Tight Clothes, Bright Clothes, Make Me Feel Right Clothes
Changing pandemic style signifies tectonic shifts.
Earlier this year, my husband and I cautiously ventured out for a double date in the first restaurant we’d been inside since the pandemic began. It felt like occasion enough to buy a new dress, but my only options seemed to be prairie chic. Tiered dresses, drab ditsy florals in muted earth tones, shapeless boxy swing silhouettes. I ranted about it a few weeks later to friends, announcing that fashion was not meeting the moment. I tried to explain: “I want tight clothes, bright clothes—”
“—make me feel right clothes,” my friend Josh teased. And they all mocked me incessantly for it afterward, but then as Hot Vax Summer dawned, the data proved I was not alone: people wanted to bid adieu to leggings and sweatpants, and for a little while, we did. In May, Rent the Runway reported 4 times the demand for crop tops and double the number of searches for mini dresses versus 2019, a 44% jump in searches for outfits with cutouts (lol), and a rise in neon colors and loud prints.
I am a happily married mother of three little kids under age six—let’s be clear, I was not having any kind of Hot Vax Summer. But I did find myself ordering a sleek, scalloped red swimsuit and a lemon yellow bikini (remember, I am a redhead so these were unusual choices) and wearing lots of crisp white button-ups with short white shorts and generally feeling more aware of how my body looked in my clothes than I had in a long time. The weight of the pandemic is so heavy that for a brief hopeful period, many of us were eager to ease it off our shoulders, a backpack we could set down, a winter coat we could lay aside. I wanted to have fun, I wanted a break from the relentlessness of the past 18 months, I wanted to call scene and do a costume change and step into act two.
Delta applied the brakes hard, right when lots of us were getting back to work, back to school, and depressingly, back to rocketing case counts and hospitalizations. Understandably, the sparkle of crop tops and cutouts dulled. I haven’t stopped thinking about the shift, though. For a moment, we were culturally connected, bound together by a common desire, despite our wildly different perspectives on everything else. Fashion does this. A friend told me I think about clothes more than anyone she knows—an observation I find funny, since I don’t own a lot of clothes or spend a lot of money on them. I am very aware of what clothes can do and what they can mean and have been this way ever since I was a little girl. But part of the reason I feel such an interest in style is how it can reveal our collective attitudes, ideas, tensions, wants—often before they have fully taken shape in other mediums or expressions. When we look back at history, we have to look at how we dressed while it happened.
“...aesthetics are always about longing. How we look at things is about where we’ve been, what we’ve done, what has been done to us, what we’re searching for, what we don’t have.” — Helena Fitzgerald
Times of great crisis always impact fashion. During the 1918–1919 Spanish Influenza pandemic, veils—which had just gone out of style—came roaring back to prominence for their practicality in covering faces. In the 30s and 40s, women’s style accommodated the masses of women joining the workforce and war effort while men were at war with utility fabrics, simple silhouettes, and slacks—and then swung dramatically back the other direction in the 50s with the ultra-feminine full A-line skirts, nipped waists, and exaggerated glamour of Christian Dior’s “New Look.” Even the 9/11 attacks on America immediately made an impact on the moment’s fashion, triggering a pivot toward casual conservatism. Of course, the obvious instant impact of our current pandemic on fashion is the insane growth of athleisure—already a significant retail category, but one that enjoyed skyrocketing sales when suddenly millions of people had nothing to dress for except Zoom calls and Stupid Little Walks.
It’s too early to say definitively what other fashion trends will emerge from this time, but Gen Z—especially the adolescents right on the cusp of adulthood who have been caught in the pandemic at a uniquely excruciating age—may provide clues. I look at Gen Z’s outfits—which borrow heavily from the 70s, 90s and early aughts—and see angst and authenticity. Clunky combat boots, platform sneakers, ugly jeans, matching pastel sweatsuit sets, bucket hats and claw clips, ditsy florals, baggy fits. They are not having it. Their clothes reflect a sense of disgust at the world they inherited, a sincere longing for real, tangible connection, and a youthful, naive lack of context (hello again, choker necklaces and Doc Martens).
Fashion trends will eventually move on, responding to whatever events and ideas the future brings us. What I wonder is how seismic this shift will have proven to be. Recently, I took my four-year-old for a consult with a plastic surgeon about some gravel embedded in his skin from a bad fall last year. “This is a traumatic tattoo,” the surgeon explained, demonstrating how the fine foreign particles were lodged deep in the dermis from the force of the fall, similar to how an ink molecule from a tattoo gun would settle deep.
What kind of traumatic tattoo has the pandemic been to us?
I took an anecdotal survey of how the pandemic has affected the way people are dressing and thinking about dressing. Almost all of the respondents said their approach to what they wear had changed. Unsurprisingly, many people have abandoned trends in favor of comfort. “Life is too short for jeans now,” one person said. “100% only care about comfort. I was not a leggings person before and I am now,” said another. “Zero hesitation to wear sweats out.” Such a move makes sense. A taste of freedom can make the old status quo feel oppressive. And as a priority, “looking cute” absolutely pales in the cold light of death.
A smaller cohort of the survey reported a different kind of reconfiguration. Over the long pandemic months, they have drifted into a more ownable style. They’re investing in slower, more intentional choices that have something to say about their unique interests, personalities, and values. “Now my style is more rooted in what I like without thought of what people will think and more experimentation,” explained one person. “Less boring, more bold!” said someone else. They described developing their own voice and choosing better-fitting or higher-quality clothes that made them feel good.
No matter which side of the style spectrum people landed on, the common denominator was change. Something about this dreadful time away from community and with ourselves has loosened the grip of trend and made space for an examination of what matters. Loss tends to reveal the truth of our priorities, and that tends to prompt a rearranging of what’s important. For some, the pandemic has forced a reckoning with who we really are and what kind of life we want to build. If the inner self changes, it follows that the outer might too.
But clothes are just clothes! you might argue. Insignificant in the long run. I think about women in the late 1940s after their men came home. Sure, popular fashion moved on from the factory-practical trousers and utility fabrics women had been wearing to work the war effort, but a different cut of dress couldn’t change the fact that millions of women now knew what it was like to be part of the workforce, to be independent. They were marked by the moment. And a couple decades later when that deep seed of change blossomed into the full steam women’s liberation movement, fashion was the flag once again to signal the turning tide.
For me, the pandemic did not spark a shift in my style approach so much as it highlighted a shortfall. Ever art-directing my presentation to the world, my life-long strategy has been to dress for the job I want, the weather I want, the feeling I want etc., etc. I may not always be able to conjure up the exact outfit my mind’s eye demands, but there is always a mood or a narrative that I am affecting. The strategy failed in COVID’s second summer with us. No amount of bright clothes could hold the pandemic at bay. Delta came and we were all still bitterly divided.
We are always dressing for the history books. The difference is that when I get dressed now, I know it.
current status
cooking :: It’s soup season. Maybe the single best thing I can give you in this letter is a knockout line-up of no-fail soups. Un, deux, trois, let’s go: Creamy Lemon Kale & Sausage Soup (truly an all-time fave), Butternut Squash Green Chile Chicken Soup (hearty and bright), DF Zuppa Toscana (yes, dairy-free, surprisingly good), Sweet Potato & Chickpea Stew (let me pique your interest with three ingredients: maple syrup, hummus, lime), Tom Ka Ghai (will never get over the bright, floral clarity of lime and lemongrass zinging through coconut milk—this also makes me realize that Floral Clarity is a funny name for something).
reading :: The James Beard Awards (the Oscars of the food world) changed its criteria for bestowing awards this year, choosing to evaluate a restaurant’s commitment to social justice in addition to the usual merits. There is no denying that the restaurant industry is riddled with systemic problems, including racism and sexism, but this retooling of how culinary excellence is assessed and recognized feels more likely to harm than to help. I find it fascinating that two very different writers who I assume hold two very different worldviews—conservative Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch and award-winning food journalist Hanna Raskin—agree that the turn is bad, although they make unique arguments to arrive at roughly the same conclusion. There is so little consensus these days that I want to pay attention when people find common ground.
watching :: Dune (2021) // I am not normally a sci-fi fan, so I took my dad to see this movie expecting only a good time with him. Instead, I was completely captivated by the story and artistic vision of director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune. The complex plot feels layered and relevant—there are complicated family relationships, a galactic struggle for power, colonialist capture of precious ecological resources, and a messiah prophecy. Also giant sand worms. It is a breathtaking film, a stunning sensory realization of the world Frank Herbert imagined, from the costume design to the sheer scale of spaceships and architecture to the provocative score from Hans Zimmer. I am deep in a big work project right now and have promised myself another viewing of Dune as a treat if I hit my deadline by the weekend.
practicing :: For more Novembers than not in the last five years, I’ve taken a break from social media. I found myself not wanting to do it at all this year, which of course means I definitely need the break. When you read this, I’ll be mid-way through the time off and I anticipate emerging like I always do: having read more books, taken more photos, witnessed more of my life, and found more space in my brain. (I also anticipate missing both Twitter and Instagram, just to be honest.)
loving :: Sometimes I have to remind myself that nail polish is not a personality. So embarrassing, yes, but an old problem: I remember feeling so cOoL and dIfFeReNt in 2008 when I started painting my nails black right before the rest of the world did. That said, I do believe nail polish—like most things we choose to put on our body—can say so much. Right now, I’m very into intense royal blue polish on my fingernails, almost a Yves Klein blue. The hat tip for this hue goes to my friend Lindsey Charles, one of those people with true original style.
drinking :: Baladin Spuma Nera soda // Bought this non-alcoholic soda on a whim and was happily surprised to discover that it tastes as complex as a cocktail. Inspired by “chinotto,” a traditional Italian soda, the Spuma Nera has notes of rhubarb, orange zest, and vanilla. It reminded me a little of vermouth, or some amari. I would serve over a big ice cube in a rocks glass with an orange twist and enjoy slowly. I found mine at my local wine shop; perhaps yours could order it for you.
reading :: If You Are Permanently Lost (The Paris Review) // A moving exploration of what it’s like to live a life permanently disoriented, to make peace with a disintegrating body, to find something beautiful in the alchemy of change.
listening :: Hallelujah Junction First Movement feels like speeding through a sun-dappled tunnel of trees on a clear day right before you have a fight with your beloved. / The dreamy rock’n’roll of The War on Drugs’ new album. / The soundtrack to the 2010 TV show Parenthood, an ideal companion to a certain kind of fall bonfire or a Saturday workday. / “Engaging with Someone Who Has Harmed You,” an intense but helpful five-episode series from Christian therapist Adam Young.
reading :: On the Internet, We’re Always Famous (The New Yorker) // “….in the Internet age, the psychologically destabilizing experience of fame is coming for everyone. Everyone is losing their minds online because the combination of mass fame and mass surveillance increasingly channels our most basic impulses—toward loving and being loved, caring for and being cared for, getting the people we know to laugh at our jokes—into the project of impressing strangers, a project that cannot, by definition, sate our desires but feels close enough to real human connection that we cannot but pursue it in ever more compulsive ways.”
loving :: Faux Leather Twisted Hoops // Love to stumble across a perfect pair of earrings while on a Target run for diapers! Light enough to not pull on your ears, chunky enough to add visual presence to even a basic outfit, these inexpensive black leather hoops have been my go-to this fall.
reading :: Ghosts at the Table (Bon Appétit) // I have my own beef with the content Bon Appétit magazine produces now after the great Test Kitchen crack-up of 2020, but this short essay on “gale-force grief” in the November 2021 issue is witty and piercing and made me tear up a little.
the real feel
Adults don’t touch each other enough. I will never forget how good hugging a friend felt after we had safely established a tiny "pandemic bubble” early into quarantine. He and his wife were the first people I had touched besides my husband and children for weeks, and we didn’t let go of each other for a long while, vowing that we all would hug more and not take touch for granted again. But of course we have. The American attitude about touch is a unique one; in other cultures around the globe, people frequently touch others affectionately, casually. Instead, we have managed to load every touch with the the possibility for sexual meaning—which, of course, charges every touch with potential danger.
“Touch is a human thing,” the late Eugene Peterson, a Presbyterian pastor and author, explained. The Christian church in America seems to struggles even more acutely with how to handle touch, especially between people of the opposite sex. The result is that we avoid touch except for anemic side hugs, which reinforces the fear. I’m not sure what the solution is—it’s hard to make an individual change when the rest of the culture isn’t and will judge your well-intentioned behavior as unusual at best or problematic at worst—but I suppose I’m here to say hug your friends closely, rub their back, play with their hair, hold hands when you pray, kiss ‘em on the cheek if you’re brave. And don’t side hug me.
last words from someone else
Until December — Light candles with abandon, dry brine your turkey, pay attention to the colors of fallen leaves on wet pavement, and for heaven’s sake, do not make that stupid “Stew.”