#50

on fashion

Boris Ehrenburg

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Recently, a lovely subscriber in the RC chat asked me if I had ever written about fashion. As someone who wears the same three outfits over and over, who rarely (if ever) shops, and who is largely uninterested in aesthetics, I don’t feel like I’m the right person to write about it.

But I wasn’t always like this.

My parents speak fondly of a child they once thought would grow up to be a designer, of a young girl who loved putting together outfits and insisted on dressing herself. My mother remembers that they were “good outfits, too; wearable, sensible. I didn’t have to adjust anything.”

That child, apparently, was me.

Yes, it’s true: once upon a time, a young Sara had taped up Marc Jacobs ads in her room. I loved Comme des garcons and Sofia Coppola’s Milkfed line. I would have died for a pair of Lanvin flats or Marc Jacobs mary-janes. I never did own any designer clothing (aside from a MJ tote bag with Debbie Harry on it that cost me 12$), but I loved it anyway.

I invented coquette, ok?

This was 2005. I was post high-school punk phase (I would go back, but only temporarily, for the best reason of all — dick) I don’t remember exactly when the ads came off the wall or when I lost interest, but it happened. And unlike my wishy-washy commitments to punk, I just moved on from fashion and didn’t look back.

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