2024 outfit diary (#1)
Sartorial reflections on the first 3.5 months of the year.
April 10: Hello! I am currently in progress with my PhD Special Fields exam, a 21-day process that will involve me not doing much of anything other than writing and studying. I’ve prepared this week’s newsletter in advance and owing to time, I’m keeping it light and superficial. I hope it also affords you a break, as it did for me.
Before that however, if you are a reader in Canada, please join World Beyond War’s petition for a REAL embargo on the Canada-Israel arms trade. Their website provides detailed information about where arms are being manufactured (in almost every community in the GTA), what they are being used for, and by whom. They also recently shared this impactful statement from IJV Canada recognising six months of genocide. Please read and sign before continuing with the newsletter.
From approximately 2014-2018, I was what they call a “fashion girlie”—I followed new runway collections with devotion, snuck into the back row of shows in New York, London, and Paris, and tracked street style photography the way some people track sports teams (I peaked at the SS19 shows when I was photographed by Man Repeller twice). A then-student of fashion theory, I was deeply invested in the relationship between clothes and culture, and while I thought of fashion as an art, I eventually grew disillusioned with the industry’s reliance on consumption, beauty standards, and wealth-hoarding. In 2018, I stepped down from the magazine I started in high school and switched my courses to focus on art, film, and visual culture, industries that are certainly still mired in capitalism, but offer a little more wiggle room for the politically-transformative (they don’t inherently rely on profit or sales in the way that fashion does). I still love clothes and dressing up, however, and sometimes miss the side of fashion associated with the pleasures of self-expression, or more aptly, self-creation.
So in homage to my (cringe, do not investigate further) beginnings on blogspot/Polyvore/Lookbook, I’m doing my first outfit diary instalment, tracking some favourite looks of the year so far (January to early-April).
Campus meeting: The items that I’ve been wearing the most this season are a black midi skirt with big box pleats (I searched high and low for the right one for almost 3 years!) and these knee-high black boots with big tread. I always had a pair of boots like this when I was a small child and I affectionately dubbed them “clunker boots.” Old habits die hard and almost all of the shoes I own are now of the “clunker” variety. I love contrasts, so the intensity of the boots with the sweet little collar of the shirt feels very right to me. I do not however apologise for the fact that this shirt is clearly not pressed—I don’t have room for an ironing board in my apartment and I sometimes avoid using my mini-steamer because it reminds me of my internship at Vogue, where I was frequently sequestered in a room with 50 garments and given 15 minutes in which to steam all of them. For those 4 months, my hands were constantly chafed and burned (to say nothing of my mental health and self-esteem, lol!).
Lecture (watching, not doing): Same skirt and boots, but with a hand-me-down shirt from my older brother, which he wore to his grade 8 graduation circa 2010, and that does not wrinkle! I think it’s a scam that they make men’s clothing that is wrinkle-resistant but withhold this same privilege from womenswear, though I also hate the tailored cut of women’s business shirts anyways (I want my clothes to make contact with as little of my body as possible, unless they are very soft). This is also a classic-Tia blazer, purchased at a London vintage shop when I studied there in 2017. In addition to having the perfect boxy cut with sharp shoulders, I love how many pockets it offers, which makes it ideal for travelling, or days where your bag isn’t very accessible. I’ve been doing this hairstyle, recommended to me by Pinterest for “lazy hair days,” which realistically is everyday for me.
Party/literary event: I trekked through the snow to attend another wonderful iteration of my friends Emma and Emily’s “Pack Animal” reading series. Skirt and boots ibid. I’m wearing a t-shirt from Everpress with an image by the Polish photographer Jana Sojka. To be frank, I find the quality of Everpress’ t-shirts to be pretty poor, but I love the designs they carry, and the sort of seen-through-a-haze, blue look of Sojka’s photography. Prop is a lovely poster by another multitalented friend, Sonja Katanic.
Gala: My friend Winnie Wang glamorously returned from Berlinale to receive the Toronto Film Critics Association award for Emerging Critic, and I was blessed with the honour of being their plus-one. I tried to be understated-but-chic, giving Winnie’s very cool, colourful dress the spotlight. This is also an outfit that I would wear casually, with the addition here of big earrings, blue sparkly socks, and a berry lip (though I found keeping the lipstick on between courses of food to be much too stressful. Somewhere on Getty Images, there may be a photo of me hovering over chocolate mousse like a deranged vampire). I felt very comfortable, but also confident because these are all clothes that I love and feel like myself in.
Incognito, groceries, etc.: Since I work mostly from home, I tend to live in grey sweatpants and my beloved yellow Roots hoodie. Here is a slight variation permissible for leaving the house/running errands. This black, rainproof trench was a $40 Boxing Day acquisition and also a new favourite—it falls beautifully and has nice deep pockets. It is also roomy enough for lots of layering underneath. I’ve been trying to break these Docs in for a year and a half now, so advice is very, very welcome. My last pair only took 2 weeks to adjust to and I wore them everyday for 5 years, so I’ve been feeling kneecapped while these ones are still so painful. I’m also wearing an “NYU Green” baseball cap that I was given for attending the 2017 March for Science in Washington D.C., which got rained out and so I actually just sat in a café and ate hot soup with my friends. I think it’s funny to be an English grad student wearing a pro-science hat, given that scientists generally do not respect us and think we are a bunch of silly geese (and we sort of are, but isn’t that great!? There’s room for all kinds of thinking!!).
Revert to crone: I haven’t been into dressing very femme this year, so my classic collection of vintage peasant/folk singer/pioneer/old lady dresses has been in hibernation. Not so on this day, however, where I felt that a swooshy skirt, some lace, and a puffed sleeve were very much in order. I always make them a little less sweet-looking with a clunker shoe (worn this day with the black trench, 90s sunglasses, hoops, and headphones).
Movies: Decided to experiment with ribbons, since everyone is so into the Simone Rocha/Sandy Liang look these days (which I strongly support). Again, my affinity for contrasts demanded some weird earrings to offset the girlishness, so I looped a pop tab through one little hoop and added a cuff. Since I am allergic to piercings (so punk of me, really), I have to make do with clip-on earrings that I modify creatively with found objects or charms from Etsy. For the rest of the outfit, I wore my favourite sweater, mostly because I love how massive it is (I am like a little woodland creature burrowing inside of it for the winter), and this wrinkle-look black maxi skirt. Black maxi skirts are the heart of my wardrobe because I like to look a little bit witchy most of the time, even though I am in fact very earnestly more like the aforementioned woodland creature.
Bonus look: For a few days, we had glorious spring sun and 15 degree weather! I took a big walk, went to a meeting, and had ice cream with friends in the park. Knees were revealed, birds were singing (maybe correlation equals causation, etc., etc.)
Recently:
I went to the Lightbox for La Chimera with my friend Abby. I knew within minutes that I loved it, mostly because of the way the light fell and the alternation between Super 16, 16mm, and 35mm (it was shot by Hélène Louvart, who also did The Beaches of Agnès, Pina, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, and The Lost Daughter). There’s an image very early on in the corridor of a train that took my breath away (it starts off populated, pans away, and then turns back to end with a dog, now alone and staring back, full of trust that the people don’t have capacity for).
The only previous Alice Rohrwacher film I had seen was Corpo Celeste (2011), which was less playful than this one. I loved the courage of La Chimera’s little quirks, though both Abby and I agreed that the section on the boat felt like a clumsy genre turn that didn’t work very well. I’ll also be thinking about that lonely red yarn for a long time to come, and how we both jumped and screamed in the cinema when the head of the statue is being caressed but then [redacted for spoilers]. <3
In the first week of April, I read Miranda July’s 2006 short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You. I loved the story about a woman who moves to a small, landlocked town with no pools and teaches the senior citizens how to swim on the floor of her apartment. They use the desk and bed for diving practice and learn to hold their breath in bowls of water. I liked these earnest, tender weirdos.
Season 2 of the Netflix Heartbreak High reboot is here—I’m just getting started but I am very pleased to have it back! I’ve described this to people as an ideal blend of Sex Education and Euphoria, but less cringe than the former and less extreme/less full of evildoers than the latter. I think it also has a smarter take on a lot of Gen-Z issues than both of those shows, but mostly it’s really fun!
For those who read my last newsletter, I can confirm that the Devil’s Food Cake was a hit. I had a very social weekend with lots of treats and dear friends giggling in my apartment and I felt so warm and joyful. I thought about Vojtěch Jasný’s charming 1963 film Cassandra Cat (also known as The Cat Who Wore Sunglasses and When The Cat Comes) and this scene in particular, of which Winnie kindly provided me with screenshots:
Love!!!