Dress: In 1987, when I was in the sixth grade, we went to spend Thanksgiving with my mom’s glamourous friend Nancy and her glamorous daughters, at their house in Tampa. My sister and I had to miss two days of school for the trip because we drove from Asheville and it took forever mostly because Dad knew a shortcut. Like many of dad’s shortcuts, this one added 8-12 hours onto the trip, as we wound down some god-forsaken gravel road through some central Florida land of the lost while Dad tried to get us psyched to see a Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings historical site. Neither I nor my six-year-old sister gave two shits about “The Yearling” and even if we had, it was pitch black night by the time we drove past and we were tired, hungry, and concerned that the only place to pee was a swampy side of the road that was likely crawling with alligators, giant bugs, and possibly killers, according to Mom. Dad was unmoved by any of this, and kept promising that we would all be learning something, and had we seen “Cross Creek,” because it’s an excellent film, buddy, superb performance by Mary Steenburgen. She’s just a fascinating person, don’t you think?
I think we got to Tampa at like 2am.
Anyway, the real sell on Florida for me and my sister was not so much glamorous friends or Dad’s crush on Mary Steenburgen; it was Disneyworld. We hadn’t been yet as a family. I saw this as a sign of some sketchy parenting because literally everybody else in the world has already been to Disneyworld, Mom. I think my parents put it off as long as possible so my little sister would be old enough, but the end result was that I, at almost twelve years old, finally entered Disneyworld the precise moment my brain turned teenager, and all I could think about was, how not magical, it all seemed. Like I’d come way too late.
In fairness, we went to the Magic Kingdom on Thanksgiving Day. It rained. Like great gullywashing, head for high ground, build an ark rain. We bought overpriced clear plastic ponchos to wear over our clothes. They were hideous and uncomfortable. They fogged with our sweat on the inside and they kept us barely dry as we waded through high tide in Adventureland. I knew I looked like a dork and I hated the poncho and I hated my parents for making me wear a poncho and after hours of standing in puddled lines full of similarly frustrated tourists in various forms of water repellant garbage bags (some actually were wearing garbage bags, I hated that we couldn’t just leave Disneyworld and go somewhere more magical, like the mall.
My sister was afraid of riding any rides and I only wanted to ride roller coasters. There was only one roller coaster at Disneyworld in those days. And it was Space Mountain. I begged, and begged, and begged, all day. No one would go on the ride with me. Mostly dad and I killed time at Pirates of the Caribbean while my mother and sister kept dry sitting through a half-dozen or so consecutive animatronic performances in the The Tiki Room. I sulked around souvenir shops trying to find anything to buy that did not have Mickey Mouse or the Disney logo on it. I found some paper dolls with historical costume (a weakness). I blew some of my allowance on a canvas outback hat that had a sequined zebra on the brim. When we left the parking lot to drive back to Tampa (mom demanded no short cuts this time), I remember thinking I guess I’m glad I got that over with. Now I never have to go again.1
The next day I recoveed by watching s Mtv with Nancy’s glamorous daughters. I remember that George Harrison’s “I’ve Got My Mind Set On You” was in heavy rotation at the time. We ate fresh pineapple, ham, and still warm Cuban bread that their Dad had run out to get for breakfast. The Moms took us shopping and and I walked into a Banana Republic store.
Remember that period of the 80s when everyone went in hard for went hard for colonialist chic. It was the era of “Out of Africa” and Indiana Jones and lots of linen skirts and Victorian blouses and mosquito net canopies for your suburban teen bedroom. Remember Outback Red? The Limited’s safari forward sub-brand. Or the Bombay Company? A suburban furniture and accessories shop that dared ask the question, what if all your Middle American rec room needs is a soupcon of British Raj?
The absolute pinnacle of this was Banana Republic. Even your bog standard mall version had jeeps in it, tents, weird platforms with palm trees, stuffed parrots, pith helmets, and binoculars. I might be misremembering this, but I believe some locations even played, like, a jungle soundtrack over the PA, so you’d hear the occasional monkey while you were picking out whatever version of the brand-specific pocket-t that you begged your parents to buy you. Absolutely everything about Banana Republic in the 1980s was problematic as hell, starting with the actual name of the store, but I was eleven. And I still contend that Tampa Banana Republic was more like Adventureland than Disney’s Adventureland and I loved it.
All this is to say that I don’t think I’ve owned anything safari-ish in my wardrobe since I traded my pink Outback Red inside-out henly for a cabinmate’s R.E.M. Work tour shirt circa summer camp1989 (I got the better deal), but when I tried on this dress, I had a flash and a moment of nostalgia.
This dress did not come from Banana Republic, who long ago abandoned their roots of dressing customers like they definitely have it coming in a Paul Bowles short story and turned to office wear (although I think they tried to bring back some safari shirts for a hot moment post Covid). I bought this dress in January as a way to muddle through winter and think about something brighter and warmer. On the upside, the dress and I both survived.
Shoes: I could not be happier that platform sandals are back. That is all.
The Outfit: What a strange unsettling few weeks. I went a friend’s birthday party, day drank, and suffered three day hangover that mostly found me, an adult woman, up in the middle of the night, trying to quell my fretting mind about war and elections by looking at Met Gala dresses reading about the Drake/Kendrick rap beef. My fluffiest cat had a something, which made me nervous, and I went to meet my aunt for lunch. I accidentally scraped a car in the parking lot, left a note, and spent the rest of the day fretting about the possible insurance implications and the cat’s health and whether I’m a terrible human because I’m petty and writing short stories about overgrown gardens and looking at pictures of evening gowns instead of whatever it is I should be doing to actively make the world a better place or whatever. As usual, all this did was give me just enough of an anxiety flare-up that I started feeling aches and pains and became convinced that I was/am dying . I’m better now, maybe, sort of (I think). And more importantly, Gatsby is fine and very cuddly and I really like my new vet.
Also, Mom’s friend Nancy sent me the most gorgeous note ever when I won that short story contest. She’s still glamorous as ever, by the way, and a wonderful painter as well.
Dress: City Chic, Nordstrom, 2024
Shoes: Nordstrom, 2024
Earrings: Bloomingdale’s, 2012 (ish)
- I have since returned twice to Disneyworld and both times I had a great time in spite of myself. My sister came out of that same trip with a deep-seated love of Disney that makes her a geneous tour guide and a just about the only person I would ever willingly travel to central Florida for. ↩︎
Tiny Commotions 