Wardrobe Stories

Please welcome to the stage... (drumroll please) the Calvin Klein men's work shirt that I've had for nearly ten years. I bought it at the Goodwill on Pleasant Street in Northampton, MA. The tag claims its origins in Singapore, but it has been surprisingly tacit about the life it led before finding its way into my closet. It was part of my general tendency at the time to opt for loose fitting men's wear for my factory days, although it garnered a lot of break room compliments for what it was.

The damned thing has seen a lot through with me due to being one of the more convenient shirts to throw on when I'm in a hurry. It means that I can get gussied up for a competition or a photo shoot and have something comfortable to wear before donning the full costume. It's warmish, doesn't absorb bronzer at too rapid a rate (and is blessedly washable), and doesnt's threaten to mess up my hair on the way off. It also has the advantage of fitting about the same over about a forty pound weight range. Oh loose clothing, how I love you. While other cherished wardrobe items have continued on their cycles of Goodwill reincarnation (with many a tear shed), this blouse has endured.

I wore it on the day I first met my insane foster kitty, Karl (he seemed so nice and then spent the next few years terrorizing me under Cat Protective Services removed him to my mother's house). I took him home shortly after this photo. For his part, he panicked in the kitty carrier, flipped out and crapped himself, which caused him to panic further and let our first bonding activity be washing the very unhappy kitty in my new kitchen sink!:

Demon kitty showing his true colors!

It was right after I'd moved back to Washington from Northampton to start my East Asian Studies BA. I had moved into the first apartment ever that allowed pets and the idea of adding something so semi-permanent as a pet to my previously nomadic lifestyle was a huge deal. As it would turn out, my nomadism was still a bit ingrained and although I lived in the apartment/town for a surprisingly long time considering its proximity to some kind of golden triangle of Bellingham meth activity, Mr. Kitty and I didn't agree about some of the basics of our relationship. We did have some fun with his favorite game - attack-Adella-while-she-sleeps-then-throw-the-kitty-from-the-bed-into-the-wall, but sometimes I just wouldn't come home for a night or two because I was far too busy holding up the fort at Shari's after dancing. I actually had an entire set of clothes and toiletries in my trunk just to deal with this issue for my personal hygiene, but it didn't go so well for Karl's feeding/cleaning/entertainment routine. I was duly punished with sheer wreckage on most returns, unless I lucked out and he had gotten himself trapped in one of my cupboards (still unclear how he managed this). So... it turned out he didn't stick around with me for long, but we're still tight, Karl and me. He and Andrew have big plans to rule the world some day:

Why, yes, the shirt's appealing slate-blueish grayish icy color is just like my eyes and how they are greyish but also blue and particularly appealing in the way that causes people to query about the tint of my contacts and display skepticism

You may also note in the adjacent photo the unnatural "tan" that my skin actually would never take. I tell you now that it took about three weeks of spraying myself and then standing completely naked and still in the middle of my apartment on a nearly nightly basis PLUS a healthy heap of both gel and powder bronzer before the performance. The process as it slowly sloughed off post-competition was truly magnificent in "what kind of skin disease do you have exactly" proportions. Went well with the vestiges of hair glue peeling off my scalp.

This was prior to my stirring triumph at the 2008 Seattle Starball where I won a scholarship in a bright orange dress (only slightly more orange than my skin at the time) and hung up my competition spurs. It was one of the peak moments of my life and the shirt was my pre-competition companion.Incidentally, I still own this competition dress despite it not fitting me at all and my intending to never use it again. While I had originally threatened to save it for my bridal gown, I just don't think I can do that, so anyone with a spare thousand or two laying around... have I got the fringey sparkly orange bathing suit for you!!

The shirt later joined me on a few treks to competitions of a different sort: namely Andrew's bike competitions. (the color is weird because Dan Bostrom - the photographer - was using infrared at the time... nice apocalyptic feel to the racing photos that is well-reflective of cyclo-cross. This race occurred in fall of 2009, so we were a relatively fresh couple at the time, but I think there was a sense that it was going to be a different relationship than the ones that would have been winding out their time at the few months mark. I believe he had just gotten back from or was just headed to Bhutan. The "L-word" had been uttered, but only recently (lessssbian... no wait, the other one, neither of us appear to be lesbians so far, but Andrew is pretty butch sometimes so we'll see). And there were still photos that I hadn't taken of Andrew on his bike (it's ok to start again, though because now he has a different jersey)

I liked that purse too, but it's kind of gunky these days

And of course, it was a convenient sort of smock to wear before photoshoots when I was collaborating with the aforementioned Dan Bostrom. In fact, I think some of the set-up shots in this shirt were my favorites of the entire shoot:

Anyways, I'm oddly sentimental about clothes. I have expressed before my belief that objects may serve as talismanic triggers for distant selves and memories. Clothes can be particularly so. Especially when they stick around through multiple phases of a life. And I still love the color and cut of this baby, even if I often forget to button more than one or two buttons and end up flashing people at school in odd ways through the day... part of the Adella aesthetic I suppose.