Dressing Your Desires

a vintage fake fur coat, thigh high black boots, a red coat + pictures!

Can you trace your history of desire through your wardrobe?

What you allowed yourself, what identities you tried on, what you denied yourself, what was denied you? Who and what influenced you, for better, for worse, and all the range in between?

Think back to those red boots that declared, “I’m going to conquer the world just watch me,” the suit that mimicked what you thought power should look like but only made you feel like a pretender, the hat that you found in thrift store that made you feel creative, but you didn’t dare to wear it, and now five years later, it’s your favorite thing ever.

What if how we dress can help us move toward what we want?

But first, a giant caveat — clothes and fashion are a fraught area for a lot of us. So many ways to bind and control and shame our bodies, so much waste and unnesscary consumption (did you know textiles and fashion are responsible for up to 10% of global carbon emissions?), finding clothes that even fit, feeling like our body doesn’t look the way it “should,” and budget, money, who has time...

I’m also a sensitive flower. No rough fabrics. No wool, no tights, no tags, no polyester or nylon especially socks, nothing that gathers lint (or it’s all lint rolling all the time), and god forbid anything UNCOMFORTABLE. My mom always told me the first thing I would do when I got home was run in my room and undress.

Finally, the planet! Fast fashion is terrible and now we know how problematic many online returns are so maybe this is an impossible subject and I should stop right here...

Yet keep thinking about this orange flirty sundress I bought after I met Bob and we fell in love, how sexy it made me feel, a woman rediscovering her body.

Or my Van blue suede high tops I wore in high school until they fell apart, that made me feel like the skater chick I wanted to be. The two silk suits I bought at Banana Republic to wear to meetings when I was growing my tiny dot com. The Gumby t-shirt from the 80’s I wore backpacking around Europe showcasing my dream for working for SNL someday.

Or how after I moved to Colorado, in what I now think of as my reinvention years, I started putting together outfits and having fun for the first time maybe ever.

Red coat I had since a book I did in Germany in the late 90’s where I felt like a star, t-shirt from a Moab cafe where I ran my first half-marathon at 54 where I felt powerful and amazed I could do that, turquoise necklace from a brief relationship with a troubled man between my divorce and meeting Bob where I felt consumced by my desire to be desired, bracelet from my first husband that is a copy of my friend Susan’s bracelet I wore when I was on Oprah — that’s a lot of history of desire!

Glitter skirt I obsessed over buying and then hardly wore because it wasn’t comfortable and finally gave to a friend who loved it, very old flannel shirt that I wore until it fell apart, pin from my mother’s best friend, and my new gray stripe when I started growing it out.

Fake vintage fur coat I bought after Christmas and how totally boss I felt wearing it to a casual dinner recently. I also thought about buying thigh-high black boots that day but that thought lasted about 1 minute. So not me. Also I’m hyper careful of what I purchase and want it to last for many years. Thigh high boots, not going to cut it.

I also think about all the years I told myself “I can’t” when it came to what I wore.

I can’t spend time thinking about clothes, that’s frivolous, I’ll be too much like my mother. (This was so much my story that when I went on Oprah, I wore a borrowed suit from my very well-dressed friend Susan Pitcher.) I can’t spend money on clothes, it’s wrong, I need to always be saving money. I can’t buy nice things, I’m too chubby, I’m not pretty enough, I’m too old, who will see me anyway?

Underneath all those excuses, throbbed I can’t because who am I to feel good? 

Who am I to dress in a way that says “This is what I want and I’m having some of it right now. Please enjoy the sight of a woman being exactly who she wants to be.”

It’s sad to look back at me who didn’t realize how she was denying herself and punishing herself and making getting dressed way more complicated than it needed to be.

Perhaps because clothes carry so much weight and can convey so much power or lack of it, that’s why they can be a potent way to concretize our permission to flourish.

Dressing for your desires can mean anything from wearing a hat that says this is who I’m becoming, to giving away that dress that reminds you of your divorce — even though it still fits and it’s “perfectly good” — to wearing no make-up when you never leave the house without it. Try on identities, desires, hopes.

Of course, LGBTQ+ cultures have played with this forever. And propelled fashion and culture forward, usually without acknowledgment.

Clothes certainly aren’t a necessary prop for embracing where you are going next but they can be a powerful creative way to help yourself visualise that new identity, touch it, run your hand over it.

I’d love to hear your wardrobe stories and how you dress your desires now - or want to!

Love,

Jen