Fashion for Writers

When Chris and I returned home after a long morning of wedding walk-throughs and picking up our marriage license, I found a pink slip from the U.S. Postal Service claiming that an Express package was waiting for him at the post office. Sender: “England.” O boy! It could only be one thing: Chris’s custom-made, tweed, tailored suit from Bookster of the UK. 

The suit is ever-so-dashing in person, but alas, I won’t be sharing any pictures of it until the wedding’s over; this little taste is all you can see for now, in which you can be privy to the bold, golden lining and the sewn-in label.

And as much as I love costume jewelry and rhinestones, I won’t be weighed down in baubles on the “big day” — I will be wearing this delicate silver bracelet designed by Saundra Messinger, which I recently received from Chris as a pre-wedding present. I love how obviously hand-crafted it is and the tiny lines carved into the surface. It’s like a twig wrapped around my wrist. 

Very recently I discovered that I’d been overmedicated for a medical condition, adjusted some things (with the OK from my doctor, of course), and have found myself with much less fatigue than I’d been experiencing previously, which leaves me with all kinds of energy to do things like the following: a chapter a day of Latin lessons with Chris, who gives me daily homework; working on my novel; wedding planning; cooking; reading back issues of Elle UK; jogging in the sun and dancing to Nirvana in the living room; plotting my future; brainstorming for photography projects; etc. It’s summer! I’m in my mid-to-late 20s! I’m a very lucky girl!

Chris and I went to Illinois for the wedding of our good friends Emily B. and Don T. I wore sleeveless dresses the entire time — Bloomington-Normal was muggy and hot — and for the ceremony and reception I got to wear my new Cacharel dress, which is sea foam green and trimmed in little sequins, plus one of those shimmery, vintage metal bandana-necklaces that seem to be all the rage these days. We practiced our dance moves and invented a groove to “Karma Chameleon” that involved a lot of flailing around and arm-waggling. A preview to our own wedding, which is creeping ever-so-close. (See our website at http://www.chrisandmeggy.com/).

My reception dinner dress is, for the moment, a $1 steal. Ah, the glories of ultra-sales.

dress from streetside store in Taiwan, my favorite necklace from a vintage store in Oakland, heels from SOGO (famous department store in Taiwan)

I decided to go mostly simple for my 26th birthday ensemble — this particular dress recalls a much louder, 70s vintage dress that I bought from a consignment shop where I used to live, with the same flared, fun sleeves and shift torso. I’ve been wearing miniskirts and dresses a lot lately because I somehow just discovered that I think I like my legs, and I won’t be able to wear miniskirts and dresses for much longer, professionally speaking; so these heels, which are plain and black and have absolutely nothing exciting about them, are a new staple to my wardrobe.

Yesterday I spent most of the day alone, because I’m a paid graduate student on holiday and my family and fiance are working stiffs. I went for brunch; browsed the only decent clothing store in my hometown, where everything is astronomically priced because it’s all stuff like Preen and Rick Owens and gorgeous investment pieces; chatted with the charming salesgirl and spoke abstractly of future coffee plans; wrote and drank tea and coffee at a cafe; walked forty-five minutes to get home in pleasant weather. Later in the evening Chris’s co-workers treated us to a wedding dinner, which was aborted because of a fire alarm (free wine!), and I ended up eating chili cheese fries at an upscale burger joint for my birthday dinner.

One of my favorite people in the whole world, Max Doty, wrote a novel a few years ago. He turned it into a screenplay, and now the trailer is one of 10 semi-finalists in Netflix’s Find Your Voice competition. I’m here to nudge you in the direction of the Find Your Voice website, where you don’t have to register or anything to vote; Max’s movie is Touchback, but feel free to watch all of them — just make sure to rate the trailer!

Nowhere have I felt the pressure of “thin is in” so palpably as I have here, in Taiwan; I arrived here after a winter of gaining weight from hibernating in the frigid Midwest and my mother, upon my exit from Immigration/Customs (which was a nightmare in itself) saw my [  ]-lb. self, and immediately put me on a diet. I recall a particular cabbage-and-tomato soup, and plenty of diet seaweed-jello drinks. Recall that I’d just decided that I wanted to stop dieting, as it had led to nothing but weight fluctuations over the last eight years and an obsessiveness over calorie-counting, scale-hopping, and profound self-loathing, not to mention events such as sitting on my love-seat, bingeing on sliced salami. (A book called Overcoming Overeating is to thank for my newfound outlook on food.) 

I didn’t want to be on a diet, but circumstances dictated that I was, in essence, on one. We ate as though we were restricting — and the longer I stayed in Taiwan, the more I realized that this country simply does not tolerate the non-petite. On the second or third day my mom took me to her favorite clothing store, and when a dress I tried on turned out to be abominably small, the saleslady informed me that all of the clothes were in one size only.  

I go back to the States tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to eating some chili cheese fries. Mindfully — and I won’t finish the whole batch. But I’ll eat them without berating myself, and I know that I’ll really enjoy them.