ingrained in me that style and dressing well were key factors to success and combating stereotypes. I never go out of the house with my hair not done.

  ALEXA S. This week I packed only party dresses for what turned out to be a very informal film market. All the men were in jeans. I hope they didn’t think I was trying to look sexy because my projects were shit.

  ELISSA SCHAPPELL We focus so much in politics on what women look like—look at the Hillary Clinton headband debacle, or the focus on Michelle Obama’s wearing sleeveless dresses that show off her ripped arms, or Wendy Davis in her white suit and pink sneakers. Does anyone ever say: Given that Mitch McConnell appears to have been separated at birth from one of the Sneetches, he should replace his eyeglasses with a pair that makes him look less goggle-eyed? Or that Justice Roberts would look less dumpy if he ditched the made-in-China blue suit and showed off his toned ass?

  LAURA SNELGROVE Recently, I’ve started to consciously dress in a more “professional” manner when I attend prenatal appointments. I noticed that when I was dressed in my usual casual summer style, I was treated like a helpless teen mother. I was talked down to and about as if I wasn’t in the room. I had to fight to have my questions answered. I’ve since made the switch to dressing as though I’m coming from an office, and I find that I’m spoken to more directly and as though I may have done my research. I resent having to do this.

  MOLLY MURRAY Toward the end of graduate school, I was interviewed for an academic job by a woman who I knew to be sleeping with my then boyfriend. What to wear? I opted for radical neutrality so that I could look with a maximally critical eye at what she was wearing (clearly the intellectual content of the interview was not foremost in my mind). I was bitchily gratified to see that she had on “interesting” shoes, and I left the room feeling smug and triumphant, even though I didn’t get the job and she ended up with the boyfriend.