Another Self-Indulgent End of the Decade Blog Post: My Decade in “Fashion.”
I cleaned out my closet last week. I usually am not one for cleaning of any sort, but I had just watched an episode of Hoarders where the crew found the bodies of several dozen cats buried underneath mountains of garbage, and, well, there are some things that cannot be unseen. I didn’t find any desiccated cat corpses in my closet, thank God, but I did find a decade’s worth of terrible, terrible clothing.
The items I found are like post cards from my past selves that say things like, “Fuck you for dressing like a glam rock hillbilly,” and “Don’t even think about getting nostalgic about this era. You looked awful.” And since very few photographs of me through out the past ten years exist anymore (a few years back I went through old, embarrassing photographs like the Allies went through Dresden), they are the only tangible reminder of the person I used to be (apparently, a humongous asshole.) What pictures I do have I won’t post, because I do have some dignity (Note: I do not). You’ll just have to imagine these looks worn by a sort-of Tilda Swinton-Willy Wonka hybrid. I found that my looks could be organized quite nicely by year and varying degrees of pretentiousness, so I now present to you, “The Five Ages of Ally: A Not-So-Fashionable Retrospective.”
2000-2001: The Love Child of Brian Eno and Ronald McDonald
Key Items: Vinyl stop sign purse with handles made out of Mardi Gras beads, green (yes, green) leather pants, vintage Roxy Music t-shirt two sizes too big, hair the color of tomato soup.
Me, aged 13.
What it says: “I am trying very hard to be different from my peers. Now, which way to the star ship? I have a date with some spiders from mars.”
2002-2003: Goth Detective
Key items: Floor-length gauze chemise (black), corset (black), trench coat (black), copious amounts of eyeliner (black).
Well, at least I wasn’t a cannibal
What it says: “I carry this wooden stake around with me all the time. Like Buffy.”
2003-2004 19th Century Child Factory Worker
Key items: Anything ill fitting and purposefully tattered, hair left uncombed, no makeup (because that would be too “inauthentic.”)
The height of fashion.
What it says: “I don’t care about fashion, even though I spent three hours deciding which outfit looks the most artfully mismatched. I care about deeper things, like issues. Issues.“
2006- 2007: Janis Joplin 2: Electric Boogaloo
Key items: Peasant skirts, Indian sandals I bought because I thought they looked like something the Maharishi would have worn, giant earrings that stretch the earlobes out like chewing gum.
Like this, except with less aspiration on my own vomit
What it says: “I am so crazy, free-spirited and in-touch with Mother Earth that I think I’m going to vote for Nader in ‘08.” Reality: I watched a lot of NOVA on PBS while drinking tea with- get this- sugar cubes instead of Splenda! More importantly, I didn’t vote for Nader.
2008-2009 Repressed 1960s Housewife
Key items: Heels at all times, even when going to the grocery store or going for a walk, circle skirts and shift dresses, pearls, a near-constant Betty Draper bitch-face.
The Betty Draper bitch-face was all the rage this autumn.
What it says: “No, I’m not profoundly sad, it’s just my people are Nordic. Also, don’t touch me.”
