Women in Clothes

by Sheila Heti

  TALATA BOWSER Most of my hijabs are pashmina shawl types, and I use the wrap-and-tuck method. I accent them with cheap rayon scarfs. I wear conservative skirts, long sleeves, and loose pants. This came about after my first two or three years of marriage because my husband did not like some of the pieces in my wardrobe, and it became a source of contention. He decided to buy me new clothes and I became more practicing, and this led to a shift in how I dress.

  ANDREA MICHELLE STEELE My husband said you should dress for the job you want, not the job you have. After adopting this philosophy, I have doubled my salary in the past year and a half.

  MIRANDA FISHER My favorite dress might be this coral-and-yellow floral minidress from Forever 21 that cost $8. The first time I wore it, I interviewed one of my musical heroes, and he complimented both the interview and the dress. Another time I wore it the first time I was in the same room as a guy I ended up dating. Later he recognized me because of the dress and told me that the first time he saw me he thought, “How can a person be so beautiful?” which is so nice that I’m choosing to believe it.

  JILL MARGO I had a friend who was always looking at and talking about and panting after women of a body type that is the polar opposite of mine. Even though I wasn’t interested in him sexually, his range (or lack of it) kind of pissed me off. I thought he watched too much porn and was too hard on women. Then one day he said, “I love looking at you.” I said, “No you don’t.” He said, “Yes, I do! I love the way you look.” I guess I’d been measuring how appealing I was by whether or not someone wanted to shag me. It perfectly matched growing up in a household where I was told I’d never get a husband if I was too overweight.

  PAMELA BAGULEY My boyfriend John and I had been out for lunch and we were at the traffic lights in Huddersfield. There was a very nice ladies’ dress shop on the corner, and a very special blue dress in the window. John saw it and said, “Oh, that’s nice, it would suit you. Go and get it and I’ll buy it for you.” I liked it, it was a nice dress, and it was £200. That was in 1980, so that was a lot of money. I paid for it and he never gave me the money, which is how I remember exactly how much it was.

  ELEANOR WEST Since I tend to date people who are as immature as I am, if a guy says something about my looks, he usually means it as a comment on how he feels about me, and it’s usually something along the lines of “I’m disappointed in you.” A guy I was dating once told me that my breasts “could be bigger.” I think what he meant is that he’d imagined dating me for a long time, fantasizing about what it would be like, then it turned out to be different, with smaller breasts. Probably after so many years of dating jerks, at this point, I would take any comment from a boyfriend about my looks as a comment on our relationship.

  KARIMA CAMMELL In my family, I was known for my “sausage fingers.” There was a family friend I really respected, a father of one of my friends. One day in the summer when I was reading on the couch, just being an awkward teen and feeling really ugly, he walked through the room and said, “You have the hands of the Madonna.” I realized that we tell ourselves stories about how we think we are. It’s better if it’s a nice story.

  LENAE DAY When I got married at eighteen, I went from having a free-spirited ’70s style to shopping exclusively at places like American Eagle and Hollister for low-cut jeans and super-tight tank tops. I was super-depressed. I bleached my hair and grew it long. I was embarrassed to shop at thrift stores and wear the “crazy” or “over-the-top” things I used to, because my husband thought it all too loud and embarrassing. Then I started making art, cut off all my hair, and began making my own dresses and shopping for vintage pieces. And I left that husband.

  HIKARI YOKOYAMA I bring out my sexy lingerie if I need a boost, imagining my boyfriend will gently strip my clothes right off me inside the doorstep to discover this naughty present, but instead I’m always wearing it the night we get home late and just go to bed.

  RACHEL SIGNER Recently, when I broke up with my boyfriend of two and a half years, I confessed that one of the reasons I’d stayed with him for so long is that I’m self-conscious about how attractive I am to other people. He said, “Well, honestly, I think you really need to dress better.” The next day, I went out and spent $250 on clothes.

  BONNIE MORRISON Sometimes I get ensnared in thinking I should try harder to be more attractive to men—more fitted clothes, heels. But I have mostly accepted at this point that I’m not really that type of woman.

  NANCY FORDE I was sexually assaulted when I was thirty. It affected how I dressed—not that I was dressed in a particular way when I was assaulted. But after, I found myself buying clothes that did not hug my body. I have always argued with the notion that women are sexually assaulted because of their attire. I say, “Yes, that grandmother and that little girl of six should have been more modest, right?” So it was strange to see myself change how I dressed as a result of the assault. I didn’t want to give any man “out there” the “pleasure” of picturing my body.

  ANA ZIR Here I am, it’s the 1970s, I’m newly married, I have on this killer black sexy silk nightdress I had just bought. My significant other comes home from work, I approach him in this seductive attire. What happens next? Nothing. No notice, no comment, nothing. Zip, invisible, waste of money, what was I thinking, unbelievable, don’t ever do this again.

  AURELIA BELFIELD I was at a wedding in Manhattan, and I had on this new dress that I’d just bought, and it looked great. It was a black Kate Spade sheath dress with big white bows printed all over it, and I was running like mad to catch the train, and there was this man who stopped me, and I thought he was gonna hit on me, I thought we were going to have a problem, but he just said, “You know what? That is a really nice dress.” And I said “Thank you, sir,” and ran and got the train.

  PROJECT

  MOTHERS AS OTHERS | PART 2

  Send a photograph of your mother from the time before she had children and tell us what you see.

  HYON LEE

  This is a photo of my mom on her honeymoon in Tahiti in 1983. She is wearing a dress that my grandmother and aunt made together. Every time people see this photo of my mom, they say, “I can’t believe how much you look like your mom!” And I always reply, “No, she is so much prettier than I am.” I do see the resemblance, but in truth, she is much more striking than I am, her features more symmetrical. When I see this photo, I see a sexy, punchy, funny girl. And carefree. I wish I was as outgoing as she looks in that photo. I got married at the same age, twenty-eight. Many of her friends asked if they could borrow her wedding dress for their wedding. She always obliged. One friend returned it completely altered. I regret not trying it on during my dress search, even though I would not have worn it. But it would have been fun to uncover it, to see how my mom and grandma would have felt. LAUREN RO

  SUSANNE MUNDHENKE

  This is a photo of my mom at twenty-four, five years before she had my sister and eight years before I arrived on the scene. It was probably taken by my dad. I see many elements of my mom that have gone unchanged, such as her love of puzzles and obscure art books (under the box, behind her arm), as well as her beauty. She was never “mom-ish” in the ways my friends’ moms were. Her rich inner life is something I sensed as a child and always respected. In the picture, she is wearing a gold Rado watch given to her by a suitor. I got the impression from the stories of the women in my family that in order to become a fully grown woman, one had to reject at least one marriage proposal as a sort of rite of passage. This photo shows the strongest resemblance between me and my mother that I have ever seen. Many people who look at the photo (which we keep on the fridge) have mistaken me for her, and I find this very complimentary as I think she looks like an off-duty model with a penchant for Escher puzzles. MARSHA COURNEYA

  DENISE DAMA

  This photo has been with me through six different towns and many more apartments, so it looks a lot older than it is, but I kind of like that. It was taken in the mid-seventies in North Car
olina, and I think you can tell by the way she’s handling that snowball that this is one of the first times she’s encountered snow (she grew up in Panama City, Florida). She looks happy and healthy. This was before she had kids or a husband, and before she decided to become a nurse. At the time, she was living on a farm and dating a guy who kept beehives in his car. I love her corduroy peacoat and her center-parted hair. MARY MANN

  OKHEE KIM

  Aside from her youth, I’m struck by how round and full her cheeks are (for as long as I’ve known her, she’s had high, prominent cheekbones). There’s a softness to her face, but her expression is direct and quite steely, and I see a determined set to her mouth, which isn’t quite smiling. When I look at those arched, partial eyebrows (which my older sister inherited), I remember the expert way she filled in the rest with her eyebrow pencil. None of us got her large, deep-set eyes. I have her full lips, but I resemble my father, and though he was a handsome man, as a child I always felt disappointed when people told me I looked like him and not her. CHIN-SUN LEE

  PACITA PACIFICADOR

  She always hated her chin. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she would jut it out in a way that was unsettling to me. When I look at these pictures, I see my mom as she wanted to be seen—admired—and I see a private, ambitious side of her she didn’t talk about or show me. Sometimes, in old photos of her, I can sense a strength and stubbornness I like. LEANNE SHAPTON

  ELIZABETH LEILA SHARPE

  My parents at their wedding. I’m dying to know why my mom chose to wear black. I love the square neckline on her dress, its three-quarter sleeves, and the great fit. What I see is all the good intention and hope that infuses a wedding, yet I’m acutely aware of the knowledge I possess now about what happened. My mother looks elegant to me, poised, great bone structure. She’s trim and tall, or taller than I am. Her face and her body eventually succumbed to the effects of medication, and her life succumbed to the incredibly unfair and tragic conditions that so many with mental illness are confronted with. So in this picture I see promise. I also see spirit—that black dress (maybe chosen to hide me growing underneath it)—and spunk—the woman who dared wear that black dress, and who dared have a child in adverse circumstances, and who then dared raise that child in even more adverse circumstances. My mom was going to return to her maiden name after her divorce, but she decided to stay with Welch so that she and I would have the same last name. When I married in 2001, I was going to take my husband’s last name but my son protested and I instantly understood that I needed to keep my last name for my child, just as my mom did. ZOE WELCH

  FAYE BINGHAM

  This is my favorite photograph of my mother as a young woman. In it, I see a young and relatively carefree woman who likes to have fun, act childish, and take silly photographs. It reminds me a lot of myself. Her underwear is nearly showing (like mine, in countless photographs posted online by friends). She looks great. I love the nod to bougie-rich ’80s culture, but the headband? It’s just so good. This is a woman’s idea of what it is to be sexy—a woman who, very much like me, is uncomfortable being sexy, and so we do it as a joke. LENAE DAY

  CHRISTINE GATEAU

  I used to work part-time in the library of the English department at the University of Strasbourg, where I also went to school. One of my favorite aspects of the job was to read students’ library cards and know what books they were reading, what their middle names were, and look at their pictures. I felt like I was getting to know them intimately. Around the same period, I discovered my mother’s library card from the time she was a philosophy student in Lyon, and I have kept it with me ever since. But unlike my fellow students in Strasbourg, she has remained a complete mystery to me, and the longer I stare at this picture, the more mysterious she becomes. LUCIE BONVALET

  OLGA FAB

  My mother was very young here, maybe in her early twenties, maybe younger. She had been in the United States less than a decade. She and her family were Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, but she decided early on that she wanted a glamorous life, and actively sought one. I think she was eager to begin a new life away from her past as a refugee and immigrant. She was not exactly innocent but certainly hopeful and full of yearning. I admire the simplicity of her white shirt and the beauty of her profile. I always loved and envied her nose. I think she knew how beautiful she was, and was beginning to learn how to use that beauty to her advantage. I wish I had asked her a lot more questions. She was not like her sisters who became quite conventional housewives. My mother invented herself when she came to America. RUTH GAIS

  TIGER KEOGH

  My mom is on the far left in this picture. She’s a teenager, standing there with her mom and sisters. It’s probably 1970. She grew up in Moab, Utah, and the family was working-class. Odds are good that someone in the photo sewed her coat—they all were and are capable seamstresses, probably proud of their skills and style. I know my mom really felt the restrictions of that small, conservative town, and was eager to get out and see the world. MOLLY DOVE KEOGH

  DENESE CHARLES (ON THE RIGHT)

  It’s ’60s–’70s in the Caribbean. She’s about six feet tall. You can’t see her feet but she has size 13 triple E feet. She’s carrying a Bible and a songbook, which means she’s going to church, and she probably made that dress herself, with the long collar. She was a seamstress. And she’s not really looking at the camera, which is exactly right for her. I think she was probably very shy and still is. She was always proud that I could read. The only time she wouldn’t let me read was when I was cooking. She made me wear socks and shoes in the Caribbean in the frickin’ heat. Later I understood, it was because she had such big feet she couldn’t buy shoes, and so she had to stop going to school. She didn’t tell me this until much later. It made me really sad. For her it was pride that her daughter was going to school and she could provide socks and shoes. The thing I remember the most are those long legs. I just remember being around her legs all the time. DORLA McINTOSH

  MARJORIE BANKS

  I can’t find a picture of my mom, but this is my grandmother on my father’s side. She joined the British Royal Air Force because she liked the outfits better than the outfits in the Navy or the Marines. She told me she wouldn’t have married my grandfather—a Canadian she met during the war—if premarital sex had been acceptable. MEGAN FRANKLYNE

  GENISTA STREETEN

  My mum was in her thirties here and lived in a block of one-bedroom flats in Holland Park. Most of the residents were single and they called themselves the Swinging Singles. She ran her own theater PR company and enjoyed all the parties this involved. The man in the photograph was a neighbor, and they used to meet for a little nightcap after their various nights out, and if she was too drunk he would help her pull her boots off. I like this photo because it shows the fun and carefree life she was living, but also shows a hint of her vulnerability. POPPY TOLAND

  JENNY PHANG

  This photo was taken in the late sixties in Hong Kong, when my mum was in her early twenties. The hand my mum is holding is my dad’s—they’d just started dating. She looks happy and nervous and naive. She had just broken up with her first serious boyfriend and my dad was a bit of a rebound, but she fell desperately in love with him all the same. When I look at this photo, I can see that her sense of style is pretty unchanged. She still likes to take risks, and wearing a dress that short would have been risqué then. The photo also makes me a little peeved, because she’s always told me to dress reservedly, and here she is flaunting those legs in platform shoes. MICHELLE LAW

  ANNE PERRIE

  My mum on Lake Muskoka, circa 1965. I didn’t quite inherit her long, lean legs, or her chic sense of style. I could never, for example, have gotten away with plaid slacks, as she could. SIOBHAN ROBERTS

  SUSAN JEAN KLINE

  I see a beautiful and vibrant woman who was halfway through her college career, had just met her life partner, and was overjoyed to be with her older sister on spring break. Her style
is fully seventies, which means I currently would covet everything she is wearing. This was my mom’s face when she laughed. Knowing that my mother knew how to cut loose and really burst with happiness solidifies to me that I am her daughter. REBEKAH AMBJOR

  FRANCES STRAUSS

  When I asked my mother about this photo, what she remembered best was her car, which she was very proud of owning. It was the seventies. I don’t think anyone wore a bra. Besides that, she was very independent. In this photo she’s about twenty-seven years old. She’s almost a decade away from having me. She’s in between traveling stints and doesn’t have a boyfriend. My mother didn’t think of herself as attractive, and I think that her insecurity inhibited her a little bit, which is a shame. I think she looks very beautiful. SARAH STEINBERG

  LYDIA GLICK

  My grandfather is holding my mother in this picture—she’s the baby with her little hand held out. Honestly, when I think of style, I think of her older sister, my aunt Elizabeth (Libby), who is standing to the right of my grandfather and wearing glasses. My mom’s side of the family is Mennonite. The kids in this picture grew up on a dairy farm in North Dakota. Aunt Libby told me that they weren’t allowed to wear jewelry, yet she wanted some kind of decoration, so she faked having bad eyes until my grandparents got her some glasses. She’d sit there squinting at her book going, “Uhhh, uhhh, I can’t see.” She told me, “I wanted glasses so badly! They were like jewelry!” So when I look at this picture, I see my aunt, this young girl in glasses. She’s triumphant. SOFIA SAMATAR