Notes on Fashion

I recently started therapy again. I tend to use the free sessions I get through work until they run out and then just muddle through until the next crisis, but this time I want to do things differently. I mention this because I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about not just who I am, but how I became the person that I am today, and I’ve started to question things that I previously wouldn’t have thought to - things like what kind of clothes I wear, and why.

So much of what I do is about exercising control, and the way that I dress is in part a reflection of my current feelings about the male gaze, and how I can control or direct it. Even when dressing in a way that theoretically wasn’t pandering to the male gaze - my vintage style was quite covered, and more “pretty” or “romantic” than “sexy” - I was still aware of the response that kind of old-school femininity provoked in people. It was a way of saying, without words, “treat me like a lady,” with all that that implies. I did, and do, embrace the subversive elements of the vintage community, which is delightfully queer and sex positive and politically and socially progressive, but in retrospect I have to acknowledge desexualizing myself was often something that I did to feel safe. I wanted to make myself an object of admiration, something to put on a pedestal and look at, not to touch. Coiffed hair that didn’t move, perfect red lipstick, and a stiff girdle felt a bit like armor.

I feel like I have to add some nuance here, because of course wearing vintage wasn’t just about that. There was also sustainability, a sense of community, a love of history, and some jaw-droppingly gorgeous garments, most of which still own! There is nothing wrong with wanting to feel pretty and romantic rather than sexy. I’m not trying to make a value judgement on the relative merits of dressing “modest” versus dressing “slutty,” but rather to point out the ways in which my sartorial choices reflected my beliefs about the world and my place in it.

Subconsciously, I had bought into a lot of regressive attitudes about what a woman’s outfit says about her. There’s a reason there’s a “vintage style, not vintage values” campaign swirling around the retro side of Instagram - there is a whole subset of vintage wearing people who are hard into the trad-life religious right, and if you’re only looking at the outfits it can be hard to tell the two apart. If you asked me if I thought dressing a certain way meant that a woman deserved harassment I would have certainly told you no, but I did believe that if I dressed provocatively that I was setting myself up for, at minimum, some cat-calling.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the way that I dress now - the costumes, the crop tops, the gym gear, the much more direct sexuality - is just as much an attempt to control the male gaze as my vintage attire was. And it was tough for me when I realized that! Style feels so individual to me, like a reflection of my own soul and personality back into the world, and noticing the external factors that lead me to embrace or reject certain styles made me wonder if there even was a “real me,” or if everything about my personality is just a response to stimuli. Well, the answer to that question is simply “yes” - I am shaped by the world around me, but I get to choose what form my responses take. I’m not just a broken reflection, but an integrated whole, and I can choose what to keep and what to discard. Sort of like cleaning out my closet as the seasons change.

And, I realize, the way that I have chosen to present myself to world lately is as a superhero - strong enough to protect myself now. Strong enough that I don’t feel like I have to hide.