I am currently looking for some sort of employment in the local area. A few interviews made me realise I didn’t have much to wear. Especially things that are both presentable in a work setting and suited to the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been experiencing lately. Though the one thing that I’ve noticed is that local clothing stores bring in their winter clothing (and phase out their summer clothing) well in advance of the anticipated cold snap. I was so convinced that I wouldn’t be able to find any short-sleeved shirts that I settled for some long-sleeved shirts of a thinner cooler material. But then later that same day I happened upon some short-sleeved shirts that fit me, that actually complemented my (fairly uninspiring) body type and were reduced to $12 each. It was some sort of miracle!
When I think back to shopping expeditions as a kid I remember feeling really constrained by the fashion trends and the stock available in local shops. It seemed each year one or two notable trends was in vogue and that basically dictated what you could and could not purchase. (This was particularly aggravating the year Hawaiian floral patterns made a comeback.) I remember wanting plain clothes, solid colours – black and blue predominantly. I didn’t want to wear brand names. It didn’t matter if they were prestigious ones or not, I always felt like if I wasn’t being paid I didn’t want to be some corporation’s walking talking billboard.
In an odd way I didn’t want to fit in or stand out, rather I wanted to fade into the background of everything. I’m not sure what it was about solid black and blue tshirts (for example) that made me think they were suitable camouflage for suburbia, but I am pretty sure I did think that.
I started putting away my new purchases. I don’t give my wardrobe a lot of consideration, but in that moment I was struck by how different times in my life could be characterised by the clothes within that wardrobe. There was the ‘black and blue’ moments of my teenage years. There were the ‘winter at my former workplace’ clothes – long heavy garments, as if I was going on vacation to the snow (it never snowed there, but somehow it often felt like it could have).
There was that time when my social circle extended to include people younger than myself. They had a fun almost flippant attitude to fashion and they did much at the time to help me take myself less seriously. A studded belt made it’s way into my wardrobe (though it never did actually fit me) and those pair of Dunlop Volleys with the checkered patten. My “emo” shoes. At one point I made a silly video to Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love and as she sung “Take my shoes off and throw them in the lake and I’ll be two steps on the water” I threw the shoes out of the video frame.
There was the thick heavy faux leather jacket I bought in Canberra the first time I saw my idol Sophie B. Hawkins tour Australia. It was so cold that I put it on as soon as I got out of the shop. When I returned to my friend’s accommodation on the university campus and she saw I was wearing it with the tags still on it, she wondered if I had actually paid for it. (I had.) And there was another jacket, this one real leather, ridiculously expensive, but somehow I knew I had to have it. I was amazed that it fit to be honest. And you loved that jacket, and I loved you, and – unfortunately – you did not love me. And it’s strange how just looking at that article of clothing can bring all that back in a moment.
So… clothing is still a strange thing. Even now.
