When I first started collecting vintage clothing I loved it because it transformed me. I was a shy, insecure junior high school student who was bad at sports and unable to stand up for myself. I wore the normal, dull clothes of the late seventies- corduroy pants, acrylic sweaters, slip on comfortable shoes. My hair was cut in a modified Dorothy Hamil flip that wouldn't feather right, no matter how much I blow dried it. I thought that getting in to the Pom Pom squad would make me instantly into the perky high energy American teenager that I was supposed to be- but no. It just solidified my total apathy about sports and my terror at performance. Besides the cheerleaders were the cool girls. Pom Poms were dorks in brown dresses shaking clumps of shredded paper to the tunes of the Bee Gees.
This is where vintage clothes came to the rescue. When I was fifteen I managed to score a plum silk velvet dress from the estate of a recently deceased former flapper- perfectly fitted along the bias with flamboyant ruffled sleeves. When I put the dress on, I was an elegant young woman whose clothing fit perfectly and whose rather muddy green eyes suddenly stood out. I was ready to go to a party where they served things like oysters and champagne, where handsome boys wished to speak to me behind the potted palms rather than yelling "One, Two Three Four, Get those Horses Off the Floor!" This artifact of a vanished time was going to help me to simply rise above my current situation and become someone else. And that was good.
Now my reasons for loving vintage clothing have become more complex. I don't escape with the clothes any more, in fact few of them fit me. I don't have a desire to be glamorous or cool, or to be noticed on the red carpet. In fact my everyday clothing now is strictly functional and more suited to rough and tumble auctions than high toned parties. I think what I do have, which keeps my interest, is a desire to see the past reignited, if only briefly. For example: last week I went to an auction. There was a pile of very old clothing sitting on an oak chair. I looked at it enough to see that it was from the twenties through the fifties, some of it in poor condition and all of it dirty. I bought it, stuffed it into a box and took it home. I washed what was salvageable and brought it to the shop. Immediately Juliana, my sometime employee, honed in on a peacock print rayon dress from the late 40's with cap sleeves, hand sewn with dressmaker's touches like seam binding and tiny stitching on the neckline. She changed out of her yoga type flowing clothing into this dress and became a woman of the 40's, brave, self sufficient, making her own pretty dress and wearing it proudly. No one else on K street would have this dress. She would be stopped by fashion students ask where it came from, the fabric and cut were so "other" than what we see now. And I am thinking- there is a link between Juliana and the person that wore this dress, a tenuous hand holding from the past to the future that became real when she put the dress on . As Faulker said ," The past isn't dead, it isn't even past." We are living in the same world, experiencing the same seasons, vicissitudes of life, hopes, fears , dreams of those who have lived before us. And when we wear their clothes, we are in a sense connecting with them, showing that our humanity is the same, despite the dramatic ways the world has changed in the last seventy years.
So, from a teenager seeking an escape from her dull, suburban identity I have evolved into a kind of Dr. Frankenstien of fabric. The seeking out, rehabilitating and eventual repurposing of antique clothes is a way of reanimating something that was once a vital part of everyday life- the clothes on people's backs. However, these are not usually ordinary clothes. The clothes that survive the decades are those with a special significance to the wearer- a wedding gown, a prom dress, a dress so extravagant and beautiful that to throw it away would be wrong . By wearing them again we can forge a bond between the past and the present, and show that the concept of time is something that can perhaps be bent, or overcome in subtle ways. I am sure my interest in history, vintage clothing and the artifacts of everyday life will evolve as I do. And this is why I do it, to find out how.
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