Two young women encounter a fashion critic who will change their style forever.
When I see my teenage self in family portraits—grandpa on one side, uncles on the other—I sometimes marvel that it took so long for me to realize the lunacy of my ensembles. For whatever reason, I wandered the streets in my underwear for years before an elderly gentleman in well-pressed pants gave me his honest opinion.
I’ve always been pretty heavy into homemade fashion, and the outfits I’d cobble together out of worn bed sheets, old-man pants, velvet curtains, and dinosaur T-shirts are, in retrospect, a little hard to take. There was a period where I was only comfortable in men’s sneakers two sizes too big, and years in which Lindsay and I swore eyeliner only improved with age. We’d spend long afternoons layering polyester disco shirts, crinolines, and old-timey aprons bought in thrift stores and go to parties in moth-eaten cardigans, scout uniforms, and mismatched socks. It was a heady time. When I think of us hoisting beers smudge-eyed on railway tracks and riverbanks, I can’t help but see a likeness to kids in their mothers’ high heels at pretend tea parties. Either that or bag ladies.
When I was 21 Lindsay and I moved in together and became even more fashion forward. Our apartment was a shambles of torn petticoats, sashes, and old dresses coming apart at the seams. We cut our own hair—necks craned to get at the tricky parts in the back—and struggled to leave the bathroom without a quick go-over with the scissors and a gluestick. We adored secondhand slips and would layer one over the other over the other over striped socks with legwarmers made from the cut-off arms of sweaters. In the mirror, we’d shimmer back at ourselves like woodland elves or valentines, black eyeliner like raccoon bandits, bangles chiming from wrist to elbow, feet soggy in wet sneakers riddled with holes.
That summer, we cast our shoes into the abyss and luxuriously wriggled our toes. We wrote footwear off as middle-class excess and roamed city streets in bare feet tough as nails. We hung out of trees like monkeys, shot fireworks into the night, and were ever-ready to transform walls and concrete with graffiti pens and sidewalk chalk. We carried ourselves like ambassadors from some other fun-loving plane and approached those outfitted more conventionally with an air of benevolent condescension. Inwardly, we were sure, they envied us our spectacular style and judged us only because they lacked the jam to follow suit.
The boundaries of these others began coming in to focus for me that August afternoon outside of our apartment when Lindsay and I—barefoot, black-eyed, and bushy-haired—crossed the asphalt at the behest of the gentleman at the front door. Elegantly attired in tan windbreaker and white button-down, he stood small and bent in the summer sun, the creases in his checked pants cutting shadows sharp as a sundial. Adjusting his cap, he called out to us again and we picked our way across the sharp gravel and broken glass of the parking lot to lean in eagerly, listening. ”One of the common people!” was the exclamation unspoken between us. Our chance, we thought in tandem, to do some good.
The old man, however, was not in the mood to be witnessed to. The moment we clasped our hands, attentive, in front of him, he looked to each of us and exclaimed, “I don’t understand you girls!” We took a step back as he shook his head and gestured angrily. “When I met my wife—” he said and stopped abruptly, gripping his walker with both hands and clearing his throat. “When I met my wife she was young like you. She wore such smart little suits: wool skirts, stockings, and tailored jackets—homemade! You girls,” he sighed, “You girls run around wearing underwear outside of your clothes. I don’t understand it. I don’t!” He shook his head and held us both, for a moment, in a withering gaze. We blinked. I opened my mouth to reply but he heaved his walker away. He shuffled into the building—pant creases sharp as razors, brow furrowed under his cap—and left us ragged and bewildered in the summer sun.
Lindsay and I blinked again, dumbfounded. The asphalt under our feet was almost too hot to bear. I shifted from foot to foot, sweat trickling down my back, and said, “Huh.” Pushed the hair out of my eyes and considered my secondhand lingerie: “Underwear?” We looked at each other. We looked at our reflections in the glass of the front door. We looked at each other again. Silence as we contemplated our reflections, and then Lindsay laughed. “Did you see his little cap?” she asked. “He was so cute!” I nodded emphatically. “Totally,” I said. “And his wife sounds like a babe.” We linked arms and grinned at ourselves standing there in the dark glass of the front door before turning again to the heat of the August afternoon. We steeled ourselves to the old man’s disapproval and greeted him graciously when we passed in the hall, his impeccably knotted ties confirming his membership in that club of unfortunates unwilling to understand. In folklore, we wore our petticoats with the confidence of couturiers. In reality, I never wore a slip outside of my clothes again.
