Photo: Mike Hemy
I'm sure it’s unusual for Big Love, HBO’s series about a polygamist clan living in Utah, to spark a fashion identity crisis. But watching the scene when Chloë Sevigny’s character, Nicki, trades in floor-length denim skirts, turtlenecks, and button-downs for Tiffany-blue (the pop star, not the brand) eye shadow, a slutty miniskirt, a tube top, and a high side-pony, I thought of my own wardrobe: I love French braids, turtlenecks, men’s button-downs, fisherman sweaters, and wool slacks from the little boys’ department at Brooks Brothers. Thing is, Nicki’s sexless shroud was the result of being raised on a Warren Jeffs–style compound. I’m an unmarried atheist from Boston who had a relatively blissful childhood. What’s my excuse?
As bizarre as it may seem for a fashion writer, my philosophy on clothes stems from generations of New England puritan guilt. Don’t stand out, don’t show off, and dress for the terrain and the weather (not the trends). My maternal grandmother once made my grandfather return an incredible fox coat he’d bought her, lest it draw too much attention in town. He came back with a dark chestnut mink, which has hung in her closet gathering dust ever since. I could see myself doing the same. The last thing I’d want is to have all eyes on me. It’s why I had to stop playing tennis in college. Fans in the bleachers!
Considering the current obsession with reality TV, spray tans, boob jobs, hair extensions, Facebook, and YouTube, it’s an especially odd time to be someone whose only fashion fantasy involves being an undercover spy (ahem, Leon Panetta) slipping invisibly through crowds in a trench coat, Borsalino hat, and penny loafers. I asked Judy Norsigian, executive director of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective and coauthor of the classic Our Bodies, Ourselves, what she made of my dressing phobias. “It’s been planted in a lot of women’s heads—as well as men’s, unfortunately—that if you dress provocatively you’re asking for trouble from the opposite sex,” she said. “But ultimately, it comes down to what each of us is comfortable in.” Tight dresses, high heels, and makeup don’t feel empowering to me (as they do for many women)—they leave me feeling naked, objectified, and tacky. And definitely uncomfortable.
That said, I’ve always admired—from afar, of course—more rebellious, less eager-to-please demonstrations of feminine power. Anne Bancroft stripping down to a black lace bra and slip in front of a stunned Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. Doris Duke swimming in an unlined bathing suit at the conservative Bailey’s Beach Club. Lara Stone opening a Christopher Kane show wearing a dangerously tight pencil skirt, walking that amazing wobbly walk, maxing out those talked-about curves. Peggy Lipton, leaning against a fence wearing nothing but a men’s sweater and cowboy boots in a snapshot that’s been tacked to my fridge for years. These women—playing characters or not—were cool, a characteristic I can look up to. Cool enough to not give a damn whether all eyes were on them.
Earlier this year, a gift arrived from Alexander Wang: his take on men’s tighty-whities, in black, for girls. Nestled within a crisp sheet of tissue paper, they whispered, “Do it, wear it, dare to be great.” Panicked, I e-mailed Wang for instructions. “I love the toughness of a wide band peeking above the tops of pants,” he wrote. “Girls feel sexier and a little more mischievous wearing boy underwear.” Huh. Come to think of it, my usual striped cotton panties from the Gap weren’t inspiring much of anything. And every nice bra I’ve ever owned has ended up deboned by utility dryers at the wash-and-fold. Was Wang onto something? Perhaps the route to my inner exhibitionist should start from the inside, with the kind of underpinnings that would be worth showing off.
So, on a cold winter weekend, I traveled to Paris, the city where sexy (in my humble opinion) was born, to meet Valérie Delafosse, the artistic director for Eres, purveyor of some of the most beautiful underpinnings in the world. In the company’s design studios in the Eleventh Arrondissement, Delafosse—picture a raven-haired Catherine Deneuve—showed me her personal collection of vintage skivvies from the ’20s and ’30s, which serve as her design inspiration. “Her boyfriend is a lucky man,” whispered Delafosse’s assistant. I thought of the man in my life. Poor guy. Growing up in Texas and Washington, DC, he’d always had a slightly Southern idea of what a woman should look like, including round-the-clock heels and an overall polish I’d never even attempted to achieve. “Owning beautiful lingerie is the best way to increase your self-worth,” Delafosse said, as if reading my mind. As we admired pale silk garter belts, daffodil-color cone bras, and tissue-thin lace nighties, I vowed to try harder both for myself and my guy.
At the Eres flagship on rue Tronchet in Place de la Madeleine, I climbed the sun-drenched store’s mahogany spiral staircase, thinking of all the lovely, old-fashioned accoutrements of womanhood I’d looked forward to when I was younger. Back then, it was all powder rooms, Cole Porter, silk stockings, and champagne to me—courtesy of one too many screenings of Jean Negulesco’s How to Marry a Millionaire. I spotted a boxy camisole and low-riding bloomers hanging from the sparse brass racks. Bathed in Parisian afternoon light, they were the color of the Atlantic, trimmed in off-white cotton lace. When I slipped them on, just the feeling of silk on my skin made me want to wear something slinky.
Admittedly, these were a far cry from the teddy I thought I’d come here to find. But let’s be honest—I was never going to achieve “va-va-voom.” And I didn’t want to. I could only be myself. “Character always makes a better impression than a plunging neckline in the long run,” Delafosse quipped as she stood behind me, adjusting the thin silk straps to my shoulders, approving of my modest choice. It was then that I realized, I haven’t missed my time to be sexy. I am just beginning it— finally, on my own terms. The minute I came home to my apartment in New York City, I threw away the entire contents of my top drawer and filled it with my ocean blue bloomers and camisole. Lying there, elegantly alone, they looked like the small start to something big.
