When I was preparing to leave my newborn baby to go back to work in March, after the maximum 12 weeks of maternity leave allowed by the U.S. government was up, I found small comfort in shopping for new clothes.
I bought a sleek leather tote bag big enough for my laptop and breast pump, and a pair of kickass lace-up boots. I’d been wearing the same spit-up covered flannel shirt for three months, so I crammed my giant stroller into a dressing room, praying my baby wouldn’t wake up, and charged a silky black button-up and a pair of trousers — both a different size than my normal, but they made me feel good — to my credit card.
Fishing my sharpest blazer out from the back of my closet, I posed with my daughter on my hip outside of the office for a picture to commemorate this new phase of my life.
The date was March 9.
(So we all know how that turned out, don’t we?)
By that Friday, I was sent straight back home, and my little fashion show, along with everything else, screeched to a halt.
The sleek tote became a diaper bag that only made the rounds on infrequent trips to Target; I was embarrassed when I looked at it — at how much I had spent of my diminishing post-FMLA earnings on it, at how silly that seemed now.
Seven months later, as the country’s leadership continues to make a complete mockery of managing the crisis, and with the threat of flu season looming large, I’m still conflicted about where fashion fits into our new normal. And fashion used to be one of my favorite things.
Though I window-shop online to fill the time, I wonder what the point is of spending any money on anything. Every promotional email in my inbox is for soft pants, tops that pop on Zoom. The ones advertising suits (the height of chic to my careerist mind) seem ridiculous.
I vacillate between disgust at the rampant materialism required to keep our economy afloat, and the dopamine hits from fawning over deep designer discounts.
I mean, isn’t the inability to hit pause on consumerism for a second without crashing the entire country into the ground the sign of a truly sick society?
* watches an Instagram Live sale on crystals for 20 minutes *
I’m not the only one. The entire industry is grappling with how to make and market new clothes at a time when we’re all wondering if we’re not far off from Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic getups.
Then, for a brief glorious moment, the temperatures in Savannah began to cool. A recent weekend with highs of 75 caused the whole city to go berserk, and I was not the only one to fetch my sweaters out of winter storage.
When I did, I was reminded of my twin wardrobe crises: Of work-from-home during a pandemic, and of new motherhood. Just like with my summer clothes, last year’s winter trunk is filled with maternity wear: XXL sweaters, stretchy-waist leggings, knit dresses with ruching down the sides to accommodate a growing belly.
I need a new fashion identity to go with being a new mom.
But what does a mom dress like?
It seems like it should be one and done — easy dresses or jumpsuits; a capsule wardrobe of basics in mix-and-match colorways.
But when I have a closet like that it feels… boring.
In college, when I worked as a waitress in D.C. at an overpriced tourist trap restaurant called AMERICA (we had a dish for every state), and was richer than I’d ever been and ever would be for a long time, I used to break between my morning shift to blow my wages on a pair of sky-high blue suede shoes, then make it all back in the afternoon and have bar money leftover where I could show them off.
When I had cash to spare for wardrobe updates back then, during the height of my peacocking ex-Parisian style, I’d always go for the shiny or sparkly thing — never the practical black sweater or workaday jeans.
Now I have a closet full of white button-downs that, funnily enough, I was unable to wear for years because they reminded me of my uniform at that very restaurant.
It goes without saying that my daughter’s fall wardrobe far surpasses mine. Between the time I opened up her drawers and saw that her summer clothes were about to bust at the seams, she was fully restocked within a week in secondhand baby gear: Vans, a jean jacket, Peter Pan collar tops and a vintage windbreaker embroidered with rosettes. My boho-queen friend Kate, who has two daughters, sent me boxes full of dark-floral bodysuits, denim tops, and tie-dye leggings.
Clothes are an entire value system that I want to pass down to her. Buying pre-owned when you can. Supporting sustainable brands. Taking care of the things you own. How getting dressed can make you feel. How you can express yourself and feel ready for any situation with the right wardrobe.
And I want to be the kind of mom whose closet she yearns to ransack.
I recently got a chance to put this all to the test when I got clearance to go into the office as my parents watched my daughter full-time.
The outfit I selected looked remarkably like the one I had so hopefully put on in March: The same black button-up shirt, in fact, for ease of feeding. But I’d added new pants, the first real ones I’d put on since spring, in fall-hopeful camo (a neutral, if you ask me) and a pair of teen-dream sneakers. In the drizzling rain, the last of the summer storms, I added a new trench bought on the Outnet at 70 percent off and headed out the door, hoping my mini-me was impressed and knew her mother would always come home.
It wasn’t quite Emily in Paris. I wouldn’t even be seeing anybody. But there are so few occasions to celebrate with fashion anymore. And this felt like one.