Dress: Remember the A-line shirt dresses of the 1990s that were kind of like dresses from the 1930s, except that we wore them with combat boots and aggressively silly hats?
I had several of the dresses (and also a few of the hats). They were comfortable, on trend, and fell squarely within the often-impossible to parse dress code of my high school. My favorite came from Banana Republic, which was at the tail end of its safari era and felt to me a bit like a luxury brand because my hometown mall still did not have one. My mother bought it for me as a bit of a consolation prize in Georgetown, on this last-ditch college trip to the all the schools I didn’t want to go to, despite the fact that they were, in fact, the ones I’d gotten into and had given me financial aid. It was unsettled weekend. Spring break for my little sister. Our first real family trip with my future stepfather. I spent a lot of time crying in hotel bathtubs (I was, in fact, already crying in a bathtub on that trip when I found out that Kurt Cobain died) and chain-smoking in hotel lobbies waiting for my friends to call me back on a payphone, which was 100% a thing 18-year-olds could do in 1994.
That dress is back. Not my dress. My dress barely survived freshman year of college. It was basically a rag, mostly unwashed because I refused to iron, missing buttons, bleach and paint stained, and dotted with cigar ash holes when I consigned it to the dustbin of history. The dress is back in style, though, as is much of the 1990s.
I resisted the throwback shirt dress for a while, but my appetite for new and wearable dresses has come up hard against the fashion industry’s persistent attempts to Gunne-Sax me into a little house of sister wives. I got my tax return a few weeks back and tried to vanquish some I am absolutely sure at least one of my organs is failing right now health anxiety by giving myself an advance birthday present. And here we are.
Jacket: At the end of January, I flew up to New York for a weekend to see my best friend, attend two nights of a birthday party, and melt away some little town blues. The second day we got in some solid stroll around Brooklyn, despite the weather being dreary, and browsed down a stretch of Atlantic Avenue, through antique shops and gift shops and a lively boutique of oddball gifts, toiletries, and French-inspired workwear called Jao Social Club. We browsed bright blue chore jackets and soft, not quite lounge pants, and chatted with the owner and staff. I fell in love with a bright red button man and allowed myself to get talked into this floral velvet jacket. You’ll never guess where it came from, the owner asked. And when I hesitated she said, Piscataway, New Jersey! Her enthusiasm was contagious. I bought the jacket.
I feel like a floral velvet jacket is both one of the more fashion forward decisions I’ve made and also the kind of thing that suggests I’m perilously close to teaching life drawing at the community center an always having a man named Rodolfo inexplicably hanging around my house in a satin kimono whenever guests come over. The first time I wore it was that same weekend when my best friend and I slogged through rain and ended up drinking delicious, if breathtakingly expensive hot toddies in the bar at the Chelsea Hotel, which might have been the perfect place to meet and propose a domestic partnership with Rodolfo, but instead we made fast friends with a woman who introduced herself as the Crumpet Queen of Seattle one table over. I 100% credit the jacket for this turn of affairs.
Earrings: These, like many of my favorite earrings, came from Minx Boutique in Asheville. Unlike most of the rest of them, these came from inside the display case. I don’t remember who made these, and I’m sorry about that. They are bakelite and slightly art deco and among the most fabulous things I own.
The Outfit: Three of my friends and I went to Richmond, Virginia for my birthday on what can be accurately dubbed a “girl’s weekend” so long as you’re cool with described women in their forties as girls. We stayed at the Jefferson Hotel, a gilded age palace of a hotel with numerous domes, columns, a grand staircase, and a palm court. For a few decades in the early 20th century, the Jefferson also housed live alligators in its lobby, the last of whom, Old Pompey, lived until 1948. To date, there are numerous alligator homages throughout the hotel, including my favorite, small chocolate alligators left bedside at turndown. I’m genuinely unsure which of those details in the preceding two sentences delights me the most.
On Friday nights, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts stays open late and hosts a happy hour, often with some kind of live entertainment, should you need something to sway you beyond their excellent collection. I wore this dress to the museum. We looked at Sargents and drank cocktails at the museum bar. The entertainment that evening was some strange combination of a powerpoint presentation and an elderly woman singing Broadway hits in opera voice, which got funnier after the cocktails. We eventually kicked ourselves out of the museum and took a car over to a Swiss/German restaurant in Scott’s Addition, where we ate several things involving large quantities of gruyere. And some excellent—truly excellent—scallops.
Happy International Women’s Day. I don’t know what your plans are, but if you need a recommendation, I’m probably going to put on a tutu later, listen to some classic ladylike jams, and hex anyone trying to take away my bodily autonomy. Then, I don’t know, maybe a French 75 and foment revolution? Let’s see where the day takes us.
Dress: Woodson Dress, Reformation, 2024
Jacket: Vikolino, Jao Social Club, 2024
Earrings: Minx, 2022
Boots: Dr Marten’s, 2022
Bag: Hobo, 2024
Tiny Commotions 