Dressed for the Occasion

When I was little, I spent Saturday evenings in my mother’s dressing room while she got ready to go out with my father. There were dresses, perfume bottles, and a great deal to examine. I stayed awake until they returned, when I got to watch my mother wash her face, apply several creams, and put on silk pajamas and a robe. Only then did she get into bed.

I assumed this was what marriage looked like. Your husband took you out on Saturday night, and you got ready first. Then you came home, washed your face, applied several creams, preferably La Mer, put on silk pajamas and a robe, and went to bed. I knew nothing about the arrangement beyond that, but it seemed to involve reservations and a considerable amount of face cream. It took me some time to discover that most marriages involved neither.

Years later, my mother told me that Saturday night was date night. A man who wanted to see me, she said, should ask me out on a Saturday. I objected, as I did whenever she presented a preference as a rule. Still, I understood her point. Saturday was the night my father took her out. She saw no reason I should accept a Tuesday.

Their marriage ended after nearly fifty years. I cannot tell you what all those Saturday nights meant to them. I remember her at the dressing table. They lived the rest of the evening without me.

My mother also liked to go places with me, especially if getting dressed was part of the occasion. When I was in my twenties, she surprised me with tickets to a Tory Burch spring show. It may have been a presentation. There were clothes and people looking at them, which is as much as I can say with confidence.

I wore a bright pink Tory Burch minidress with nude Christian Louboutin four-inch heels high enough to require my full attention. I had taken the invitation seriously, though I had given more thought to arriving than to what I would do once I got there. The room was hot and crowded. My feet hurt, and I kept looking down to see whether the dress had moved. I remember very little about the clothes on display. I had enough to attend to with my own.

My mother was beside me. I know she was pleased to have brought me there. I cannot remember what she wore.

Fashion Week has just ended, which brought that afternoon back to me. I have had a fashion brand for nearly ten years, though we never put on a show. We did market. The clothes hung on racks while buyers came in to consider them. Some buyers considered them at great length. Occasionally this led to an order.

I have been reluctant to write about fashion, which is odd, since I spent years making clothes and can discuss the cut of a sleeve for longer than anyone has ever asked me to. Once I begin writing, I feel obliged to explain why the sleeve matters. When I was making it, this was rarely in question.

Every season I introduced new fabrics and styles. I also made the same button-down and shirt dresses for nearly ten years. Customers kept buying them. I kept liking them. A new fabric could make me look at a familiar dress again. Sometimes it couldn’t, and I used the old fabric.

Fashion Week concerns itself with what comes next. I like seeing what comes next. I have never understood why its arrival should make me dissatisfied with a shirt that fit perfectly well on Monday.

My mother understood the appeal of finding something good and buying it again. When she liked a shoe, she bought it in every color. She did the same with pajamas and makeup. I grew up thinking this was an ordinary way to shop. Why begin the search again?

She had a navy Ralph Lauren blazer that she wore with jeans, a T-shirt, and ballet flats. It was her first “good” jacket. She later acquired enough blazers that I now own all of them, including the navy one. I do not wear blazers. My mother knew this while she was alive and declined to consider it settled.

Looking through her closet, I recognized her decisions, even when I wouldn’t have made the same ones. The shoes in another color. The pajamas again. The blazers, which I am apparently meant to reconsider for the rest of my life.

I have my own collections. I have more denim shirts than I can reasonably explain. Some are darker, some are softer, and one fits better under a sweater. To anyone else they may look like the same shirt. I know exactly which one I want when I get dressed.

Sometimes a denim shirt makes me feel like Ina Garten. I looked up where she bought hers and found that it was Talbots. I investigated. The shirt was wrong for me, so I returned to my own and continued feeling like Ina. Fortunately, she has no authority over the matter.

My closet also contains stacks of sweaters, button-downs, and jeans. There is considerable variety within these categories. You would have to live with me to see all of it, and I am not extending an invitation.

People call the way I dress a uniform. I understand the term, but it gives the impression that I have lost interest. I have a tremendous interest in finding jeans that look almost exactly like my other jeans but correct some grievance I have developed against them. I can tell you what the grievance is. Experience suggests you would rather I didn’t.

I know which clothes I wear and which ones I merely admire in my closet. A shirt can look excellent in the mirror and spend the rest of the day trying to leave my shoulders. Shoes can be comfortable as long as I remain near the chair where I tried them on. I have bought both kinds. I am old enough now to recognize them before paying.

I also dislike clothes that make noise. A bracelet striking the table will eventually make me want to leave the table. I walk a great deal, take trains, get into taxis, and carry bags containing things I could have left at home. What I wear has to allow for the life I actually lead, including its poor decisions about what to bring.

My bags range from canvas totes, many of them free, to a Hermès Kelly I bought twenty years ago. I’ll take a tote to dinner or carry one alongside the Kelly. I like both, and have never seen a reason to keep them apart.

I bought the Kelly when I was quite young. I walked into Hermès on Madison Avenue and asked for one. They had a black size 32 with palladium hardware, so I bought it. No one suggested I first establish a relationship with the store through the purchase of scarves, porcelain, or objects for a horse I did not own. I wanted a handbag. They sold me a handbag. I had thought about the purchase for a long time, and nearly twenty years later, I still carry it.

I thought about that pink dress again after Fashion Week. I can remember the heat of the room and the attention it took to walk in my shoes. I would like to remember what my mother wore, or what she said to me afterward. She was beside me, and for much of the afternoon I was occupied with myself.

I still think about my clothes. I simply try to finish thinking about them before I leave the house.

Fashion writing generally ends with a list of things you must have. After nearly ten years of making clothes, I suppose I should offer one.

1. A shirt that stays where you put it.
2. Shoes in which you can leave your home and go elsewhere.
3. A sweater you are pleased to find again next year.
4. A bag that holds the things you brought, however unwisely.
5. Something you can put on when you are late.
6. A coat you like. People see you in it before they see anything else.
7. An outfit you have tried sitting down in.
8. Another one of the things you wear constantly.
9. The good sense to leave a beautiful dress in the store if you will never wear it.
10. Clothes that let you pay attention when you get where you’re going.

I realize this list provides no shopping links. My mother would have had some recommendations.