By Beauty Damned

Dress Me Up in Your Love

I woke up this morning and had coffee before going to pick up my dry cleaning. It rained for a little bit and seemed to be at its peak when I walked out the door. Had to run back in and grab an umbrella. It was colder than I expected. The clothes were heavier than I expected too and my back was aching as I carried them back to my house. I've been sick and my back is a gigantic piece of shit. The last couple of weeks have been misery when it comes to health. I've felt like an irreparable mess, but hopefully it will pass.

I made breakfast and Rob and I sat around lazily until we decided we had to get out of the house. We went to Park Slope. I dropped him off at his friend's house and parked the car. Walked down the street to Beacon's Closet and shopped for nearly two hours. I tried on tons of dresses. Things I knew I probably wouldn't buy, but I had time to kill and I love to play dressup so I made an afternoon of it. I tried on so many interesting things. I love secondhand shopping. It's so much more fun than regular shopping. I forgot how much I love it. When I was a teenager most of my clothes were purchased secondhand at flea markets, rubbish sales, yard sales or Value Village. I had a passion for secondhand clothes. I even went to the freebox at the hippie mecca Ashland Food Coop on a regular basis when I was in high school. I had a boyfriend who was a yard sale junkie and we fulfilled our passion together. Turned out that was all we had in common.

When I moved to New York I packed my enormous collection of vintage-wear away at my parent's house in Oregon and I never bothered to find places in NY where I could find funky apparel. Most of the things I purchased had to be acceptable for work so my wardrobe hit an extremely boring, awkward phase where I felt like I had to try so hard to look like an adult. I always had a very sexy, eclectic style as a teenager and those things just weren't going to cut it in a midtown law office, nor would they have given off the right impression. I wore a lot of black during my first couple years in New York. Over the past few years I've incorporated a lot of color into my look. I still wear a lot of black though. I can't help it. It just works.

When Howard died and I went to Portland, Kathleen and I went to a couple of places to sell his clothes after emptying out his entire closet. That whole trip had such an intense affect on me in every imagineable way. One unexpected sidenote was that I rediscovered my passion for secondhand clothes and realized that my sense of style has evolved so much over the years that I am able to incorporate these pieces into my wardrobe without going over the top.

I was sad that we didn't have as many reasonably priced vintage/secondhand stores in New York, but when we came back to Brooklyn Kathleen discovered Beacon's Closet. We went for the first time a couple of weeks ago and today was my second time going there. I must have tried on thirty - possibly forty - items of clothing. They have some really exceptional and unique things. Amazing name brands. Prada shoes and handbags for unbelievable prices. Betsey Johnson, Cynthia Rowley, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and many other lesser known but equally amazing designers. The best is the amazing vintage pieces, like one particular black velvet jumpsuit that I tried on and nearly cried over because I was too tall for it. It was one of the most beautiful and unique things I've ever seen. I couldn't even begin to describe it...other than to say that I couldn't pull it over my shoulders and it was mildly heartbreaking.

I had a great time all by myself in that store, looking through the racks, trying on shoes. And the dresses. All the pretty dresses. Going into the dressing room to try them all on - to feel all the different kinds of wonderful fabrics and cuts on my body. Fashion is a wonderful thing. And there is something so much more enjoyable to me about the mish mash of things that you can find in a store like that and all the sorts of things you find that just aren't being made anymore. Certain items of clothing can make you go back in time. I was in my own world and I loved every minute of it. I felt like a little kid living out a fantasy in all my finery.

I left the store with all kinds of little stuff that I was aflutter about. Black silk Betsey Johnson dress. Black strappy Prada sandals. Fuschia silk Nicole Miller blouse... All so cheap! Few things could make me happier than a successful day of thrift shopping.

Except maybe going to the Burger Joint with Robert and then to the movies. We saw Syriana. He slept through the entire thing in the theatre. What a waste of $11.00. I mean because he slept. Not because the movie was bad. It was a great movie, but I would have preferred to see it on DVD anyway so that I could have rewound the shit that I didn't get. It was a complex plot and I would have liked to digest it better. The weird thing was that I didn't even care what movie we went to see because I was just so glad to be going to see one, I didn't bother to find out what we were seeing until we got to the theatre and Rob put the ticket in my hand. Next time I think we'll go for a comedy or maybe a horror flick and save the political dramas for at-home viewing.

Now we're back home and it's late because we've sprung forward. That means it's not 3 a.m., but 4 a.m.

I hate daylight savings. Such a bunch of crap.

There. I blogged. All is not lost.

Posted by Maria at April 2, 2006 04:18 AM | TrackBack