Coming Out of the Closet
What secrets are hiding in the dark corners of your wardrobe? How many versions of you are folded carefully on the shelves or are lying screwed up and forgotten in the recesses? Perhaps there are keepsakes - old shoeboxes of photographs and letters? Wardrobes have a long literary tradition (think of Narnia) - they can be a gateway to another world, a crucible of secrets, or a simple dumping ground for old memories. If your wardrobe is anything like mine, it looks nothing like this: 
The only thing 'capsule' about mine is its size (one rail, one shelf). The idea of a capsule wardrobe is regularly trotted out by the fashion pages - but do you know anyone who lives like this? I don't. Talking to a friend recently, everyone is cutting back though. I complimented her on a lovely sweater she was wearing and asked if it was new. 'Oh no, I've stopped buying clothes. This was at the back of my wardrobe,' she said. Without coming over too Trinny & Susannah, clearing out your clothes at this time of the year is a fantastic way to spring clean your mind too - recycle some, give things that never suited you to charity, and discover some old long-forgotten favourites.
The only thing 'capsule' about mine is its size (one rail, one shelf). The idea of a capsule wardrobe is regularly trotted out by the fashion pages - but do you know anyone who lives like this? I don't. Talking to a friend recently, everyone is cutting back though. I complimented her on a lovely sweater she was wearing and asked if it was new. 'Oh no, I've stopped buying clothes. This was at the back of my wardrobe,' she said. Without coming over too Trinny & Susannah, clearing out your clothes at this time of the year is a fantastic way to spring clean your mind too - recycle some, give things that never suited you to charity, and discover some old long-forgotten favourites.'The Clothes in the Wardrobe' is a brilliant book by one of the writers who made me want to write - Alice Thomas Ellis. Glorious Lili declares that 'clothes are the person'. I knew a Lili character once (a friend of my mothers who designed costumes for Fellini). She taught me a lot about clothes - and life. Working in the designer rooms at Harrods also taught me that money can buy quality but it can't buy you style. So what do your clothes say about you?
I read once that the 80/20 principle applies to your wardrobe - you wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time. Is this just a female thing? I've never met anyone less interested in clothes than the pilot - he spends half his life in uniform and would very happily never clothes shop again. I tend to wear the Mama Uniform - jeans, uggs, t-shirt day in day out, but if someone was going to torch my wardrobe the first thing I'd grab is the Petite Salope dress illustrating this post (no, sadly, that's not me modelling). I love their designs - they are like the 21st century version of a Fragonard painting. This beautifully made corset dress is possibly the least practical item for a mother of young children - but since when do you have to be practical all the time? In fact, all the materials I love - silk, suede, linen get a look in way less than 80% of the time. They will, eventually, once everything isn't covered with yoghurt handprints, mashed banana and mud. What are your favourite items of clothing? What could you never part with?
My wardrobe is full of different versions of me - maybe you're the same? Old business suits, my grandmother's beautiful couture dress coat, skinny teenage 501 jeans, (kept as heirloom for the six year old). The label sizes attest to the fluidity of the female form - everything from 'turn sideways and you disappear!' 8s (yes, someone once said this ... sighs nostalgically), to sentimental end of trimester with a 10.5lb baby maternity smocks/tents (turn sideways and you cause a solar eclipse). It's a million miles from capsule, but I love every item in there and the only way things leave is when they've been worn out completely.
TODAY'S PROMPT: It was either Pacino or De Niro who said in an interview once that they start with a character's shoes. How much thought do you give to what your characters wear? Working on the principle that 'clothes are the wo/man' when you are creating a character, why not have a think about what they wear everyday - and what they have lurking at the back of their wardrobes, or kept aside for 'best'. Every person alive is multi-dimensional. Clothes can subtly express a great deal about your characters without having to spell things out. I'll never forget Margaret Atwood's chilling description in 'The Handmaid's Tale' of the Commander's wife's stiff tailoring and the way she stubs out a cigarette with a single stab. It's the details that count. Contrast the cliched 'brilliant scientist' with a wardrobe full of identical starchy white shirts and black trousers, and Carol Shield's wonderful 'Larry's Party' where the protagonist's sports jacket is accidentally switched for an identical one. He hates it - it looks the same, but it isn't his much loved coat with the familiar hole in the pocket. What makes your character's clothes theirs and theirs alone? Are their clothes like a second skin, or do they look like they are wearing someone else's?
