Anyone who really knows me is aware, or could guess, that I have a large
wardrobe, extensive collection of accessories, and a nice big closet at home to
put it all in; exclusive, that is, of my hats, which I keep, for the most part,
at my studio downtown. My closet, six feet wide and 17 feet long, is the part
of the house that I refer to as “my room,” and I spend a lot of time in there,
trying things on and hanging things up and organizing outfits for events both
real and imagined. I do my best thinking in that closet, and I have my greatest
ideas, and if I just want to relax, or get a handle on something, that’s where
I go to do it. Friends who have been there will verify that it is quite
organized, and usually neat – even funny – with its sweater boxes of scarves
and shelves of shoes and handbags and plastic rod tags dividing shirts from
skirts from dresses and pants. My sister found the plastic tags at a garage
sale, and made a gift of them to me. It was a special gift because I’ll bet she
really wanted to keep them for herself. She’s like me that way.
I was raised to like clothes. For my family, they are a part of the foundation
for having a good time. Food and drink, great people, and a good outfit –
that’s what a party is all about. The clothes may be found, made, or purchased;
they may be old or new, but they are there, bringing people together, setting
people apart, and inspiring all manner of remark. That’s entertainment; and, in
an overly crowded and noisy place, a way for the wearer to speak one’s mind.
We wore uniforms to school, fortunately for my mother, and even for us,
because it made dressing in the morning not much of an issue, like it can be
when there are choices. Day after day, the same blue plaid skirt and white
blouse and blue sweater and white crew socks and blue-and-white oxfords. For
variety, I would sometimes wear one element or another inside out; on occasion,
I would turn my whole uniform backwards, anticipating, by twenty years, the
current rage for deconstruction. The backwards thing was only good for a class
or two. The inside-out thing could last all day. Of course, I had to avoid the
more conscious nuns in the hall.
We did have designated free dress days at school, to celebrate certain
liturgical events. We spent hours the night before laying everything out, or
even making something new. Once I made a hot pink, empire-style mini dress,
with a huge fishnet appliqued across the bottom, and cloth fish caught in the
mesh; another time I designed a short brown peasant dress, somehow cut from a
single circle, with a giant, multi-colored peace-sign embroidered on the front.
The peace sign stitchwork took several days to complete, and it was a bold move
to sport this symbol at my conservative school. I wish I still had that dress.
Free dress days were rare, because with everyone so busy looking around at what
everyone else had worn, they resulted in a lost day at school. I spent them
giddy and self-conscious in clothes that revealed the real me, or some such
attempt to be. It never occurred to me that wearing my uniform backwards had
already sent a fairly clear message.
The night-before thing was something we had seen my mother do many a Christmas
and Easter Eve, when she would work into the wee hours on our special outfits
for Mass. This is documented by the subsequent pictures of the slew of us in
velveteen or dimity, depending. These holiday costumes were as fresh as the
fish from my father’s boat, pert with sizing and perhaps pinned shut. They had
been created at lightning speed in the dead of night by a maniac with
sufficient inspiration to elevate even the most quotidian of circumstances to
sartorial heights. If dressing up was fun, then dressing funny was even more
fun, and she never failed us with outfits for parties and pageants and fancy
balls. She even went so far as to make sure the dozen of us matched on family
field trips to the zoo and family reunions – sewing dresses for the girls and
herself, and shirts for the boys and my dad, out of the same striped cotton or
corduroy that she had found on sale. This way, she said, if anyone got lost,
they could be more easily found. True, there was safety and power in belonging
to such a large group. The inclusion of our initials (JK for everyone except my
mother) appliqued on the breast could make us positively famous, like we were a
singing family act or something.
New clothes, especially matching ones, afforded an added excitement to any
excursion deemed to merit them, which is why, years later, fully grown and
distinctly individual, we decided it would be “fun” to wear matching clothes to
the Treasure Ball, the annual Mardi Gras Ball that our family has been
attending together for years. Our youngest and most favored sibling was “King,”
making that Treasure Ball extra special, and my sister (the same one that gave
me the plastic rod tags) came up with the plan. She provided each of us with
four colors of taffeta, and instructed us to create something. We made the guys
bow ties and cummerbunds for their tuxes; I even made Ed a cape. Then the girls
made ballgowns in the style of their choice. It was quite festive, and great
fun; the best Treasure Ball we have ever had. But then, that’s what happens
when you put forth a unified front.
The result of all this has been the preoccupation on my part with what to
wear; because I do have a lot of choices, and I am convinced that it matters,
almost all of the time. I’m late for the office sometimes because I can’t
decide; a silly predicament which I can see coming, but can’t do anything to
stop. Like, maybe it’s between seasons, or maybe I have a hip meeting and a
square meeting on the same day, or maybe absolutely the only shirt I feel like
wearing is at the cleaners; or else, the thing I really want to wear is the
exact same thing I had on yesterday, or the exact same thing I wore the last
time I met with X. What is really crazy is that I can remember what that was;
in fact, I have a much better memory for what I was wearing when than I do for
the names of world leaders; but then, I can usually control my wardrobe.
Current events render me powerless.
And accessories render me insane. How many times have I kept Ed waiting, often
in the car with the motor running, while I accessorize? Hats, gloves, hankies,
pins; certain shoes, specific socks, the right handbag, the appropriate
perfume, the best shade of lipstick… all of this matters to me. Ed, no
lightweight himself when it comes to clothes, may change his outfit several
times before he’s satisfied, and this affords him a small amount of tolerance
for my own mercurial behavior in the closet. Plus, he does enjoy the little
purses and the glasses and the rosettes; unless, of course, he is really
hungry, or we are running way too late. He knows I have a need to
accessorize, even though he’s not sure why.
It’s Barbie, I’ve told him, a hundred times. Barbie, whose outfits came fully
accessorized, sometimes down to the poodle on a leash, makes me do it. I
learned from her, at a very young age, the importance of the pulled-together
look, and how the wrong belt can undermine that, or the right scarf can simply
scream High Fashion. I learned to sew on Barbie; at first, the shapeless shifts
that a folded square of cloth could yield; later, exotic and highly detailed
replicas of my own wardrobe, including the school uniform in which I spent so
much of my time. My mother egged me on with ideas for ballgowns, wedding
dresses, and trains, and showed me how to make matching purses and hats and
jewelry for that incomparably cool doll. My sisters followed behind me with
their own ideas, and our Barbies were the envy of every girl who wandered
through our house. Our Barbie had a Scout uniform, surfer jams, and hippie
clothes; an outfit for any mood; any and every look a girl could possibly
want.
I guess my brothers were watching, unless they were looking at my dad, who
likes velveteen coats and plaid suits. It’s his son who made a pair of shoes
for himself from his pet snake upon its death; his son with the collection of
hats. One brother can sew and makes a lot of his own clothes, including the hot
pink fake fur tuxedo jacket that he wore to the Treasure Ball a couple of years
ago. Another brother, the one we call “Hollywood,” has always had a
predilection for dressing well for every occasion, including fishing and
football practice. His relentlessly manicured appearance and inability to dress
casually is legendary. His wife tells me that in high school, she thought that
“that guy in the slacks” out there on the practice field was really weird. “I
can’t believe I ended up married to him,” she says.
A lot of sewing and gluing and garage sale-hopping has gone into the
fashion/anti-fashion consciousness of this family. Is it genetic, or is it
learned, this urge to wear hats and loud ties, this need to decorate the self
so individually? Ed, who reminds me that I was wearing something like a nurse’s
outfit when we first met, says we are “customized.” I say it just comes
naturally, and a lot of the time I don’t even realize I’m doing it.
Last fall we went with some friends to their ranch in West Texas, and I packed
the closest thing I own to ranch clothes: floral trousers and t-shirt,
turquoise tennis shoes and a plaid hat. One afternoon we went for a ride and I
wore my “casual” coat: a boxy, Japanese-style jacket that I made from a
tapestry fabric that was once a bedspread. I didn’t think anything of it, but
my denimed and booted companions did. One look at me was just too much, and
from their affectionate laughter I heard Ed say, “You’re a fucking maniac,
Jerri.” It was a term of endearment I will never forget. n
This article appears in June 23 • 1995 and June 23 • 1995 (Cover).