An Analysis Of My Clothing After Moving Across The Country

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Two months ago, I proudly announced to practically anyone with an ear hole that upon my relocation to Washington D.C., I would only bring with me two – I repeat TWO! – suitcases of belongings. The rest I would donate or burn or pass on or sell. I felt burdened by my belongings, tethered to material items I had somewhat haphazardly collected as I traipsed through my early 20s. Before I relocated, I wanted to shed the weight of excess material goods, so shed I did.

Three months later, I am now the proud renter of a basement apartment. I am like a gleeful earth-loving hobbit and a luxurious mole rat with a proclivity for exposed brick all rolled into one.

Inside of my glorious Washington, D.C. “English basement” (read: overpriced hovel) lives one roommate, three potted plants, and a rather spacious closet. A walk-in closet that, due to the aforementioned purge, has made it quite apparent that I now own very little clothing.

“That’s fine!” I thought to myself. “I still have my work suits! That’s all I really need!”

See, for the past two years of my professional life, my work ensembles have been a consistent uniform of the 5 Bs.

Blouse, blazer, black slacks, black heels, black coffee.

Every morning in LA, I would rise from bed, begrudgingly meditate, then browse my closet as I listened to NPR – the gentle, melodic voices of the reporters a sharp contrast to the travesties that continue to litter the news. I find NPR oddly disconcerting these days — the instability of the international security climate is particularly apparent against the backdrop of soft and forcibly calm voices. How do they caress such jagged and chaotic words with such a soft tongue?

During those early bifurcated mornings, I’d run my hands along dresses and skirts, bright colored scarves, and boldly patterned heels only to land on the exact same uniform I’d worn the day before and every day since I moved home to L.A. – blouse, blazer, black slacks, black heels, black coffee.

“You look SO formal,” my friends, all native Angelinos would murmur, their business casual consistently airing more on the side of casual than business.

“You dress like an FBI agent,” a date once said to me. He certainly did not mean it as a compliment, but he also wasn’t wrong. I stuck out like a sore thumb among the ever causal Los Angeles workforce, and I knew that.

Much like smooth NPR voices traversing sharp war-torn words, my garb was in conflict with my surroundings. The salty air and sunshine was a confusing backdrop for my favorite black pantsuit but I simply figured that when I relocated to DC that contrast would end – I would be back to a city where my 5 Bs fit in.

This assumption has turned out to be incorrect.

For the past three months, I have exclusively purchased florals! I pine for colors, flowing fabrics, and loud patterns. I online shop and fill my cart to the electronic brim with lacy dresses and skirts. I wake up and wonder if I can wear three different patterns in one outfit plus bright blue pumps.

I find myself, once again, a contradictory visual. The pink and blue of the sundresses I swore I’d never wear stick out like a sore thumb in the sea of downtown D.C. urbanites just like my tailored suits did in the brightly colored Los Angeles traffic.

I believed fully that once I was on the East Coast, I would be back where I belonged – wrapped in slacks, blazers.

So why has my fashion pendulum swung so drastically? Does my sudden propensity for bright colors mean I am simply a habitual contrarian? Are my clothes the first defense in a subconscious quest to avoid settling anywhere in particular? Maybe I am using fashion as a scapegoat, fabricating a “sign” that something isn’t right, giving me an out if need be. If I don’t truly fit in anywhere, I never have to stay too long.

Maybe this is true. But I have an inkling that there is an analysis less sinister than a desire to flee.

I think my clothes are a reminder of the things I care for, but can’t hold.

Could it be that my fashion always contrasts my city because it is a beacon of sorts – a green Gatsbian light blinking in the distance? Is it less contrarian and more a tribute to what I love but am unable to touch?

When I left DC and moved back to LA after college, I missed deeply my friends and the life I had created while I was there. The pantsuits reminded me of the people that helped me build my East Coast self. So, I wore them ceaselessly.

Now that I am back, however, I yearn for my people in the West.

L.A. is my home. The smells and colors and architecture and family that make up my West Coast life are as much a part of my DNA as the chromosomes that determine my very composition – the sun and salt and dare I say it, fashion, live in a place in my heart that makes me feel whole.

So maybe it is not all that surprising that as I pick up where I left off in DC, I would choose to traverse this new life draped in physical reminders that – I am here, but part of me will always be there.

That, even though I am where I believe I am supposed to be, that does not mean I have forgotten the places I have left.

That when I buy flowery dresses in a city where pencil skirts rule supreme, I am not rejecting my new life, but realizing I don’t have to choose between the two.

I’d like to think that I am not shying away from building a life in here, but finally understand that I can be happy somewhere, without becoming that place entirely.

Things will continue to change. I will leave cities and places all over again and maybe I will never truly fit in – in fashion or otherwise. Maybe I will never become any city entirely but continue to be a confusing patchwork of them all.

And maybe that very disjointed contrast is precisely why anywhere I go, I’ll feel at home. .

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CallMeVictoria

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