Women in Clothes

by Sheila Heti

  MONA KOWALSKA We went into a store once when my daughter was small and she saw this belt—it was hideous: wide, purple elastic, with a big, lumpy buckle. She was like, Ding! The guy in the store said, “You know, I don’t think anyone’s ever gonna like this belt as much as you do. Here, have it.” She wore it for years. For years! It was her thing. It’s a big deal for her to get clothing from me that I’ve designed, but it’s also a big deal for her to say, “I don’t want that.” She’s in between those two feelings. She wants to be her own person. And I understand.

  SARA HABEIN I have a gold dress that I wore to prom when I was sixteen, and again for Halloween as a Dead Prom Queen when I was around twenty-six. It’s a muted gold and it’s beautiful. Even though I don’t fit into it anymore, I love it too much to get rid of it. Who knows, maybe my daughter will wear it.

  LIZ LERMAN My daughter, Anna, spent a lot of her early life in rehearsal studios, backstage in dressing rooms and hallways, and on airplanes and buses while I was on tour with the dance company I founded twelve years before she was born. When she was a baby and then a toddler, I played a little choreographic game with myself. The task was to get all my dance bags (with rehearsal clothes, music, books, and food) and all of her bags (with a change of clothes, toys, diapers, and food) out of the house and into the car in one trip. Of course, I also had to carry her or hold her hand as she got older, and this last lovely detail, along with managing the keys to lock the house and then the keys to open the car door, made for a lively, rhythmic urgency. The whole thing was an excellent choreographic task. It included weight sharing, sequence, balance, effort, strength, even love—all part of the essence of making a dance.

  CONVERSATION

  IT’S A GOOD FLEECE

  KERRY BARBER as told to Sheila Heti

  There’s a thrift store in Dawson City, Yukon, then there’s a free store. The free store’s by the dump and the thrift store is run by the Anglican church. It’s the same-quality stuff. The guy who runs the free store, he works there all the time, but there’s volunteers that go out there and sort. Everyone likes going to the free store, but you have to have a vehicle to get there because it’s out of town. You can find good stuff all the time, like I find my baby Old Navy and some Gap clothes at the free store, and same thing at the thrift store. All the kids’ clothes are free up to age two, so everyone recycles. Everyone recycles clothes. That’s because kids don’t get things dirty. Little kids, babies, they just lie there and don’t do anything.

  You can find good stuff at the thift store. I found a Mountain Equipment sweatshirt that was a nice color, and a lot of people go there for Halloween. And if you know the thrift store lady, you can say, “I’m looking for this”—maybe you want navy cords—and she’ll search in her brain and find it for you in a couple of days and bring it to you. Sometimes you get a good score, like Carhartts—someone drops off Carhartt pants, those are a good score for Dawson because they’re like carpenter pants. The thrift store has lots of toys for kids, and books, and videos, and cassette tapes. There’s lots of kitchenware, lots of sheets and linens, there’s maternity clothes in the back, there’s little rubber boots for kids, and snow pants and mud pants, and there’s lots of material at the front, lots of purses and shoes—women’s shoes, like high heels. If you want them, just grab them, buy them for two bucks, and the next day you can bring them back if you don’t want them.

  You can always find someone there, and all your friends are there on Saturday. It’s open Tuesday and Saturday, and the first Saturday of the month, if you fill up a grocery bag—you know, those little plastic bags—you can buy it for five dollars. So everyone’s stuffing their grocery bags on the first Saturday of the month.

  So that’s the hub. Then there’s a store called Miss Kittie Galore’s—she just opened a couple years ago, that’s kind of American Apparel–looking clothes and they’re expensive. There was another store, but they closed down because they didn’t have very much business because it was all gaudy, kind of sparkly old-woman clothes. Oh! And Raven’s Nook has sports clothes, like North Face and Columbia. She also has bras for the local women that never leave Dawson, like the First Nation women who kind of never leave. She’s a local, she grew up in Dawson, so everybody knows her.

  Also, everyone online-shops at J.Crew, the Gap, Old Navy . . . A lot of people shop at Old Navy because they have a good return policy if it doesn’t fit. It’s free. One year I ordered three different coats from Mountain Equipment because I wanted to try them on and see what the style was, and I rejected three of the coats, but I had to pay fifteen dollars each to send them back and I still didn’t find a good coat—so I just gave up. One of them I was too lazy to send back so now I’m stuck with it. A red, boxy coat. It’s hard to shop online because you don’t know if it’ll fit or not, so the return is the key. Oh, and I shop at American Eagle, because they have nice clothes and cheap, and they go up to size fourteen, like if you’re fat, that extra-large shirt is good for you.

  In terms of style, the joke is “If it’s a good fleece. . . .” It’s a more practical kind of look. It’s warm, it’s fleece, and everyone has the latest fleece. No one really dresses up. A friend was visiting Dawson, and he felt weird going to the bar The Pit because he didn’t have a plaid shirt, and everyone here wears plaid, all the men do, and some women. So it’s more practical clothes we wear, warm and stuff. In the summertime, it’s summer clothes, but most people are working really hard, so everyone’s wearing Carhartts and stuff. (sighs) I don’t know. If you go to a wedding, you dress up. (laughs)

  COMPLIMENT

  “COAT”

  New York City street corner. Mild winter day.

  LEANNE: I like your coat.

  WOMAN: Thank you, I like yours, too!

  LEANNE: Is it vintage? Or new? It looks like a Courrèges. . . .

  WOMAN: I hate to admit it’s new. But it’s warm. Even though today I don’t need it to be warm.

  LEANNE: Bye.

  WOMAN: Bye.

  PROJECT

  OW OW OW OW | KATHERINE BERNARD

  What women say as they get their hair braided.

  Do you know that girl? Basically, she’s the one who wants this to happen, and it’s happening. It was the first one that was approved by this vast machinery of approval, and she went on this rampage about it. She was like, “Well, what do you think? It’s atrocious, isn’t it? Isn’t it horrible?” I’m really nervous because I sent e-mails that are like, “I really like this, fuck her.” Well, I just hope that shit doesn’t hit the fan.

  I noticed Y was following me on Twitter, so I followed her back, then she started copiously liking and favoriting things. I know she has a boyfriend, so it’s not anything. Then she tweeted about animal rape, and I had been doing this research on duck rape—one third of all duck sex is rape. And ducks have these insanely evolving genitalia because the females are constantly evolving to avoid the rape, and the men are evolving to thwart the avoidance. So I went to tweet that back and then I was like, I don’t want to tweet this about duck rape. Is this a DM moment? I felt really jazzed about it. So I DM’d her and was like, I felt compelled to share this with you, and she was like, I want to send you something but it’s too risky for the Internet. And I was like, Here’s my number, and we had the most bizarre text chat two people who don’t know each other have ever had about rape. Then it was like, G’night! I was really titillated by it. I’d like to never talk to her again and let it just be that, just let it exist in time as a perfect thing.

  It’s so surreal coming home. And then to be back in the office, it’s just strange because everyone’s been doing the same thing every day the whole time, and then you’re back and you’ve been through this whirlwind, and there’s no way to explain it. Everybody always asks, “Oh, tell me a story!” and I’m like, “I actually can’t tell you a story right now. I can’t. I don’t even know what you’re asking me for.”

  Sometimes I feel that people—like, I just shut myself up around
certain people. I also maybe declare myself a little too much, so maybe people feel like, “There’s no room in the conversation, she’s already decided.” I don’t know. I guess I sometimes feel like I have to be a little quieter if I want to have a pleasant dinner.

  I’m on the last leg, but I’m rewriting two chapters. Z read the whole thing. It was good. He hadn’t read any of it before. If we’d been dating longer, I’m sure he would have. I haven’t read his new book, but I read his old book before I knew who he was. I remember thinking, “I bet this guy is short like his main character.” But yeah, he’s tall. No one needs to be that tall. He’s six-three.

  Before I came here, I had coffee with a book agent. I don’t really want to do a book, it was more like a “Let’s say hi.” And he was very complimentary, so now weirdly at this moment in time I don’t feel stressed about work. The agent was like, “Now you can do anything. There’s nobody that would say no to you. You’re doing everything right.” Then I spilled iced tea on him. I had a dream last night that I just remembered. I was sent to interview the Olsen twins, and I walked into a giant industrial space, and they were sitting, sharing a chair at this big desk. I was completely unprepared. I knew nothing about them, which is untrue in real life. Like, I feel like I’d be able to wing it in real life. Then I woke up.

  Now it’s like, ow ow ow ow, is it possible for me to see the project outside of it being a product? Ow ow ow! And it becomes hard to remember what is true to the project. Sorry, no, it doesn’t hurt. Then you start working around what you DON’T want it to be, and then you just end up boxing yourself into a place that doesn’t exist—some imaginary ideal that’s neither stuffy nor silly nor snarky nor pretentious nor too funny. But now my head’s like: I want to make movies! Ah, ah, ow. Like, these unmarketable movies! The advice I’ve been getting is to just ah ah have fun with whatever is happening, and have that be the only guiding force.

  This woman’s ear is always peeking out of her hair and my coworker said, “I think she does it because it makes you look like a teenager.” It was the craziest, most absurd thing anyone has ever said. “Why is her ear always exposed like that? Is her hair just thin? Why!” She theorized that it was this very useful, premeditated thing. A guaranteed way to look young and careless. She said she was tempted to make a Tumblr of pictures of her ear peeking out from her hair.

  (looks in the mirror) Is it okay if I undo it?

  COLLECTION

  JENNY SCHILY’s cigarettes smoked over the course of one week

  CONVERSATION

  YOU’RE LYING WITH YOUR FACE

  WRITER AMY ROSE SPIEGEL SPEAKS TO MARY MANN

  AMY: I go camping a lot, and I’m not the kind of person who adjusts my beauty routine. I will bring pairs of fake eyelashes into the woods and layer them.

  MARY: I want to talk about this! When did you start wearing the eyelashes, and how did you hear about them?

  AMY: I don’t know how I heard about them. I remember I was sixteen, and I started putting on individual ones with tweezers—like that you buy in the drugstore for four dollars. I put them on with this permanent glue but it rips out all your eyelashes.

  MARY: Oh my god.

  AMY: You have to use the strip glue, but I didn’t know that at the time, so I basically just wiped out my eyelashes and they haven’t come back since. But that’s fine because I wear the fake ones all the time.

  MARY: Did you freak out?

  AMY: No, because it was like falling in love, this instantaneous . . . It was like when I dyed my hair blond. It was something I had been waffling on, then when I did it I was like, Why didn’t I do this from the beginning of time? When I started with the eyelashes, I guess I had just been reading about beauty on the Internet, and it was weird because I didn’t wear a lot of makeup, but I was really getting into the idea of building my face. As a teenager, you often don’t like what you’ve been given. Around this time I also saw fake nails. I tried those, and they didn’t work out; I wasn’t good at them, they would fall off. But when I wore fake eyelashes it changed the way I looked entirely, so I just never stopped. It feels like me, who I’m supposed to be. When I don’t have them on I feel uncomfortable.

  MARY: Do you sleep in them?

  AMY: Yeah. And I go out into the world without them very, very rarely. The last time was last summer. I took them off while I was at work—I had this part-time job in a coat store—and I took them off in the bathroom and wore my face without them for, like, an hour. Then I put them back on. I was like, Uh, no. Without my eyelashes it feels like something essential is missing.

  MARY: How long does it take to apply?

  AMY: If I’m concentrating, probably fifteen minutes.

  MARY: That’s quick. If you walk into a drugstore, are you like, I’ll just check out the eyelashes?

  AMY: No, not unless I need them. (pulls out three-inch piece of plastic covered in tiny clusters of lashes) This is a packet. It’s three dollars at a drugstore.

  MARY: How long will this last you?

  AMY: That’s maybe one and a half applications. I freshen them up probably every three days. I go through them pretty quickly. The strip ones, I keep them clean and reuse them. But it’s like being a smoker—you have to constantly be buying this thing.

  MARY: Do you find the ritual part of it relaxing?

  AMY: Now that I have a job, I find it pretty annoying. Well, no, maybe “annoying” is the wrong word. I love putting on makeup, but I’m often rushed, so it’s less of a ritual than it used to be. It’s not like the means to the end is the enjoyable part. When it’s over, and you’re done and you’re changed, and you’re new—that’s the good part.

  MARY: What other kind of stuff do you do?

  AMY: I’m really into really elaborate kinds of makeup application, like contouring, or special things you can put on your face to make your lips look more 3-D, or different kinds of eyebrow shapes. Tricks. Anything that feels like a trick. Anything that feels like you’re lying with your face, I’m into that. (laughs)

  MARY: It’s like magic.

  AMY: Yeah, exactly. And I really enjoy the act of sharing it—it’s like sharing a secret: “Oh, if you wore lipliner. . . .” People don’t understand that lipliner is helpful. I like the feeling of sharing this magic.

  MARY: Did your mom wear makeup, and would you watch her put it on?

  AMY: My mom does wear makeup, and she does it very well, but she wears makeup in an entirely different way from how I do. My mom never really got the maximalist way that I wear makeup. She wears really tasteful mascara, and tan and pink eye shadows and really pretty lip gloss. It’s very mom. Actually, she’s really extremely beautiful, and is able to wear minimal makeup because that’s what works for her, but that’s just never been my bag. I don’t like the barely there.

  MARY: How does your boyfriend feel about the eyelashes?

  AMY: He loves them, because he knows how important they are to me. Every other person I’ve been with has done that incredibly annoying thing of “Oh, you look so much better without makeup, I want to see the real you.” But this is the real me. I think he understands that. He thinks I’m beautiful without the eyelashes, but he understands that this is what I prefer, and this is how I feel comfortable. He’s really respectful of that.

  MARY: Did any of your friends start wearing them after you did?

  AMY: No, but I did notice that it changed the way people saw me. People suddenly saw me as more attractive, which is definitely a big part of it.

  MARY: Specifically dudes, or did you also get compliments from women?

  AMY: Both. It was just the right thing to do for my face. I felt it immediately, then the positive reinforcement that really nailed it down.

  MARY: What do you feel it communicates about you?

  AMY: This really rabid femininity that I’m really into. I’m into the idea of projecting undeniable, unimpeachable femininity. That’s problematic, though, because that can mean a lot of things. I’d just like to be a cartoo
n.

  MARY: You said “cartoon” and you said “feminine.” Where do those connect? Is it more of an exaggerated form? Is that what you mean?

  AMY: Yeah, it’s an exaggeration. I understand that not all women embrace this exaggerated, stereotypical, Western femininity, but I find a really great power in embodying that. Because I used to deny it completely. I used to not wear makeup at all, and I thought that to look like a woman is to not look smart, which I think a lot of women feel. I think to align yourself with really straightforward femininity can be a way of almost inviting people to take you less seriously. And I like to buck that. I want to be taken very seriously, but I also want to be this . . . (gestures at herself) you know what I mean. For me it’s a steadfast desire to make it a both instead of a versus. To be both of those things is a sort of power for me.

  MARY: Do you feel it’s something you’re ever going to stop?

  AMY: No, this is forever. I cannot envision a future where I wouldn’t do it.

  MARY: What else comes with being an eyelash enthusiast? Do you look at other people’s lashes?

  AMY: Yeah, totally. There’s a code. If your waitress has them, or someone on the subway has them, or someone else out there has them, you have to talk about it. You absolutely have to. It’s really friendly and sweet. It’s spotting out your crew.