FASHION « In Which We Take Our Cues From The Finest Literature »
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 8:08AM 
Honest Outerwear
by MEREDITH CHAMBERLAIN
Holiday parties are stocked with empty promises. So you stop buying new dresses to wear to them. You wear the same thing over and over. It's short and black and no one remembers it anyway. There is a song called "Lust for Life" and it never plays at the parties you go to.
But sometimes it's Tuesday, and dark, and cold, and you start looking anyway. The sunlight lies in looking. You think of the places you might go in that dress you won't own. You can go anywhere, so you stop limiting yourself to Manhattan, in December, and you look to your bookshelf. And then it starts whispering to you.
Wear this to Tender is the Night; let the draping eclipse your desperation. Put away four flutes of champagne and get away with this:
I know you don't love me—I don't expect it. But you said I should have told you about my birthday. Well, I did, and now for my birthday present I want you to come into my room a minute while I tell you something. Just one minute.
Wear this to Cortazar. It is confusing and you don't understand it but that doesn't mean it doesn't look good, leaning against the wall. Learn how to say "zipper" in 6 languages. Avoid conversations unlikely to culminate in eliminar mi cremallera. Remember that people are watching you:
I had more than enough time to wonder why the boy was so nervous, like a young colt or hare, sticking his hands into his pockets, taking them out immediately, one after the other, running his fingers through his hair, changing his stance...
In 1900, a little French envelope pusher called Le journal d'une femme de chambre was published. In 2006, the Americans repackaged it, added the subtitle: A Naughty French Novel. In 2009, this work of literature can only be referred to as Tease. This dress was made for it. Wear it around the faint of heart. Kick off your shoes but keep your socks on.
Wear this to The Lover. When you get there, ask yourself if this is somewhere you should be. Are you even a woman? Where are your hips? Put your dress back on and apologize to the business man. Your hands were where your hips might be; he could not tell.
In four more years and five more men you'll forget that he's a man who must make love a lot, a man who's afraid, he must make love to fight against fear.
Lane is waiting for you. Go apologize to him. Tell him you're sorry, and that you do like poetry. Then drink a martini and do not think of Jesus. This is the dress to do it in. All of it: poetry, apologies, gin and clean forgetting that you ever felt this way:
Phooey, I say, on all white-shoe college boys who edit their campus literary magazines. Give me an honest con man any day.
Meredith Chamberlain is the senior contributor to This Recording. She tumbls here.
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Reader Comments (5)
This is pretty much my favorite This Recording ever. Except the music doesn't go. Get me some Freda Payne! Holiday fashion!
This was so lovely and great and sensual that I sort of just drooled on my hand.
how can it be dark if the sunlight lies in looking ?
I love this piece!
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