On style: this is one subject that usually gets dumped in the trivial bucket along with celebrity gossip. But it should not be so.
There is a deeper level to personal style. Even deeper than the monologue on Cerulean Blue in The Devil Wears Prada. How do I know this? Because the adornment of our bodies, homes, and tools has been part of our species development long before branding, long before capitalism, maybe even before language. I know it is basic because other species have a type of style. Does anyone doubt that crows and ravens have a knowledge and appreciation of style? Or gorillas, chimps, and bonobos? Even dogs know they look good right after a bath and a mani-pedi. Cats may not want to wear a bow but they put a lot of stock in proper grooming.
I have always been a clothes horse. I have never been flashy about it. But there are people who may see this who know it is true. I care about color and cut and silhouette. I have worked through the issues of being under 5 feet and buxom. This might seem odd for someone who is fundamentally anti-consumerism. But, in my view, fashion goes deeper than capitalism. It is one way we naked humans, bereft of feather and fur, communicate with each other. And the roots go deep, to earliest times. It has to do with status, but not with money per se.
I do have fashion icons and mentors. The first was my mother. However fraught that relationship may have been at times, I could SEE her as herself. Born in 1920, she was always a free thinker. And by the 1970s her hippie plus style belied the blonde bombshell who lay beneath. When I was a small child I loved to sneak into her closet where the purple velvet jacket and the cashmere sweaters lived.
She wore silver jewelry, Chanel No. 5, and smoked Salems. Later she switched to lavender essential oils and American Spirits. Her going out uniform over 60 was a midi skirt, a tailored blazer, and silver sneakers. Her jewelry consisted of things like spiders, snakes, and skulls, all in silver with various types of turquoise and crystals. I don't dress like her, but the idea of personal style was imbued into me. And the midi skirt and blazer concept. That has stood the test of time.
My other style icons were women I met along the way. Sara Kapp, the runway model who was one of the people who picked me up hitchhiking to Boston when I was 14. I ended up at Tail of the Tiger, as it was called then, a Tibetan community in Vermont. Because that is where my rescuers were going. She was 22, tall and buff, and surrounded by the fragrance of Calandre by Yves St. Laurent. I wanted to smell like THAT. But alas, my chemistry was not like hers, so it never worked. She bought me a pair of shoes, causing me to rethink my need for such things.
Then there was my friend, Deborah Cali. She and a partner owned a clothes store in Santa Rosa CA in the 1980s. I should have paid them rent I spent so much time there. Deborah's family was one of the first Black families in Sonoma County, back when there were huge swaths of undeveloped land. She came early into the rag trade and is still one of the most elegant women I have known. She always took the time to assess my potential purchases and steer me in the right direction. Which she was eminently qualified to do.
Then there are the celebrity icons. Downton Abbey was a treat for the fashionista crowd. Most doted on Mary, but my icon was Violet. And, in Madmen, the ever-proper Betty. I have been a closet "classic" type for as long as I can remember. I loved wearing suits in the 1980s when I was larping as a businesswoman. But the classic style does not fit my actual lifestyle very well. And if I really went all out it would give a false impression of who I am. No, I am not squared away, or orderly, though I do appreciate formality and a sense of propriety.
Then I discovered that my true style is called "Elegant Boho". In that style I am not guilty of false advertising. And we should wear clothes that truly suit us. Because what we wear is part of how we enter the world. How we let others know who we are and what they can expect from us. Incongruity creates mistrust.
Style goes beyond what we wear, though that is the most obvious. It is also how we arrange our homes and workspaces. The foods we go for. The tools we use. The vehicle we use to get around. Our language and mental habits. All of these are in the realm of self-expression. Our personal taste describes what makes us happy and comfortable in the various environments we traverse in our daily lives. There is nothing trivial about that. Nothing at all.
Annabel Ascher: Your writings are important, many on Subst
ack, but from my interest in you and your insights, I found one that really speaks to my heart, from you, on a different platform:
https://annabelascher.medium.com/abuse-writ-large-an-exit-strategy-16406eca2aff
I was particularly moved by your posting here:
https://annabelascher.substack.com/p/for-my-sister-miriam-ascher
First: I want to THANK you for sharing of your mind and spirit, which make me look forward to your every posting.
You are right that we tend to overlook beauty in clothing and scent, but we humans are creatures of our senses, and the aesthetic of our image and scent is basic to self-esteem and to attraction of persons we want to love and from whom we want to be loved.
My own life is inestimably enriched by THE woman I have loved for 53, been married to 51 years, Nancy, who is beautiful, who attracts my eye and my love now as she did 53 years ago.
My life would be infinitely poorer without THIS woman.
And attraction is very much at the center.
Now fashion and clothing is much more than attraction. There is the clothing that emphasizes the professionalism of the person, the leadership or leadership potential of the person.
I am one who reads Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, David Hume, Immanuel Kant -- so, my beautiful Nancy would easily tell you, "Armando's head is in the clouds."
But the person's overall look and scent is an inestimable part of who S/He is.
In your writing about your good, too-early departed sister, Miriam Ascher, you told how this same Mom with good fashion and scent was helpless and your sister helped rear you.
Yet even in this situation, you were able to find some part of redemption in the beauty and scent of your Mom that embedded itself on how you wanted to grow into the grand woman you ARE.
This is precious.
When I was a boy, I played with trains and the like. An adult might say, "Well, OK, but that is not for me; it is trivial."
But for boys, as with other young of animals, play is a vital part of who we become. Play is WORK IN REHEARSAL.
And your smelling of the scents and your admiration of the beautiful clothing was the work of a girl in becoming the GRAND PERSON you are.
I -- with my head in the clouds of philosophy, literature, classical music, Renaissance Art -- I would never belittle the interest in fashion.
This is part of our culture, in a way similar to how persons spend whole lives in designing and perfecting grand cuisine. Look how we are enriched by the foods, be it of India, Japan, Korea, France, the Mediterranean . . .
Again: Thank you SO MUCH for sharing!