Thoughts about Women in Clothes

If it's ok, I'd rather not comment on a particular story, but on the episode as a whole.  I know that it's bending the rules, but that's what "Women in Clothes" is about, what fashion is about, at least in part.  Although, as in the case of “Staying Home” by Rose Waldman, they can be about having to dress within the rules.  Either way, a woman’s style is unique to her no matter which way she dresses,  and at the same time, we all have to deal with things like body image and feeling self-conscious. This episode has left me inspired.  I feel as if women and clothing are two things that are so intertwined that they will never be separated until the end of time.  Maybe that sounds like I'm going too far in an attempt to make a profound statement, but it's true.  Every woman has some sort of relationship with clothing, myself included.  Clothing is a form of self-expression that doesn't require words.  Clothes tell the story of the woman who wears them, and whether I like it or not, I know that my sartorial choices do indeed say something about who I am.  After listening to this podcast, I took a look into my own closet.  Just like "Magical," each piece reflects a period of my life.  It made me very glad that those pieces can't talk because their stories would be embarrassingly personal.  I have old Halloween costumes that my mother sewed for me, graphic tees, a tan corduroy skirt with six buttons on the front, party dresses, a few vintage pieces that my mom has saved for, like, thirty years, including some high-waisted 100% cotton jeans sitting on the closet shelf (it's IMPOSSIBLE to find 100% cotton theses days), my Communion dress, a black silk skirt that I bought for a steal at the boutique down the street the very day that I had my interview at Kingswood, suede ballet flats tucked in their boxes, riding boots, a few pairs of lonely track spikes waiting for another race, and a Baroque wig made out of a paper bag that I used for an American history project in the eighth grade. And it's so funny the way that you remember exactly what you are wearing when something happens to you.  I remember that when I was four at the church bazaar, I was on a ride where each rider sat in a miniature helicopter that went around in a circle suspended by a fixed arm.  I remember muttering an insult under my breath about the boy in the helicopter in front of me driving too slow (of course all the helicopters were moving the same speed because they were all fixed by equidistant arms).  I remember wearing a white tank top with an ice cream cone on it, piled high with ice cream, each flavor different, and they were all labeled in tiny font next to the scoop.  I felt so guilty that I never wore that top again.  I buried it in the back of my dresser and never looked at it.  The next time I saw the top, I had outgrown it, and I thought to myself, "You know, you should have worn this again, it's kind of cute." There have been many times when I have wondered about the past life of a clothing item, especially when I visit the second-hand shop.  Unlike the story in which the woman with the keen olfactory sense, I don’t have the talent to determine the past owner’s identity by smelling clothes, but her interpretations were amusing to listen to.  The story about the woman in Istanbul who was supposed to compliment people on their clothing in the elevator contributed to the notion that fashion, for the most part at least, is a universal language that anyone can understand, and receiving a compliment on an outfit always makes you feel like a million bucks. While each story was beautiful, personal, and fascinating, it was the readers who brought the stories to life.  Personally, my favorite reader was Zosia Mamet because of her expressive, young, and slightly gravelly voice.  I thought her tone in “Magical” was sentimental because she was reading the story of three dresses that helped to define a woman’s life.  Sometimes though, I have to say that I didn’t always like the way that all of the stories were read.  I thought that I could clearly hear that some of the readers were using their “reading voice,” which I feel is much less natural than their actual speaking voice.  This was evident when you could hear the readers overly exaggerating expressions and clipping the ends off of words.  This selection of shorts spoke to me because of its personal nature, and because it evoked so many of my own memories and experiences.  Each story and poem was thought-provoking and often humorous.  Of course, the subject matter spoke to me as well, because in my opinion, fashion tells so many stories, including the story of women’s history and is closely linked to what it means to be a woman.


(this was originally meant to be a comment, but it is too long)