The Art of Sartorial Protection
A Summertime Story
Listen to Lana Del Rey’s ‘White Dress’ on ‘Chemtrails Over The Country Club’ while reading.
August, Summer of 2017 I moved to New York City with nothing but a suitcase and no where to live.
I had no fucking clue what I was doing. I just did I suppose. A right of passage some would say for most twenty-somethings. I once heard someone say, “success is a combination of dumb confidence and blind ego.” Oh, that resonates. My lease was up in a very reasonably priced apartment in San Francisco when I sprung the brilliant idea to rid all my things, hit up a friend of a friend I’d met only once in NY then booked a one-way ticket to the Big Apple, baby.
I was so daft, but that’s the point— otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Good on me for taking a leap of faith, but also cringeyyyyy. That friend of a friend I crashed with lived in Astoria and was an ill fit to say the absolute least. I bounced within a week I’m sure. Not long after he threatened to sue me for taking advantage of “a mentally disabled person”, which I had no awareness of, because I accidentally took his Olay SPF Face Cream (yes, I remember the brand). Stayed with another friend I’d only met once at The Stud in SF. She lived in Bushwick and had about 4 roommates. Everyone was in their early 20s and everyone partied at Bossa Nova, Birdy’s or Good Room interchangeably. That didn’t last long either. Then finally settled on a shared apartment in East Harlem without a mattress. I hit up all the three boroughs within a month.
This was my first summer in New York City.
The humidity was killer and somehow gave me textured hair I never knew I had. I once wore 4-inch bootie heels to hang with friends and found what a grave mistake that was. Remnants of my sartorial past followed me. One day in Washington Heights a girl asked if my gold hoop earrings were Laura Lombardi. I had no idea who that was and feigned ignorance. “Oh, these were a gift.”
They were H&M. I bought them in SF.
My style was in transit as was I.
I’ve felt for a long time fashion is an interplay of yourself with your environment.
It is based not just on your personality and tastes, but also where you live and what you do = environment. Dressing is form and function.
Like the way a city’s architecture enforces a way of being for its citizens. Manhattan is on a grid system. Rigidity. Austerity. Law and order. Concrete over nature. Buildings over people. The Streets are Mean. Humans live in tandem with the resources provided but also limited to us by nature. We are all interconnected.
So I hardened to adjust. Dressed as a means of protection from the city and its streets. Leaned into dressing even more masculine. All subconscious actions. Merely reacting to my environment.
It was summer of 2018. I left my apt in a nude-to-the-color-of-my-skin slip dress way above the knees with nothing but my black Prada sandals on. Took the M train all the way from Queens to LES.
It was a rude awakening in how exposed one feels in New York. At least for me. A city where our bodies are constantly in public spaces. A city in transit. I wasn’t ready to expose my body for consumption and judgment. I trashed the dress and momentarily swore off dresses.
A summer in Paris forced realization that I hid behind clothes as a means of defense. I mastered the art of sartorial protection.
Closing my twenties in the city of love was poetic. The best moments in my life happen when I leap off and lunge forward. A friend of a friend was subletting her apartment in the 11th for a month. I could spend a month in Paris. Why not? It ended being three and I never felt more free.
Our first post-covid summer: The air smelled of flirtatious ticklings under the chin. Making out, making love. Paris—the city that seduces. Streets wind with my thoughts and emotions. Buildings romantically loom above. The clank and clink of midday utensils heard from up above. Every place has a magnetic energy. The minute you land and step out, it is felt. Paris stripped me of my defenses.
With less to defend, my weapons withdrew. It courted the latent romantic out of me. Ever so tenderly one midnight Seine walk, one secret street-corner kiss, one glass of Chablis, one indoor cigarette, one unexpected up until 5am night with British boys at a time.
The summer I shed my heavy skin. Burdens of undesirableness and misplacement flaked off with the summer wind blowing through and carried off to the country. It took me. Left only the insides. The feeling of ‘being seen’ met consistently. From everyone. Vindicated. Nothing to prove.
Paris summer sartorial moments:
Straight from the airport to my friend’s apartment near the canal above a tabac store across the street from a Catholic church I landed in Paris and needed a cigarette to christen the moment. Schlepped my ridiculously oversized suitcase up the spiral stairs and beelined downstairs. The outdoor terrace filled with Parisians and their after work wines and cigarettes as I rounded the corner.
A feeling of confusion hit.
Were these two guys checking me out? I’m in day old clothes. Hair and teeth unbrushed. Crust in my eyes. Everything is wrinkled. They ogled me as if my tits and ass were out. I quickly realized that would be the norm there. Every city has their own taste and proclivities. I just found one that matched mine. It felt like coming home.
Another day I fashioned together a ‘School Boy’ outfit. All navy blue. I liked it enough. Walked around Paris. Did a shoot with my friend Olivia. Made my way through Le Marais.
As I crossed a French elderly man he said to himself “J’aime, j’aime!” with zero refrain and complete unadulterated excitement. Shook almost uncontrollably as his handler smiled and swiftly walked him away. I’m sure I smiled so big and kept saying, “Merci. Merci.”
I imagine it reminded him of his own school boy outfit. Legend.
I stopped hiding behind my clothes. I started to dress feminine because the city allowed me to. The people did. The culture. The energy. I was free. On vacation. No inhibitions. Stepped into my femininity. Embraced it. Because I was finally being seen. The men saw a side of me I always wanted American men to see (and maybe they always did but I never picked up on it). They were attracted to me not because I was peacocking, but because I was just me. How stupid liberating it was.
I say that to say my self-worth is not hinged upon mens’ desires. I frame that revelation because it was such a specific time in my life where I was so detached to who I was on the outside. When you’re so internal and have a rich inner life with bright little lights that manifest themselves through thoughts and emotions, it’s a haze to look at yourself from the outside.
The pandemic brought forth tenfold magnification. It was as if I came out with bright eyes and wobbly legs ready to lunge towards the divine feminine.
There’s before and after Paris
This summer I’m a culmination of who I was, who I am and who I will be. Life is filled with self-paradigm shifts. Momentous experiences that move your reality. DNA that alters for our children. The future skews left when you thought right.
I think it’s all about surrender. Gratitude. Presentness. No expectations. Everything you want, you have. Wanting means lacking. When there’s gratitude, it is yours. I’m an amalgamation of everything and everyone I’ve ever encountered. I carry it presently. The stories we all carry. Through the passage of time, I have weathered the might of my own mind.
Revelations arise as the seasons change. Living in fluidity with it tells us we are alive. Summers are boundless. Fecund. Touchable and supple. Crack open your chest and wear what makes you feel alive. Half-naked comfy is supreme. Live in your body and not your head. Dress for your inner child. Give less fucks.
The art of sartorial protection has been named and its power has lessened.
Fantastic 🌹