Happy first Friday of March, dear friends, and welcome to the Open Mic! If you’re new here, on Fridays we get together here for some chat. (Sometimes there’s a guest artist instead.) The topic varies from week to week, but everyone is welcome to participate in the comments.
Let’s talk clothes today, because I have a ridiculous new hat and am happy about it. It is handmade by a local designer and it reminds me of old paintings like Girl with a Pearl Earring, in which you admire the overall effect and then wrinkle up your face and ask yourself, “Wait… what is she wearing on her head, anyway?”
I used to think my interest in fashion was frivolous, and it’s true that it can be (when I think of all the money I spent at LA sample sales, trying vainly to be trendy!). But I don’t think it’s only that. Some people truly don’t care about clothes; Erik, for example, would be (I believe) very happy to follow the Steve Jobs style of dressing. I wouldn’t.
I think even if I were the only person left on the planet, I’d still enjoy adorning myself from time to time. There’s something very deeply, instinctively pleasing about it. It’s the same reason I like to arrange pinecones in lines, or stack oranges (and pomelos, and limes, and kumquats) atop one another. I suspect it has something to do with bringing order to a chaotic world, or in the case of self-ornamentation, distinguishing myself as an individual and not just a mass of cells like any other living organism.
I want to hear about how clothes affect you (even if they don’t). Tell me about how you dress yourself. Do you have favorite articles of clothing, power outfits, items you long for but can’t afford? Are there cherished sartorial memories from your past? Or would you, too, gladly dress yourself daily in a uniform in order to never shop again?
They say “talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” What happens when you try to make a film about dance? It works… and it doesn’t… and it does.
