I have been taking photos of myself in outfits in bathroom mirrors for over a decade now. To be frank, any available mirror will do, but it is the privacy of the bathroom that really makes it a choice location.
Of course this doesn’t make me unusual. I scrolled through my camera roll recently looking for the first ever one - and here it is. It’s 2010, and it’s not surprising that the start of this journey coincided with my getting an iPhone. The idea that you could have a camera with you everywhere, even when you step into the toilet, really opened up some possibilities in the human imagination. And so in 2010 I jumped on a world wide bandwagon and started taking bathroom selfies when the mood struck. Which was often.
The first photo was taken because a need had arisen. I had given birth twice in 20 months, and now that my boys were 3 and 2 years old, I was going to back to work. I had also changed careers from being a lawyer, to being an academic. So what I was in this photograph was radically different to who I had been 4 years previously - and I hardly recognised myself. On the back of all that, I was working on creating a new way of being in the world. I was aware that I was building a new skin, tooled with the freshly acquired knowledge that what one is at any moment, is liable to breakdown and transform whether you’re ready or not. The body shifts, and drags the psyche along with it. And my old clothes didn’t fit me anymore.
I was also aware of being swallowed by motherhood and in the process of taking photographs of the family, I was not appearing in any myself. The usual complaint of mothers everywhere. But it was clear that if I ever wanted to know what I had been, or to understand how I could have gotten from here to there, that I would have to keep the record myself. I may have also wanted to capture what seemed to me then to be my last moments as a viable person. I figured I had maybe 7 good years left. Maybe I thought, if I kept a regular record in the same place, in the same pose, I’d be able to pinpoint the exact moment when I turned to dust.
The other thing I was doing in 2010, was saving looks from fashion blogs. Scott Schuman’s images on the Sartorialist influenced me along with so many others, to see daily dress as a kind of performance, and his inclusion of visibly older women on the blog was a revelation. In the years since, a legion of bloggers and influencers have emerged adding specificity and nuance to the idea of “aging with style” but in 2010 it was the Sartorialist who had reached me, with photographs of fabulously dressed women and men at all ages, without comment on that fact.
Slowly the idea grew that getting dressed was actually a contribution to the world. It was a small and radically personal art practice that could be continued for as long as one wished. This was not something I had previously considered outside desperate and doomed attempts to keep looking young. This option seemed so depressing I couldn’t imagine trying.
Schuman showcased an alternative where women dressed authentically, in their real bodies, and with their real faces - making their way through New York and Milanese streets. In my own world, at 35, I became fascinated by the choices of women who were no longer exactly “young” and mothers like me who had outlived their old selves and were dusting the ashes off a new look in a new life. Whether it was the dignity of quiet elegance, or the flamboyant efforts of show-offs looking to connect - both seemed to involve equal parts defiance and vulnerability, and I felt grateful for these daily examples. Getting dressed requires a belief that you’re worth it. It requires effort. The performance itself is a risk. And so the whole effect of a woman dressed up for no good reason, seemed to me to be both poignant and profound.
From 2010 onwards, when I made an outfit, I took a picture. In real life I was usually going from home to work in a small office, or to the children’s school, or picking up groceries. I did not expect to be noticed. Since the pandemic, and the beginning of working from home, my commitment to selfies has intensified. I think it’s because I fear death. Or that I’m bored. Probably both.
With hindsight I’m glad I made that commitment to a future self. So far I have not disappeared. On a practical level I can see that while fashions change (the cut of the jeans, the length of the jacket, the proportions) some templates are constant. There is through-line of my 80s and 90s heroes – the elegance of my mother and aunt, the theatricality of my grandmother, the tailored femininity of 80s Ralph Lauren, and the timelessness of Peter Lindbergh’s tomboys. I see hat tips to Kate Moss’s glamour, Chloe Sevigny’s weirdness, Linda Evangelista’s androgyny and the nonchalance of dudes I kind of look like, like Steve McQueen. I can also now say with confidence, that eventually you’ll get sick of most of your clothes, but accessories are a good investment and will stand the test of time. Save your money on bottoms and tops. Spend it on belts and jewelry.
What will follow on this blog will be writing about specific things. How to style a jacket. What makes a good jean. What new looks I’m thinking about and what I’m buying. I do like luxury but at a certain point corporatism irks me and I feel awful about exploitation and waste, so second hand options and small makers appeal. These appear in my wardrobe alongside luxury options and a bit of fast fashion because - well, basically I’m a normal person.
I may also have some thoughts about the role of dressing in life. I think a lot about ageing, and about how to keep your personal footing in a changing body in a changing world. I try to have a sense of humour about it all but I’ll let you be the judge of that.
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Till next time! - SC
I am here for the insights, the humour, the humility. The body changes and takes the psyche with it. HOW TRUE IS THIS?!?!? I think it might explain why I did a mad thing and shifted to another country, only to find I should have focused more on what that changed body needs to feel at ease in the world. Not running from age, but stepping into it.
Reclaiming identity after motherhood totally resonates…! An unexpected insight after witnessing your bathroom selfies for many years. And it takes me back to reading your diaries in high school… always wonderful and inspiring :)