Women in Clothes

by Sheila Heti

  What are some things you admire about how other women look?

  I admire the way they walk in a crowd. I always step out of people’s way or am the one holding doors for others. I wish I could be that person who walks through the door or leads the pack, the one who expects the other person to move out of the way on a narrow sidewalk. I also admire the ones who make demands and get upset when someone treats them terribly in the service industry. I wish I was brave like that.

  Have you ever stolen or borrowed dressing ideas or items?

  I’ve taken some of my husband’s sweaters and his colorful socks. Also, I’ve worn my mother’s dresses for special occasions when I grew to be her size—ones she made herself. I hated all the prom dresses that were out there. They were too expensive or looked terrible on me. The dress I wore for prom was my mother’s dress. There was a time when my best friend dressed like me, or I, like her. We even had the same haircut.

  Are there any dressing rules you’d like to convey to other women?

  Always wear a bra in an office environment. I don’t think it’s appropriate to have it all hanging out there. It’s fine if you are on vacation or at home, but in the office, I don’t want to see your hard nipples. And never wear those thermal T-shirts that change color. I once wore one for a school presentation and only the breast area changed color. I was very embarrassed.

  How and when do you shop?

  I like to shop on my own. I don’t like to go with other people. I take a long time to choose and I like what I choose to be a surprise to the people who see me. I shop four times a year but only to add a small item to update what I already have. Sometimes that’s one sweater, a shoe, basic tops, socks.

  How does money fit into all this?

  I don’t have a lot of it for clothes. I usually wait for things to go on sale. If they don’t have it in my size, I tell myself it wasn’t meant to be, or I buy it and tailor it myself. I also shop at thrift stores. I pay attention to fabric and how it is sewed. I don’t like fabric I can’t take care of, and I don’t like things I can’t mend on my own. I never use my husband’s money. It feels weird and inappropriate, even though I’ve seen other women in stores be “treated.” I take great pride that I buy my own underwear and clothes with the money I made, however little that is.

  Was there a point when your style changed dramatically?

  I used to wear beautiful dresses my mom made for me. When I grew breasts, I stopped wearing them. Part of the reason was that they didn’t fit anymore and showed too much. I started to wear sweatshirts or big sweaters to cover my breasts after that. Then, when I got married, I wore less of those big sweaters because I felt safe and like I didn’t have to be the only one protecting myself.

  Can you describe what you own, clothing- and jewelry-wise?

  My only jewelry is my watch and wedding ring. I used to live in a dangerous part of Toronto, so not wearing jewelery became a habit.

  What is your closet like?

  I have three shelves on the left-hand side, for winter clothes, summer clothes, and underwear/bras. The clothes on the hangers are those that fit the season. If they are not the current season, I put them in another closet in the hallway. On the floor are my fancy shoes in boxes. There are four. Then I have a black suitcase. There is one purse.

  How does how you dress play into your ambitions for yourself?

  I tend to feel more ambitious than the way I dress.

  What is your background, and how has that influenced how you dress?

  I’m Laotian, and when my family came to Canada, our papers said we had “nil” in money. I think this makes me feel like I don’t deserve nice clothes, and I feel guilty for having them, like I’m forgetting where I come from, my roots. There are beautiful dresses which I’ve never worn called sinh. I remember my mom wearing one to the temple, but you can’t just go out to a store to buy it. You have to get the fabric in Laos or Thailand, and my mom had so few.

  Can you recall some times when you have dressed a particular way to calm yourself?

  Yes! I am really scared of doing public readings. If it’s in a bar I’m afraid a drunk person will tell me to show them my tits rather than listen to what I have privately written, so I’ll wear a sweater over whatever I’m wearing even if it’s really hot. Once, I dressed like a teenager because I was staying out late to give a reading. I thought this would prevent men from approaching me in a bar, and it did work. Then, when I was walking home, a car full of young men started to call me “Sexy” and talk about my body. That made me feel scared. So I turned to them and said, “I’M TWELVE!” They rolled up their windows and drove away embarrassed. I felt in control. Also, sometimes with some friends I won’t wear nice things because I’m afraid it will make them feel bad about themselves or jealous. A person once stopped being my friend for that reason, and her friendship, at the time, was important to me.

  Do you have any dressing tricks?

  I think you can buy cheap clothing but make it not look cheap if you have nice shoes. And when I work out and keep fit, then everything looks good on me.

  Is there any article of clothing, makeup, or accessory you carry or wear every day?

  I moisturize my skin a lot—so lip balm and sunscreen. I put on concealer under my eyes and wear a cheek stain. The cheek stain is a lot easier to apply because you don’t have to think about contoring or shaping, you just put a dot on your cheek and rub it in. It’s really easy. I generally don’t like makeup because it takes up a lot of time and it’s expensive. I think if I take care of my skin then I will look good.

  Do you care about lingerie?

  No. Because it all comes off anyway. I like to buy things I can wear for a long time.

  Do you have style in any areas of your life aside from fashion?

  I try to keep it simple and to do the best with what I know and with what’s in front of me. It’s also important to me that in my relationships and friendships things are kept simple and honest. When I first met my husband and was beginning to like him, I asked him, “Are you a one-at-a-time kind of man?” The answer to this was important to me. I once dated someone who was not, and I felt like I was interchangeable with the other women, a thing to have for one night and dump into the laundry basket another night. He said he took on the personality of whatever woman he was with, the way a person might feel about clothes. There was always someone more beautiful, younger, smarter, talented, cool, or just plain new, or someone coming who was going to be that. No matter what I wrote, wore, or thought, it never made me feel beautiful, attractive, or timeless. I wanted to be chosen, to be that bubble in the level. At the time, I thought what we had was profound and different, but love that was just for me, that fit me no matter the occasion, seemed to be more profound, and when I figured that out I went to find it, even though nothing about the universe at the time said I would. And when I did, it took only two weeks to decide the rest.

  What would be a difficult or uncomfortable look for you to try to achieve?

  I think the stripper look would be too difficult for me. I already feel people are looking at me too much.

  How is this stuff important?

  I used to think clothing didn’t matter, but it does. People respond to you differently. In jeans I look like a kid, but if I wear a pencil skirt and heels, then people start calling me “Ma’am” and I like that. Also once someone didn’t want to go out with me because I looked like a kid. I was always really sore and sour about not having a boyfriend in high school, but when I look at pictures of myself, the big sweaters, the unplucked eyebrows, I feel like I was hiding and no wonder no one was looking.

  Please describe your body.

  I’m short. I am four feet, eleven inches. I think I have big breasts, but I am told they are not all that big by my friends. I have a nice collarbone and long, graceful fingers. I could have been a great pianist but I’m an excellent typist instead. My toes are nice. I have thin ankles. My skin is nice.

  Please describe your mi
nd.

  It’s very quiet. Not because it isn’t thinking but because it is, and when it is it’s quiet.

  Please describe your emotions.

  I feel like a jellyfish. I try not to think in ways that undermine myself or to feel too much that things are unbearable. I like the jellyfish because it has no brain or heart. It’s just a thing that takes in the ocean through its mouth. I like that kind of ambition and simplicity.

  What makes you feel presentable?

  I need to shower at least two times a day.

  What are you wearing?

  I am about to go to bed. I have on a recovering serum. Moisturizer is too oily for me. If it’s cold I wear a heavier moisturizer, but if it’s hot like it was today I wear the serum. I washed my hair yesterday and it is swept to the side. I am wearing cotton because it’s good for my pores and I worry a lot about yeast infections.

  Where and when were you born, and where do you live now?

  I was born on August 13, 1978. I was born in a Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand, and raised in Toronto. I now live in Stouffville, Ontario.

  What kind of work do you do?

  I work for a company that publishes financial advice and newsletters. I also write poetry and create art with PowerPoint and paper clips.

  Are you single, married?

  I am married. I don’t have kids.

  Please say anything you like about yourself for context.

  When I was a child, my parents only had two outfits for me to wear. We were poor and they said whatever they bought for me I would outgrow anyway. My parents rarely dressed me. I dressed myself, and having to choose between two outfits made things easy. I care a lot about being clean and feeling clean because when I was a teenager, my parents sold our home and we lived in a van until their sign-making business started up. I remember not having a shower and having to wait to go to school to brush my teeth. My mother wasn’t very strict with me about grooming or clothes. I didn’t know I was supposed to shave my legs until in gym class a guy who I was sitting next to looked down at my legs and said, “Yo girl, you gotta shave that thing. I couldn’t tell which were my legs!” My mom didn’t take me to buy a bra. I had to ask her to after a guy at school said my tits were really big and I needed support. When I had my period, when I was nine years old, I thought it was a leech and asked my mother to take it out for me. She took one look at me, turned back to her cooking, and with one loud hack of a cleaver said, “You have your period. Go put a pad on.” She also always had cheap maxipads. The kind that got wet and then the glue would come undone. I had one fall out during gym class. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that I discovered there were such thing as pads with wings that protect the underwear and also secure it all there. They came in a pink box that we all had to buy in grade nine. Inside was also shaving gel and deodorant. My mother used soap to shave and just wiped her armpits with soap rubbed into a cloth. There are some people who don’t need to use deodorant, but I’m not one of them. I need a serious one. Although it might shock other women or make them judge my mother for not taking me aside to tell me how to groom myself or tell me about my period and celebrate it or teach me how to cook and clean the house, I think my mother loved me deeply and gave me something by not doing that: a strong and bright mind of my own. I could lend it space for other things. To my parents, success was the simple act of living and being able to live. It wasn’t clothes or furniture or the house to own or the china set on display. Those things are great to have, but just living, when it’s hard, is good enough. I used to have a friend who would, over the course of a meal, pick on the way people dressed in the restaurant and imagine what their lives were like outside that. I don’t think everyone gets a chance at having access to nice clothes. I think about my “ugly sweater” and the times I just had a simple wish for a shower. No one at school knew what was happening at home, but I never felt judged or teased for what I was wearing. I’m grateful for that. I dressed the way I dressed because that’s what I had and that’s what made me feel good.

  Please include a picture of your mother before she was a mom.

  I don’t have pictures of my mother before she became a mom because everything was lost when she and my dad built a raft made of bamboo to cross the Mekong River and live in the refugee camp. I doubt what she looked like is much different from now. She wore what she wanted and she made it herself. It didn’t matter.

  Here’s a diary entry I found from when I was twelve years old.

  Dear Diary,

  Today I wore my new jeans and nothing happened. I really hoped something would happen. But I loved wearing them. They felt so comfortable. I LOVE MY NEW LEVIS JEANS.

  This is what I believed about clothes then—that they had the capacity to “make things happen.”

  PROJECT

  SHOPPING TRAILS | KATE RYAN

  The paths one woman made while walking through various stores.

  ANTHROPOLOGIE

  CENTURY 21

  MADEWELL

  FOREVER 21

  MUJI

  ALL SAINTS

  GOODWILL

  ZARA

  H&M

  UNIQLO

  CLUB MONACO

  OLD NAVY

  LADY FOOT LOCKER

  OMG

  GAP

  TANI

  CREATURES OF COMFORT

  TARGET

  COLLECTION

  HEIDI SOPINKA’s Levi’s

  SURVEY

  MEN LOOKING AT WOMEN

  “As he was selling me a piece of halibut, my fishmonger said, ‘Your bangs are too long, why are you scared of showing your real face?’” —KATHRYN BOREL

  SZILVIA MOLNAR Recently, my partner gave me my first pair of sneakers (high-tops) and as practical and unromantic as it sounds, I found it so endearing that he wanted to get me a pair of shoes that offered comfort. For so many years I’ve squeezed my toes and heels into tight spaces and I never allowed myself to find style in comfort, but it means a great deal to me now.

  SARAH GERARD When I first moved to New York, I worked for a thriller writer near Grand Central. I’d spent the last three years in my hometown of Tampa and was accustomed to dressing in a revealing way, and perhaps a little shabby. One day, I came to work wearing a short dress and no tights (I never wore tights). He told me I should never walk around Midtown with bare legs, that I should always have tights on.

  LUCIE BONVALET I remember talking with my Japanese boyfriend ten years ago when I was living in Kyoto. He said that the most erotic, sensuous part of a woman’s body in Japanese culture is the nape of the neck, and traditional fashion aims at thousands of different ways to reveal it. He also said that in medieval poems the perfect woman’s body is compared to the weeping willow. The conversation helped to break, deepen, and rebuild my seeing the body as art, art in motion.

  JUDY REBICK Once when my nephew lived with me and I was working on television, I asked him what he thought of an outfit I had put on to appear in on TV (usually I sat behind a desk, but this time I would be filmed standing) He said, “You look like a mushroom.” I changed, and after that I always consulted him, ’cause he’s honest.

  ERIKA THORMAHLEN I feel most attractive when a male European tourist passes me on the street and gives me the once-over. Maybe he’ll say something like “bella” (it happened once).

  CLAUDIA DEY A man said once: If only you would brush your hair! Another man said: If only you would wear your hair off your face!

  GRACE DENTON Some days I ask my boyfriend for a word to get dressed to, like “yellow” or “garden” or “Settlers of Catan.” He’s pretty good at it, and it gives me some inspiration.

  JENNIFER WINEKE I don’t like when dudes say, “I prefer girls who don’t wear makeup.” It’s based on the assumption that girls are using makeup to correct flaws and present themselves more ideally to dudes, and the guy is saying, “Hey, no worries, you don’t have to do that for me.” There are so many cool things you can do to your face. Saying you pref
er girls with no makeup is almost a weird arrogant pressure-statement, like, I want you to be naturally beautiful and confident about it all the time, and also not have fun expressing yourself.

  AMY LAM My hair is long now for the first time ever in my life. I started growing it four years ago—when the relationship I’m in first started. Because the boyfriend likes it! Haha! I am not emancipated. I always used to have short hair, some kind of weird haircut with too many ideas. Now it’s long and people always remark on it. People say it makes me look like a woman, and I believe them! I guess out of principle I should cut it off.

  MELANIE PAGE Shopping for plus-size clothing is a nightmare. It’s a niche market, so stores take advantage and charge a lot of money for something an average or petite woman would not be charged. Recently, I discovered a resale store that has beautiful clothes. The most I ever paid for one item there is $20, and that was a whole dress. Now that I’ve found a store that’s run by a woman who empathizes with the plus-size shopping experience, I buy something nearly every week. My husband doesn’t say anything about the money, because it is inexpensive, I am happy, and I feel better at work.