When Alex and I were dating, one of our favorite things to do was share music with one another. I owned a record player, and while he initially wrote my passion off as a somewhat redundant hobby (“you can just listen to this on Spotify”), he soon got the itch. We started searching through dusty bins in basements and back rooms and flea markets, side by side, all across New York City and then up and down I-95 from Philadelphia to Wilmington (and sometimes various spots in Jersey) looking for “black gold.”

Fast forward quite a few years, and with the arrival of our daughter the record collection (along with the hunting) felt a bit frivolous, high maintenance, and too fragile to expose to an eager baby with new-found mobility. But this past week our daughter turned two, and for some reason we both felt compelled to dive back into our stash to see what treasures lay in the dusty credenza and record crates.

Album after album, Alex pulls out a few more each day, and I’m pleasantly surprised—often giddy, forgetting having purchased almost half of them. I’ve been blessing my past self for using her disposable income in such a way.

But along with the physical records themselves are the memories, including dormant sensory experiences, that come flooding back in full color. I get to experience different chapters of my life anew. Emotions stay wound tightly around particular albums and reliving them is making me feel fresh and alive and youthful. I remember the sadness I fell into living in Brooklyn with Carrie and Lowell wrapping me in a soft cloud; the moment I began to understand the allure of Dylan while listening to Another Side of Bob Dylan in our tiny apartment in Philadelphia; the joy and nostalgia mixing while spinning Bleed American with in our apartment in East Harlem; then there’s the Toro y Moi album that came not too long before the concert where Alex and I danced for hours, pressed against strangers thrumming with electricity.

The same week my husband started playing our records again happened to be the week I was having multiple conversations about AI, at work and at church. At work, various camps emerged. Some were fully opposed to the use of AI while other’s were cautious but curious, and we debated what would be considered an acceptable use of “the tool” by artists who wish to experiment as a way to expand the medium of poetry. At church, the musicians on our worship team pondered how one will be able to distinguish true artistic talent after so much exposure to mid-level and algorithmically created music or art or writing.

Both conversations included concern for the movement away from missions and values centered on human work and the placement of those values squarely into the grasp of a tool that merely ingests humanity’s greatness in order to regurgitate it with various levels of success (why write a poem in the style of a poet you admire when you could simply ask AI to do it for you?).

Each conversation I sat in impressed on me the fact that with AI, we are moving further and further away from the embodied experiences that enrich and define our lives. And we’re not just moving away from sensory and aesthetic experiences but from those encompassing our mental and emotional worlds: The ability to ask questions and to seek out answers with discernment and context, to fall short and make mistakes, to wrestle with the answers we find after our searching and striving. The more we ask ChatGPT to help us think and do, the more we trade our flesh and blood ability for a mind as sterile as the inside of a data center. These are sudden and dark realities that no longer mirror God’s rich tapestry for the totality of our lives.

The cost of losing our complex, God-given embodiment is great. We who were formed and then breathed into with the full breath of God were called “very good.” I feel that same Spirit breathing into me each time I write or sing or get dressed. I feel it in my living room when a song comes on and I can remember a distinct moment of loss, or love, or envy—recall it with an exacting ability nothing else can prompt. We risk losing all of this for the sake of ease and efficiency and wealth.

One of the most delightful moments of rediscovering our record collection has been to watch my daughter dance to Aretha Franklin in the living room. Suddenly I was dancing, too. When was the last time I danced? I can’t say. All I know is it used to happen much more often, just like this, unprompted, responsive, free. The screens are silent and the music is on and we are in this room, in our bodies, and we move in time with the rhythm. Moving in time towards something greater than what is in front of us.

God came to us as a Word. And as we bear His image, we mirror all that He speaks and sings, back to Him and to each other. Music combines our lived reality of words with our physical breath and senses—driving us deeper towards unity with our Creator. I like to think that all of creation, the universe, infinity and eternity, is one humming song, and we fill out all the parts—the harmonies and the rhythms—with our inherent humanity, directly resembling the One who wrote the song in the first place. And that is something worth preserving and passing down.

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“Fashion is often dismissed as ‘superficial,’ and it is, literally, superficial, since it exists primarily on the surface of the body. But fashion is meaningful and important, precisely because of its intimate connection with the fleshly human body, which plays a significant role in the individual’s evolving sense of self.”

From the exhibition pamphlet for Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis at The Museum at FIT

Today, I’m delighted to share an interview with , a writer, counselor, and poet who thinks deeply about the relationship between the body, stories, and navigating life in a broken world. Carissa’s insights are grounded in what it means to be human, and especially a human walking out their faith after various trials. This conversation was rich and encouraging. Enjoy!

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Chasing the Light

| exploring deep faith and the complexity of being human |

By Carissa Early

Sarah: Hi Carissa! Thank you so much for sitting down with me. When we initially met to prep for this interview, you mentioned “the mystery of being in a body.” Could you dive into that a bit?

Carissa: Christians tend to be a little strange about bodies. Many of us believe that life would be easier if we floated around––disembodied––like little ghosts. Whether from purity culture, neo-Gnosticism, or simply our own histories of pain and frustration, we are given an abundance of false stories about our bodies. We need a better way.

In Genesis, God created the body of Adam first! He then breathed the breath of life into Adam. God declares the unique composition of body and soul in humans as very good. Though much of what is good is shattered by the fall and the effects of sin and brokenness, human dignity remains. God cares not just about your soul, but about your body.

Sarah: Wow! I’m not sure I’ve heard someone frame the Genesis account that way. That’s quite illuminating and I think speaks to something we all sort of feel deep down but tend to warp. Our bodies are important and inherently good, but due to sin we are confused by them and attempt to create systems of control or work to implement our own ideas of creation upon them.

In that vein, we spoke about the celebration–not survival–that clothing can bring after trauma. Could you share your thoughts on this? How could the act of getting dressed be a protective practice?

Carissa: When you’ve walked through trauma in the body, merely existing in a physical form can be a strange sort of torture. We can reject the dignity and worth of our bodies for having been a place of violation or shame. Especially in the case of sexual trauma, having a body can feel tremendously vulnerable. It can cause us to dress or present in a way that reflects the wishes we might have to escape the limitations or stories our bodies hold.

Chasing the Light

Body Erasure

I don’t remember when I first disappeared…

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6 months ago · 75 likes · 9 comments · Carissa Early

As I walk through my own journey of healing, I’m trying to commit to dress as celebration and not survival. Instead of dressing to hide, what if I dressed as an act of reclamation and joy? What does it look like to show up each day with tenderness and courage?

As a Christian, I believe our physical forms are deeply meaningful. God has designed us to flourish as we live integrated––body and soul. And after trauma, a key aspect of healing is staying present in the body, in the tumult and complexity of facing what each day holds. When facing triggers, physically grounding yourself in the five senses is a tool of grace and care. Dressing can be its own grounding, as you feel the texture of fabric, tuck your hands into warm pockets, or wear clothing that allows you to remember the imago dei of your own imperfect and glorious body.

Sarah: You spoke with me previously about the idea of the feminine and a healthy Christian sexuality found within our daily practice of getting dressed. I know this is a particular area of interest and research for you. What’s a good starting point for those new to these concepts or struggling in these areas?

Carissa: Part of our strange relationship to the body is because our culture over-sexualizes and hyper-fragments so much. As women, we can fear drawing unwanted attention because of our bodies, or feel hyper-aware of what it means to dress “modestly.” As I mentioned before, this can shrink our sense of personhood down into “what do I wear to hide” rather than being able to embrace being in a body as a special kind of stewardship. Even our sexuality, which we participate in body and soul, is a sacred stewardship, whether we’re married or single.

Chasing the Light

Haunted Longings

Is sex really a sacred place…

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a year ago · 30 likes · 4 comments · Carissa Early

We all reflect God’s image in unique ways––that’s part of why style can be so delightful. Anywhere we get to play with image, beauty, and curiosity is deeply humanizing. For some of us, it means courage to lean more into the tender fierceness of femininity. For others of us, it means cultivating various layers of strength. We can walk with God in the mystery of having a body, stewarding our unique sexual story (given by God!), and honoring Him and others as we learn and discover more each day.

Sarah: Hyper-fragmenting our bodies, yes! As I gain more and more distance from purity culture and misogynistic norms, this distortion becomes quite apparent. Playing with style, as you say, is so healing in taking back one’s identity as a whole person, made by a good God.

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Sarah: You and I bonded over our shared love of the color black! I feel a complex pull towards it. The color black in fashion communicates a sense of history and artistry that has long served to set apart individuals and certain groups of people.

Related to our focus on dressing after experiencing trauma, what immediately comes to mind is the history of widows donning black for long periods of time after losing their husbands, before slowly transitioning to lighter colors again; moving through personal grief in a very ritualistic and public way. While both Protestant and Catholic religious attire can run the gamut, I still firstly think of priests and nuns as dressing in plain, dark outfits like habits and cloaks, or black cassocks paired with clerical collars. They’re immediately recognizable and their role and devotion to God apparent when dressed this way.

What meaning does the color black hold for you?

Carissa: I’m fascinated by the dual visibility and invisibility I feel in wearing black. I think it speaks to the internal paradoxes I feel as an individual. Black is bold, and yet it also holds a hiddenness, a mystery.

When I was a kid, I wanted an invisibility cloak, a la Harry Potter. Black, to me, feels both powerful and present; it’s a color to draw the eye while feeling grounded.

There’s a complexity there, too. In recovering from bodily trauma, the desire to blend in and disappear as much as possible can win out over the delight of dress. I have used the color black as a shield of shame, and I’ve used it as an Ebenezer of reclaimed power. Other colors that speak to me are high-contrast or rich––dark purple, deep pine, midnight blue.

Sarah: This resonates! I’m glad you bring up the multiplicity of black. As I’ve tried to understand my own preference for it, various aspects of my personality come to the forefront. The need to stand out and to be concealed has been true for me, as well as the desire to be known as someone who “knows,” be it in regards to style or fashion or art. It’s always felt like a safe bet in settings where I was socially unsure of myself or others.

As I became more interested in fashion in my twenties, I was drawn to black as a way to bring both drama and a groundedness to my clothes. There was something very purifying about it, I think, especially after thrifting vintage throughout college and donning lots of fun, colorful, twee dresses. In grad school I had the opportunity to intern in the archives at Calvin Klein, which only cemented black as a key building block within my wardrobe. Eventually, I became very interested in Japanese designers like Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto, who lean heavily on black in order to showcase their talents in manipulating form, silhouette, technique, and fabric. That’s probably the thing I love most about wearing black—the focus the color allows on the clothing itself.

Well, enough of me rambling about black… haha. What shapes and silhouettes are you most drawn to while getting dressed? Could you share a bit about your interest in fashion and any exploration during your own postpartum period?

Carissa: I joke that I quit “hard pants” five years ago and never looked back! I prioritize comfort, sleek silhouettes, and an aura of badassery as I dress.

I usually don a flowy trouser and a tank top, crop top, or a long-sleeved shirt with an asymmetrical neckline. Black is my go-to color for everything, but I like pops of color in accessories like silk scarfs or shoes. I love my pair of forest green Jordans!

If I’m wearing mostly close-fitting clothes, I often wear a long kimono grazing everything and fluttering behind me like a cape (hahal!). Most days, however, I’ll throw on my favorite leather jacket and a pair of sword earrings (shout out to Minty at The Silver Tale who designed mine!) to complete even a simple look.

I am still discovering what this evolution of self and personal style means in the postpartum period! It’s stretching me to be more flexible with what energy I place into getting ready to honor my needs and also honor my daughter, since I’m her primary caregiver. There’s a wonderful freedom in allowing that to look different when it needs to be. I have nothing to prove––I can design an outfit or just wear my same comfort hoodie three days in a row. I’m learning to have grace for myself and my daughter as we change and grow together!

Sarah: Comfort hoodie! That speaks to my soul. I had about four or five different sweatshirts this winter I cycled through, sometimes wearing the same one up to three days. SO glad I’m not the only one! My body continues to change over my own extended postpartum period and I’ve found favorite pieces that have fit throughout that time or come back into rotation to hold a lot of comfort. They’ve served as reminders of who I am while I journey into new terrain.

I’m hoping to engage with a range of individuals on the topics of fashion, personal style, the body, and the theology of these points over the next year. If you’re a student/scholar/serious enthusiast of any of these topics and interested in sitting down for a chat, please reach out!

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I like doing these quarterly (give or take) outfit check-ins. They’ve been an illuminating way to engage with my wardrobe and assess how I’m handling each season. Enjoy the looks below:

At the beginning of March I traveled to Baltimore for work to attend the AWP conference. In addition to grant writing for a local museum, I also work for the Beloit Poetry Journal, and the conference is our biggest event of the year. The role still feels fresh to me and I’ve learned a lot over the winter about the way a literary publication functions vs. publishing printed works for museums. I wanted to come across polished and professional but also thoughtfully creative, so naturally I had to pack my pleated pants! Truthfully, they’re a somewhat sketchy eBay find/Miyake knockoff, but have become one of my most-worn pieces over the past year. I love this COS funnel neck button up as an alternative to a traditional white cotton shirt. I only brought two pairs of shoes with me—my black Everlane leather boots, recently resoled, and a white pair of Birkenstocks.

I spent the majority of the winter in a heavy rotation of sweatshirts and leggings, leaning into the mom uniform for ease and warmth when layering. As the temps have shifted, I’ve been craving real pants! I dug out this white pair from Everlane and am enjoying how comfy they are, all while still feeling a bit more “dressed” than if I was running errands in leggings. This sweatshirt is from Target and I wear it about once or twice a week, typically pulling it out of a basket of clean clothes—no sense putting it away. Something about it reminds me of my Grandpa, who was able to pull off active wear and work wear in fresh ways as he aged.

For Good Friday services, I couldn’t wait to style this linen-blend blazer from JCrew with my pleated pants. The lack of collar feels feminine and fresh in my wardrobe, and served as a nice way to show off a gold choker necklace. I enjoy the mixed symbolism of the colors at play—death, life, and the blood that made a way for something new.

This outfit felt so good on. I was excited to add a kick crop jean back into my closet. The last pair I owned was from Anne Taylor LOFT in the mid-2010s; those jeans had a great shape but so much elastic in the blend that they eventually stayed stretched out and never hung right. I donated them a long time ago, but was excited to find this JCrew pair recently that’s 99% cotton. The Jefferey Campbell jelly shoes from last summer continue to feel perfect!

And… I continue to go all-in on the kick crop, these from Gap. The red tabis are from Etsy, and my daughter likes me to wear them, throwing them enthusiastically at me before we head out the door. Funnily, I also used to own similar pants from Uniqlo around the same time I had the LOFT pants. They had fake pockets on the rear and I could never get used to them (iykyk). I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I’d love to wear big, trendy pants all the time, but often they just don’t look quite right on me. As a petite person, I’ve found that volume in a pant suits me more so lower down my leg (and a straight leg pant can never do me wrong). The shirt is from BPJ. I think big, graphic t-shirts may end up carrying me through the summer.

Someone asked me in my last post about my jewelry, so I thought I’d include it this go around. I’m a big ring person and have been collecting them (via thrifting and eBay), primarily in sterling silver, for over a decade. When I moved back to Ohio in 2021, I became enchanted by a local jewelry company called The Circle Craft, which worked largely in cast bronze. I decided to add a few pieces to my collection and began mixing metals on a daily basis.

One of my most worn rings is the Vessel (seen above, and via IG link: right hand, ring finger, longest ring) by The Circle Craft, along with my engagement/wedding ring, a custom cluster, from Bario Neal in Philadelphia. Every day, I wear a sterling silver ring on my pointer finger that I bought for $1 at a garage sale near where I grew up, probably around 2011/2012. The photographer Francesca Woodman wore a silver ring on her pointer finger, visible in several self portraits, and the symbol has stuck to me for a long time. I have two goldtone/bronze chokers, one thick, one thin, that I wear with almost everything (or did more so, pre-baby), and found both while out thrifting.

For my birthday this year, I got to add an Elsa Peretti for Tiffany and Co. Splash ring in silver and lapis to my collection and have been wearing it almost every day for the past two months.

Getting to unearth and revisit some of my favorite clothing and jewelry for a new season has lightened up my mood this week. I’ll be back in May with another installment of my interview series centering fashion, theology, and the body. Thanks for following along. xx

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January

A new year, a starting over. I began talking to a counselor again and also drug myself to the Doctor. It was time to investigate mysterious amounts of brain fog, persistent insomnia, and wild blood sugar drops that I hoped would just “go away.”

My blood was quietly drawn into vials on a frigid Winter morning. I then shook with happiness at a sip of my coffee after breaking the preliminary fast.

I told my counselor all about my anxiety; the physical affects that crop up like a huge wave and the mental anguish surrounding relationships in my life. She told me to think of Moses as he witnessed the burning bush; to hear the voice of God proclaiming, “I Am.”

God can only relate to us, speak with us, heal us, in the present. It is where He exists eternally. And that was where I needed to stay when my anxiety started pressing my face to the windows of my past and future.

February

My breath was making moist, dense marks on the glass walls surrounding me. I had more on my plate staring me down than I had in years. I was being forced to crawl out of the nest I had made myself—in my home, in my mind, in my motherhood—to rejoin the world, creaking and crying in an awkward form. I packed everything I would need to keep my health steady, hoping fog and fatigue wouldn’t catch up.

At the airport it felt like I was unwinding from a horribly tight spiral, regaining a shape I had forgotten I could inhabit. At the conference, suddenly, I felt adept, competent, in charge. I felt present. And though my breathing shook on the second day after I missed a new pill, I felt dutifully aware of it.

March

The numbers on the scale keep going up, up, up. It’s hard feeling trapped in my body, perplexed as to why my health seems to fluctuate in such dramatic fashion. So much about postpartum and being a woman in her late 30’s is like standing content in a clean, dim room for a long time, and then suddenly, someone flips on a light so you can see the mold creeping up the walls.

I close browser tabs and click away when I see healthy women with flat stomachs or come across another Note talking about how great your 30’s should be or how looks really don’t matter. My reality feels much more complicated. I love my body, but it is vulnerable. It feels worn. It is sick in new ways.

I keep looking away. But really, I’m pressed firmly to the glass.

No amount of body positivity can negate the fact that humans inherently know our bodies are not yet redeemed.

I put the scale away, planning to leave it for a long time. Oddly, I realize, focusing on one’s physical self so much is taking me out of the present.

Holy Week

On Palm Sunday, my husband and I met with friends to discuss suffering in a topical study. One is mourning a grandparent close to death. Another, like myself, a mother with confusing diagnosis. We all agreed our bodies seem to suffer the most.

On Monday, I saw a video of musician speaking about losing both of his parents to cancer. His words stopped me as I was preparing dinner in the kitchen alone: consolation came not as an answer from God but as an invitation, a step into His presence.

Yet I am always with you;

you hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,

and afterward you will take me into glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart

and my portion forever.

Psalm 73: 23-26 NIV

My flesh, my heart. Here I fail, and here I gape through a mirror dimly. T. S. Eliot proclaimed the mystic spectacle found at the point where time and the timeless meet. I’m beginning to understand.

I can be free only while staring into the burning bush. Inside the unraveling, taking on a new form, I am not alone in the wear and the tear and the change. Here my past and future shake, and in them You meet me.

Happy Easter. x

I’ve dawdled over this topic for a long time, and perhaps that’s fitting. How does one write about something they have been so fixed on for periods of their life, taken so seriously (perhaps too seriously), yet felt all too personally to put into words? Why does music make us feel this way? I have no well-thought out answer. All I know is that about every six months the intense urge to listen to Sufjan Steven’s Carrie and Lowell washes over me.

Sometimes I don’t answer the call—the album atmosphere feeling too heavy or gloomy for the season I’m in. But other times (like in January), I give in whole-heartedly and am rewarded with the deep presence of story, composition, and a mysterious sense of time.

This last listen-through had me thinking about reliving Steven’s discography in a more full way, and along with that I began to contemplate the elaborate stage costumes that defined each era of his work (Perhaps Sufjan should be planning his own Eras tour?).

Throughout his career, Sufjan has crafted a discography and aesthetic that is at once linear and evolutionary.1 His stage costumes often serve the role of holding up a mirror to what I believe are seven primary themes found within the wide body of his work: Childhood, The Mother, Christianity, Birds (or winged creatures), Sexuality, Geographic Place, and Death.

As these themes have been explored and often intermingled with varying weights throughout Steven’s musical career, his dress and costumes have served to reinforce both the lore and reality behind his tender and mysterious presence. What I’ll be focusing on with this piece is the importance of wings to Sufjan’s stage persona and storytelling.

Early eras of Sufjan’s work found him costumed in ways that served to project an understanding of and participation in a multiplicity of American subcultures: the wholesome hipster, perhaps taking a leap from playing songs at youth group to pursue stardom as a quirky folk musician, packaged with a tinge of somewhat ironic Americana.2 In tandem with this aesthetic mix, Sufjan lyrically blended themes of childhood, death, Jesus’s person-hood, and romantic ideas of place through the albums Michigan (2003), Seven Swans (2004), and Illinois (2005).3

It’s well documented that after Illinois, Sufjan was slated to compose albums representing the rest of the fifty states. Speaking to Treble in 2004, Sufjan clarified:

“It started as a gimmick,” Stevens said. “When I finished Michigan, I thought it would be funny to propose a project for writing albums for all 50 states. It was really just a way to get people to review the album. But after a few months, people started taking it seriously. I started invoking this motivation to go through with it. A lot of concepts and ideas are clumsy and abstract things in our minds. But I started to think about what it means to be an American. It’s such a mixed culture, especially on the East Coast.”

Sufjan’s abstracted, sometimes comical, and richly devoted contemplations of American cities and states have led to mythologized geographies beyond Michigan and Illinois that include Eugene, Oregon, Brooklyn, NY, and Decatur, Georgia.4 The intention does not seem to be to capture or project a romanticized version of America the country, but conversely to document his own emotional and autobiographical story as it has happened through the lens of place in time.

Illinois ushered in the physical transformation of Sufjan from a young and eager minstrel into a focused scout, donning whimsical butterfly wings with his loyal band. The Butterfly Tour (as I’ve seen it called on Tumblr, but no where else… someone older and wiser please confirm!) seems to be one of the earliest times Sufjan and company dressed in winged stage costumes.

Birds and winged creatures often feature as prominent symbols throughout Sufjan’s catalog. They serve to bind him to other people in a deep way—most often family members or lovers. On “Death with Dignity,” the opening track from Carrie and Lowell, Sufjan sings about his mother’s passing:

I forgive you, mother, I can hear you
And I long to be near you
But every road leads to an end
Yes, every road leads to an end
Your apparition passes through me in the willows
Five red hens
You’ll never see us again

In “Fourth of July,” Sufjan again alludes to his mother using the names of winged creatures while describing her death. This includes speaking to her as a firefly, a hawk, a dove, a star, dragonfly, and a loon. He also describes her as having a halo over her head, aligning her with the angels.

This symbolic imagery serves to transcend the physical places Sufjan is singing from, taking listeners out of the realm of geography and into the realm of the air, creatures in flight, and the spiritual. This realm allows for a more complex contemplation of life, death, and personhood; a searching process is unveiled that draws one closer to God and into the deeper rooms of the self.

One of my favorite songs, “The Owl and the Tanager” off of the All Delighted People EP, weaves together the imagery of dueling birds with themes of violent betrayal and ambiguous sexuality.

Found out you cheated me
I ran behind the barn and cut my hands somehow
Blood in the meadowlark
I punched your ears instead
I punched you in the head
You only laughed and laughed and laughed
How I was wrong tingling from the kill
Tickle me until you devil bird you evil still …

Counting alluvial plains
The breathing inside of the range
You touched me inside of my cage
Beneath my shirt your hands embraced me
Come to me feathered and frayed
For I am the ugliest prey,
For I am the ugliest prey
The owl, the reckless reckless praise

Sufjan’s wings serve as the bridge for him to explore more deeply his own complex history and reality on stage. Those that first appeared in the early 2000’s evolved in style and scope, taking on a prominent role during the tour for The Age of Adz beginning in 2010.

The Age of Adz era stands out on its own for the intense use of neon gaff tape and rave-like costuming Sufjan used to outfit himself and his band. The added layering on of the wings was a way to maintain consistency with where he had come from and where he was going.

Around 2011, Sufjan began to work with designer Adam Selman, who helped him formalize his neon gear along with his angelic wings—providing professional creations from the same production company that crafts the wings for the Victoria’s Secret runway shows.

I’m quite familiar with the clip above, but every time I reach the moment where we catch a glimpse of Sufjan’s winged silhouette, I’m shocked and taken back anew. There is power in knowing you can take flight—can own the form of an embodied spiritual being, transcending the life in front of you in a beautiful way.

This concert recording is a must-watch for all of the themes I’ve mentioned in action. With a track list spanning Seven Swans, Illinois, The Age of Adz, and Carrie and Lowell, mixed with the visuals of intense color and the possibility of flight, Sufjan’s complex world is on full display.

By the time Sufjan released Carrie and Lowell in 2015, chock full of imagery pertaining to the death of his mother, rich in depictions of winged creatures and gritty ponderings concerning faith and family, he had been exploring the thematic imagery of wings and flight for at least a decade through his costume. Looking back at this portion of his catalog, I’m struck by the fact that there is a pervasive dissonance at work here—a lingering shock and surprise at the things of life, whether beauty or death. While reflected through his stage costumes, ultimately these ideas are communicated most effectively through Sufjan’s voice—boyish and humble, not loud or commanding; singing about deep, shocking, horrible, and horribly wonderful things. Things worth taking flight for.

First up, I spoke with the wonderful . Ann is a mother, writer, and fashion enthusiast who’s been taking a deep dive into the theology that surrounds her love of the aesthetic. I hope you enjoy our chat. xx

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Sarah: Hi Ann! Can you introduce yourself a bit and explain who you are, your passions, and what your initial interest in fashion and theology has been?

Ann: Hey Sarah — thanks so much for having me! I’m a mother to two boys, a two-year-old and five-month-old, and my primary interests are reading, writing, theology, cooking, gardening, and, most recently, fashion. The last in this list was sparked by my postpartum struggle to clothe myself. I thought I knew what to expect. I figured my feet would grow and that my old jeans would be too tight. In one sense I was right, because my feet did grow and my jeans were too tight… on my hips; but somehow they were also too loose around my waist. I couldn’t wear dresses for a long time because I was breastfeeding. Skirts always felt weird. Athleisure made me feel like I was in high school again. As I focused more and more on the outfits I put together, I couldn’t help but connect this new passion with the faith that is the core part of my identity.

Sarah: When we first spoke, you brought up the notion that some people, often within the church, view fashion as “frivolous” and that the idea of being concerned with one’s presentation is outside the bounds of our faith. How can one speak back to this opinion?

Ann: With fashion as with anything, there are extremes. Some people I know focus on one end of the vanity spectrum. They would say it’s morally wrong to consider yourself the justified center of the universe, assuming all eyes are on you and your perfect little outfit. Narcissus, staring endlessly into his mirror. And they’re right. But they don’t acknowledge the other extreme; ignoring the body and clothing to the point of disrespect, eschewing expectation in an attempt to bring oneself forward as holier-than thou. This mind set still places the self at the center.

When practiced rightly, fashion is about going forth with the most honest representation of yourself, and pointing others to the beauty of your creator by being creative as well. makes this point incredibly well in her two-part essay on fashion as a primarily feminine interest. Poignantly, she writes, “The woman’s body is not a tool to her; therefore her clothes are not just meant to keep her warm, rather they are an important way that she can communicate and perceive the unarticulated realities of personhood.” If any of your readers haven’t read her work, I suggest they check her out! A big point of her essay was about how most men see their bodies as tools. I was so fascinated by this idea, which had never occurred to me before in the slightest, so I asked the men I knew how they viewed their bodies. I tried not to make it a leading question. Without fail, they all ended up using the words “tool” or “function” and typically called their bodies “it.” This blew me away.

The Turtle Dove

Fashion: a Principally Feminine Interest

As Mary Stanford argued convincingly in a recent piece for Fairer Disputations, Women tend to see their bodies as themselves, rather than as a possession or tool. Drawing upon the thought of Edith Stein, Stanford says, “By sensing that her body “is” her, a woman highlights the body’s capacity to represent, to “show,” the person.” Inspired by her piece, …

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2 years ago · 19 likes · 3 comments · Emma Evatt

The Turtle Dove

There is No Philosophy of Fashion

This post relies upon the premise that I established in this essay…

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6 months ago · 31 likes · 4 comments · Emma Evatt

In my experience, men are harsher critics of what they see as worldly attachments to the body. Those same men are also usually interested in ascetic practices (cold showers, meatless Fridays), if not all year then at least during times of fasting practiced by the Church at large (i.e. Lent). I think ascetics are beneficial for many men, and for some women; rejection of the broader culture is truly an aspect of the Christian life, and asceticism can lead to beautiful spiritual renewal and work as redemptive suffering. But I also believe that being a woman naturally requires a death to self that men simply get to choose. From the time of a woman’s first cycle, she enters a monthly physical and mental fluctuation that she cannot opt out of without serious hormonal medical alterations. A woman’s connection to her body, and by extension the way she clothes that body, may seem worldly or self-centered. Really, it is an attempt to connect with the self.

I have to point out the particular irony of a Catholic denouncing another Catholic’s attention to attire. Our priests and religious place great emphasis on what they wear, attaching symbolic significance to colors and cloth, and associating prayers with each vestimentary piece. I don’t want to speak for the masses, but I personally find it quite easy to consider my appearance and clothing thoughtfully without letting it replace God as the center of my heart. It’s akin to the criticism about beautiful churches. Some say architecture ought to be functional only, and that to beautify a building is a waste. A frivolous alabaster jar of perfume, if you will. Beauty is not frivolous in worship.

Sarah: I personally view the act of dressing our bodies each day as creative participation in the remembrance of what God has done for us in Christ (covered with His righteousness), as well as a prophetic act that points to His coming (I talk about this here). I would love to hear your thoughts on these ideas.

Ann: Your essay on this topic really resonated with me. I think the separation of the mind and body — the perception that the mind is somehow shackled to the body, a necessary evil — is simply wrong. We were made with bodies before the fall, but some people act as if our bodies were a result of the fall. I especially loved your point that “the Lord did not leave us to feel the full effects of our separation from Him; he gave us our bodies, beautiful and good as He made them, and then supplied a way for weathering the physical effects of the fall.” I had never considered things in this light before!

What we wear must point to truths beyond ourselves. We are reminded of our sin by them. At the same time, if clothing ourselves is something we use to be fully known, it cannot help but serve as a reminder that one day we will be fully known.

Sarah: You shared a lovely anecdote with me about how you often align your outfits to fit the theme of weekly mass. Could you share a bit more about that?

Ann: My desire to live the liturgical year more visibly lined up with my burgeoning interest in fashion. I was then responsible for a home and growing family. I wanted to take up Paul’s plea to “not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). When people establish physical rhythms of spirituality, it is much easier to maintain a rightly-ordered interior life.

The Catholic Church has a liturgical calendar full of colors that change with fasting and feasting.1 In addition to Sundays, we have several Holy Days of Obligation each year when we’re required to attend Mass as well. For any non-Catholic readers, we have a cycle of readings we follow across the entire church. So every day, no matter what Roman-rite church you’re attending across the globe, the same readings are being used for Mass. I usually go to the USCCB website and find the readings of the day. There are always four: typically one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament, and always a Psalm and a Gospel. Most of my life, I didn’t know what our Holy Days were. I always observed them, because they were announced during Mass the week before, but I didn’t store those dates and their significance in my head. Dressing liturgically is helping me rectify that. When the liturgical calendar is green, white, purple, or rose — my Sunday outfit is matching. After subscribing to Caroline of Sunday Best here on Substack, I even began reading ahead to find references I could incorporate into my outfits. Marian feast day? I’m wearing roses. Parable of the pearl of great price? Pearl necklace! The virgins bring their lamps to meet the bride groom? I have some earrings that look like antique lanterns. Through my outfits, I can build a cognitive connection to the readings and then meditate over again through the week.

Sarah: When you and I had our initial call prior to our interview, you shared with me that “we have no choice but to live in the physical world” and that “personal style has to change as the body changes.” How have these thoughts influenced you as a mother in her postpartum period?

Ann: The personal style conversation kind of blew up online last year, and at the time I found it fun. It can also be tricky. I think it was an example of how people want to be unique and yet easily definable. Overall, there was very little difference between each person’s personal style. On top of that, once you define your personal style, it feels suddenly quite risky to break outside that mold.

The whole journey of maiden to mother involves extensive bodily change, and not every version of yourself will maintain the same style. I certainly didn’t. If someone on TikTok saw my outfits for the week, they’d think I was switching between aesthetic camps every day. To the internet it may read as random, but it’s just real life. It’s authentic.

Sarah: That’s super relatable! There isn't really a solid through line as our identities expand in motherhood. Perhaps I’ll feel differently one day? Hard to tell just yet.

In college, I had a recognizable look; I know this because people told me. High waisted mom jeans, collared shirts, big glasses, or 80s sweaters were, apparently, my hallmarks. These days, I’m running after a toddler, nursing a baby, and struggling to fit into my jeans.

When I get dressed now, here are a few things I think about. If my baby spits up on me, will it be obvious? Will the sleeves get in the way of food prep? Is it nursing-friendly? Do I have to adjust the tuck too much? Will the pants be too tight by the end of the day? Is it comfortable without being slovenly? Can my shoes take me through park conditions, and will they be comfortable for hours at a time? All of these questions are asked and answered in the half second it takes to look over each piece. In the outfit with the green top below, I’m wearing a Target dress I thrifted and then hemmed into a shirt. The pants (elastic waistband!) were my sister’s from Korea. The other outfit features a thrifted L.L. Bean turtleneck and some thrifted Cotton-On pants (also elastic waistband!). The second outfit is one I’ve worn around the house constantly in the cold months – minus the boots. I didn’t want to be shoeless in this outfit pic, and my boots are the only pair of shoes I keep in my room. Honestly, I think it kinda hits. I may have to hop on the boots-over-pants look I’ve seen recently…

Sarah: I love how you were inspired by a recent Chanel look to try something new yourself. Would you mind sharing that story?

Ann: This was a first for me – I’ve never set out to recreate a runway look. When I saw this photo making the rounds on Substack, I realized it was a good way to incorporate a lady jacket I was given and never found an occasion to wear. Growing up, I had a neighbor a few doors down who was a fashion designer from Russia. We knew her as Miss Eve. After just asking my mom for her full name, which is Evgenia Luzhina, I can finally see her designs in action through her portfolio on Vogue. She would host shows in her backyard and let me rifle through her designs. When she and her husband moved, she invited my sisters and I over to select pieces to keep from her collection. This jacket was one of those items. It’s one of three things I accepted from her that actually fits (I am not as thin as a Russian model).

I had very few options when recreating this look due to my small closet. The quarter zip is my only one. Same with the heels. I have one other belt, but it’s falling apart. One point of interest for me when I first saw the runway look was to wonder whether the lady jacket would actually look good if worn. I would never wear it if it weren’t at least a bit practical. In my getup, the jacket still worked, although it’d be better if my pumps were a dark color!

Sarah: I love how the look turned out! I think using runway looks as a way to get the most use out of one's wardrobe (instead of just shopping for identical pieces) leads to deeper moments of appreciation for what we have. It builds that longevity and relationship that makes clothing so special and deepens our comfort levels with our bodies.

Thanks again, Ann, for sharing your rich perspective on theology, fashion, and a changing body. It’s been so lovely chatting!

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For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

1 Corinthians 15:53

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TW for mention of ED and body manipulation.

I encountered a flurry of reels and think pieces mid-last year about the use of AI fashion ads, a blip in our news cycle that I’m sure some readers also remember. The offending participants in question were JCrew and Guess, and in larger part Vogue, as they ran the Guess ads that featured an AI model (PhotoVogue was an official partner of AI Fashion Week in 2023). JCrew quickly added clarification to their photo captions, describing their images as “digital art” as opposed to photography, and crediting an AI photographer.

These instances gave me pause. The rendering of the human form in each campaign is quite convincing at first blush (besides for a few weird AI glitches once you stare long enough). Our daily lives are becoming so integrated with technology, specifically AI, that the fact we no longer need human bodies to model clothing for us to buy for our real, physical human bodies seems like a step into an unfathomable void.

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In December I visited the Cleveland Museum of Art’s latest fashion exhibition, Renaissance to Runway: The Enduring Italian House. The show opened not with physical garments or the artworks that inspired them (the central thesis of the show), but an AI video projected onto a large wall.1 In the video AI models run and frolic in the garments you will see once you step further into the galleries, allowing visitors to experience the clothing as it interacts with the artworks on display and in historic (and sometimes fantastical) contexts.

The wall label posits that the use of AI is to “show how these garments once moved and flowed when worn.” In and of itself, I see this as a worthwhile cause, as one of the greatest connections a viewer brings to a fashion exhibition is their body and the imagination of their own self in the clothing they are viewing.

What I found striking was that the majority of the objects in the exhibition (and the featured garments in the video) came from runway shows over the past 3-4 years. Perhaps the use of runway footage in fashion exhibitions feels a bit stale in 2025? Hmm, maybe. I understand that new technology is desirable in an exhibitions setting, the use of which can be groundbreaking at best. But is the use of AI in this manner not a further removal from the physical body to a technologically interpreted version, and therefore an erasure and rendered irrelevance of our present physical bodies?

In my recent interview with fashion historian Michelle McVicker, she spoke to me about her scholarship surrounding exhibitions that display objects bearing signs of physical wear: “Exhibitions within the canon of fashion history tend to exist to perpetuate material perfection. Through an alchemy of mannequin dressing, exhibition design, lighting, and conservation, garments exist disembodied and displaced from the passage of time. … I go as far as stating these mechanisms serve to deny a life lived and therefore also deny death.”2

It’s not a stretch to add AI to the list of methodology used by cultural institutions to obscure our physical bodies and their interactions with our clothing. Certain fashion exhibitions, along with the fashion industry itself, thrive while pushing us further away from our physical bodies, clamoring for us to embrace these unmarred versions of humanity as versions to be aspired to.3 The perfection they are pushing, that we may end up chasing, is perhaps coming from a deep and good place—an inherent desire to cover the mortal with what is immortal. But when directed not from a seat of divinity but one of fantasy, we become nothing more than man morphing into machine. There is no body left to cover.

This past Fall, there was a visible shift on the runways to move on from oversized, layered silhouettes to those that revealed and communicated the shape of the body. I see this happening perhaps as a means, consciously or subconsciously, of pushing back against technology and the many ways it has separated us from our physical selves.

Brooke Bobb, writing for Harper’s Bazaar, reported on the latest Prada collection in this way:

What was that? This was the collective response to whatever it was—boob flaps? Underwireless, bandless bras?—that fluttered down the runway of Prada’s Spring 2026 collection. They were front and center, paired with other difficult-to-describe, loosey-goosey garments: flimsy, drapey low-waist skirts (with … suspender straps?), fantastic mixed-material wrap skirts, slouchy tunic dresses over bubble skirts, droopy super-low V-neck sweaters, and opera gloves so scrunched, they looked like they could slip right off. Some grumbled that the unstructured garments disregarded a woman’s need for support and structure. But Mrs. Prada and Raf Simons have always understood fashion’s ability to reflect and respond to the culture around it. The lack of structure was intentional, of course. These clothes were about abandoning all of that in pursuit of something that seems increasingly hard to come by lately: a feeling of being unburdened and unencumbered. (emphasis my own)

Bobb taps into a rushing current at Prada, one that is pining to cast off that which binds and to embrace our bodies from a place of freedom.4 She goes on to note that dressing in distressed or revealing ways is not new: “Deconstructionists like Martin Margiela and Ann Demeulemeester, as well as Japanese avant-garde pioneers like Comme des Garçons’ Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto, emerged in response to Reagan-era excess, and their stripped-down and pulled-apart designs were seen as an act of rebellion—a captivating counter to glitz and gaudiness.” Time and again, the physical body seems to be revealed in an attempt to stand against shifting power dynamics in a swiftly changing culture.

One section in particular at Renaissance to Runway focused on Italian Catholic artworks and various fashion designs they inspired. Next to all the lush capes, embroidery, and angel wings, I was struck by this Diesel dress designed by Glenn Martens for the Spring 2024 collection. Here was a direct example of this unburdened dressing, put in context (and contrast) with objects that drew much more directly from Catholic imagery.

The label text speculated the Catholic connection in this way (see below), the dress serving as a representation of the practice of burning objects of physical wealth in order to obtain God’s grace in the 1490s:

While an interesting historic and religious presumption, the context for this dress’s creation and presentation comes from a less overtly devout place; Diesel’s Spring 2024 show was staged at a rave attended by 7,000+ guests. Martens gave this official statement: “The collection is the spirit of Diesel, democratic and experimental in every piece. I believe in living life to the fullest, that every day should be a party.”

Unburdened and unencumbered feel like apt adjectives for the experimental party clothes Martens is working to perfect. While the dress on exhibit was not designed adjacent to an act of religious piety, this movement towards an uncovered and free body seems still to ache of something deeper and more holy.

As I slowly study and work my way towards a more robust theology of clothing and the body, I find myself repeatedly coming back to this passage from 1 Corinthians 15:

⁵⁰ I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— ⁵² in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”^[c]

⁵⁵ “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”^[d]

⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (NIV)

“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’” The redemption of our physical bodies is crucial to the finality of all of redemption. To the defeat of death itself. It’s the last piece of the puzzle, the last box to be checked off. It’s no small wonder that God came to us in the full human form of Christ to redeem each line, scar, and imperfection, and to clothe us in lasting trueness of self.5

I have fretted and cried and contorted my body in any manner of ways over my lifetime in the hopes of being perceived as beautiful or competent or strong, using clothing almost exclusively to achieve these purposes. I’ve treated my body as disposable at times, or simply as a spot upon which to place my harshest criticisms of self. It’s truly hard living in a body in this broken world. A truth made more difficult by the fact that our bodies are the last things to be renewed. We know desperately, intimately, that they need to be made new, and we grasp at any means to achieve that.

In the past few months I’ve noticed several of my favorite millennial fashion and lifestyle influencers debating the pros and cons of body and facial enhancement procedures, airing their unease at the processes but treading lightly so as not to offend those who have taken this path.

Fashion writer Harriet Hadfield shared recently:

“When I open YouTube to watch the creators I grew up with, I don’t see anyone getting older. Instead I notice faces morphing into a frozen state, faces I once recognized. They don’t look younger, and they don’t look older. In many ways if I had never seen them before I would have no idea what there age is, because the more work you get done the more you start to exist in this inbetween state. One where time isn’t frozen, but you are.”

Harry Styles By Harriet Hadfield

I want to know my face

In a world where getting work done is normal, I’ve had to admit to this uneasy feeling of being left behind. Followed by the question - do I have the courage to love myself if I don’t get work done? And in a world that profits from my insecurity - is that even possible…

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6 months ago · 102 likes · 52 comments · Harriet Hadfield

I remember a time when getting Botox or “work done” seemed to be something delegated to the celebrity class, a la the Kardashians. None of my peers in undergrad in the mid-2000s were getting face lifts or lip filler (I also chalk this up to being in the Midwest at the time). Journalist Mary Elizabeth Williams writing on Substack about eating disorders poignantly notes:

“It has never been easier to judge a person for daring to go outside in a corporeal form, unburdened by Photoshop, ungenerated by AI. We’re surrounded by humans everywhere and still don’t have a realistic idea of what a human is supposed to look like, even when that human is us.”

I don’t think the rise in discourse about body manipulation along with the rise of AI is coincidental. Body and facial enhancement procedures, much like the use of AI to represent fashionable human bodies, exist to suspend and distance us from our bodies and the natural changes that occur to them over time. The ultimate end result of both is for our new faces and bodies to be shared in images and videos online, for public consumption and approval.

If AI is part of this quest for immorality that we all crave at some level, seen as the next step to escaping from or replacing our physical bodies, consider what that means for our spiritual selves. Our intended physical end result is quite different to that of a technologically altered state. We need these bodies now, as they house God’s Spirit, carrying us through this physical life. But we desperately need them at the end, as their renewal is key to our full and final redemption. Our humanity in all its physical facets is intensely valuable to God and worth preserving—well above the ease that AI may bring to our artistic lives.

This year, I’m hoping to engage with a wide range of individuals on the topics of fashion, personal style, the body, and/or the theology of these points. If you’re a student/scholar/enthusiast of any of these topics and interested in sitting down for a chat, please reach out!

My friend Michelle is a fashion scholar and museum collections care professional, currently working as the Associate Collections Specialist in the Antonio Ratti Textile Study and Storage Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her research focuses on the personal wardrobe of Frida Kahlo and on the preservation and expansion of a wider representative history within the fashion history landscape. Outside of being an accomplished professional within the field of fashion, Michelle has one of the most distinct and fantastic personal wardrobes of anyone I know. She kindly agreed to chat with me recently about these topics and more. As we put a bookend in 2025, may our conversation leave you inspired for the new year to come!

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Sarah: Let’s start by talking about how we met! Can you share a bit of what you remember?

Michelle: Oh boy, well, we met late June, early July 2016 when we were both working as Collection Management Assistants at the Costume Institute at the Met. I will never forget your first day outfit: a black, strappy satin dress from Zara with different patches, maybe some were lips? And you wore some pointy flats that might have given you blisters!

I remember being so excited you came all dressed up to work because I often felt overdressed myself and if I’m not mistaken I think I complimented you on your outfit. And your signature side bangs and long hair worn down. You were pretty shy (rightly so, everything was so intimidating/overwhelming), but I think we figured out we were both Midwesterners that day.

If my memory is correct, you met your now husband Alex not long after starting the job, around the 4th of July? So I like to think of the length of your relationship as basically the same length as our friendship. It’s wild to think that we only worked together for approximately six months since I left the position that December, and yet we became even closer friends since.

Sarah: I love these details! My first day dress was actually white and neoprene! Ha! It had funky patches all over it, like mermaids and sunglasses… What a first day of work outfit. I was fearless in my 20s! And yes, I met Alex right around the 4th of July, not long after you and I started working together. A good Summer of new connections for me!

Sarah: Can you share the story of how you became interested in fashion history and the start of your career path?

Michelle: Growing up in Chicago, I vividly remember going thrifting with my mom after school and on the weekends. My mom is from Cali, Colombia and immigrated to Chicago in the late 80’s. She has always felt a duty to give back, as the one that “made it” in the US, and thrifting for gently used clothing has always been her most attainable way. Sifting through racks, I developed a material understanding and brand knowledge through repeated hands-on exposure. As unconventional as it sounds, I consider these experiences my foundational fashion and textile education.

Back in the early 2000’s, the act of thrifting and wearing “vintage” wasn’t as coveted as it is today, and my mother insisted I not share when I wore something thrifted. But as I got older, and went to high school where I did not have a school uniform, thrifting became a vehicle for expression, an untapped language. “Gossip Girl” was also extremely formidable for me in finding my personal style, where I found myself wanting to emulate Blair Waldorf’s style the most. But it was the unabashed mixture of high and low costume designer Eric Daman executed that still remains true of my own style decades later.

One year for Christmas, my mom gifted me the “Fashion History by Kyoto Costume Institute” book, which opened up an entire world of fashion history I was unaware existed. History was always my favorite subject in school, and in high school I began looking for internship opportunities in museums. At 16, I landed a summer internship in the education department at the Chicago History Museum. One day, we shadowed the Costume Curator at the time and the Collections team unpacking their Charles James 1955 Butterfly dress. It was so beautiful I wept, and that was it for me. Despite not understanding the type of work I was witnessing (Collections Care), I instinctively knew I needed to do it. Ironically, they were installing the 2008 exhibition “Chic Chicago” which was curated in collaboration with The Museum at FIT, where I ended up working nearly 10 years later!

Sarah: What does your professional life look like now? What independent research are you engaging in?

Michelle: This year has been pretty exciting as I’ve had two long-awaited publications come out! One is in (Re)Dressing American Fashion and the other is in Fashion’s Missing Masses: The representation of marginalized populations in collections and exhibitions of dress. For the first, I was asked to reflect on my personal experiences working in museum fashion collections. Unlike my past publications, I was asked to write this one in first person which was nerve racking. It is my most vulnerable publication to date as I discuss feelings of erasure from the very costume collections I have been responsible for stewarding. I question my profound interest in fashion history when I have rarely, if ever, felt represented within it. But I also claimed ownership over certain parts of my story. This opportunity allowed me to reflect on the impact my mother’s housekeeper profession has had on my professional career, realizing it created the framework for the importance of my own collections care responsibilities.

The second is a chapter version of my Master’s thesis that I completed as part of my Parsons Fashion Studies degree, where I originally wrote about the Frida Kahlo fashion exhibition at La Casa Azul aptly titled Appearances Can Be Deceiving.1 At the time, it was the only example I could find. reference of a fashion exhibition displaying garments owned and worn exclusively by a Latina. I was also struck by the unabashed representation of use on her belongings, which demonstrated an unapologetic display of wear. Exhibitions within the canon of fashion history tend to exist to perpetuate material perfection. Through an alchemy of mannequin dressing, exhibition design, lighting, and conservation, garments exist disembodied and displaced from the passage of time. Not to get too epistemological here but I go as far as stating these mechanisms serve to deny a life lived and therefore also deny death. Yet, more recent exhibitions are arguing for the importance in representing the everyday and the visibly intervened and imperfect. Since 2017, I have traveled to visit multiple iterations of the show including in Mexico, London, Paris, and Brooklyn with you! This publication allowed me the opportunity to continue evolving my thesis and I am immensely grateful for it to be included in such a poignant edited edition, and in excellent company.

Sarah: I can attest that both are fascinating and necessary pieces of scholarship. Getting to write an academic piece in first person is something of a rarity, right? But I believe that needs to happen more. And I remember seeing the Kahlo show with you when it traveled to the Brooklyn Museum! It was a special gift to be able to learn from you as we explored each room of the exhibition. I’ll never forget you pointing out bits of paint on one of Kahlo’s necklaces—magical! It’s interesting to think how quickly the museum institution can erase a garment’s memory of the body, or works to maintain the “fashionable body” above all else. Your point about denying both life and death seems so striking to me, as I think the obsession with youth and body alteration within the fashion industry can barely be escaped, and feels at times to be one and the same.

Sarah: Switching gears a bit, I’d love to take a moment to dive into your love of vintage and modeling!

Michelle: My experience with modeling came about through an Instagram DM! I was following OMNIA vintage, and the owner Naomi would regularly post a model named Pilar, who although taller than I, had overall similar measurements to mine. It was extremely refreshing to see vintage not only being offered in my size (roughly a modern size 10) but also modeled on a human body (vs. a mannequin), styled in fun, non-frumpy ways, and on a POC. It was one of the few times I could visualize myself in the clothes sold.

Pilar ended up moving away and Naomi put out a call on her Instagram stories, asking if anyone in the size range would be interested in modeling. I honestly answered the call not because I wanted to model (that was terrifying…) but because I was simply curious as to what her stock was in my size. I wanted to meet this wonderful person who thought it was important to collect and sell vintage up to a contemporary size L/XL. I had no prior modeling experience, and I admittedly do not “work out.” I also have some skin scars and imperfections I’ve always been insecure about. I sent Naomi my measurements, and she asked me to stop by the studio for a shoot. The first gig was pretty nerve racking, but major props to Naomi for quickly making the environment safe and comfortable.

At the time, I wasn’t working with a fashion collection professionally, and getting to dress up and be surrounded by such well curated vintage immensely fulfilled me. I have continued modeling for fun in the hopes that someone else sees me online and feels equally represented. It has also helped with my body confidence, which ebbs and flows, but trying on beautiful pieces that push me outside my comfort zone helps. Naomi asks me to bring in my own accessories and make-up, and we collaborate on the styling which is a great creative outlet. I didn’t expect this, but I have gotten recognized in vintage show settings, which is so bizarre but also comforting.

Sarah: Could you share a bit about some of your favorite designers? Do you have a favorite piece in your closet?

Michelle: Some of my favorite designers are Elsa Schiaparelli, Claire McCardell, Vera Neuman, and Tracy Reese.

The Elsa Schiaparelli plastic evening belt with a buckle of two clasping hands (pictured below) is my favorite museum collection object I have had the privilege of encountering (CI belts team for the win). During my time at the Museum at FIT, I had the opportunity to meet some of Clarie McCardell’s family members and assist in an object viewing with them. They were allowed to handle her pieces stored in their study collection, and before I knew it one of them put on a pair of Capezio shoes McCardell herself had donated and said “Yup, these were hers.”

Vera Neumann was a prolific artist who created thousands of original pieces, including 8,000 copyrighted designs and over 20,000 scarves. I believe her creativity is immensely underrated, especially as a female entrepreneur in the 1960’s and 70’s. When I first moved to NYC for grad school, I had a short term internship at the Tracy Reese design house in the garment district (an absolute dream). Although I was unable to balance the un-paid internship while working part-time at Anthropologie (that sells Reese’s designs), they would call me in to work sample sales and pay me in clothes. I still own and wear those dresses from over a decade ago.

I would be remiss not to mention that our friendship shares a mutual adoration for Bonnie Cashin and the Coach brand itself. Sarah gave me the greatest gift of my first Bonnie Cashin coat ever! But without a doubt my most valued possession is my bright pink 1960’s Bonnie Cashin for Sills leather coat with toggles around the collar. I bought it at the Manhattan Vintage show a few years back and it is missing a detachable hood, but I love it anyways. It has deep pockets on the front and back of the coat that comfortably fit four bottles of champagne. I know this for a fact because I put this to the test in Paris. The coat has pushed me out of my comfort zone because I honestly don’t like the color pink, yet I was immensely drawn to it and now it has become my staple winter piece. It is always a fun conversation starter as well, especially when worn outside of the US where people are less familiar with Cashin’s designs and story.

Sarah: I love your museum collections stories, and how personal the clothing you’ve both worked with and worn have become to you. Contrary to the denial of life and death that you mentioned in relation to the Kahlo exhibition a bit earlier, I think your collections care work intrinsically proves that there is so much life left in each garment, even long after it stops being worn by a human body.

Isn’t it fun seeing the ways we each integrate Cashin’s pieces into our personal style? I think it would delight her, as she was striving to design for the modern woman.

Thank you so much, Michelle, for taking the time to chat and share such important aspects of your life and work!

I’m hoping to engage with a wide range of individuals on the topics of fashion, personal style, the body, and/or the theology of these points over the next year. If you’re a student/scholar/serious enthusiast of any of these topics and interested in sitting down for a chat, please reach out!

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“No matter how much I reminded myself that I was physically and emotionally safe, my body responded to old patterns and I felt it moving beyond me, at its own pace. …

Quiet can be found in an absence of sound, or, I believe, in a kind of focus that takes an eye off the self and places it firmly on something beautiful. My responsive body was immediately taken by the jewel tones of Albert Bouts’ The Annunciation. The deep blue/green of Mary’s garment as she stands reading is dazzling to my modern eyes. …

The revelation that the Savior of the universe is resting in Mary’s quiet womb comes on the threshold of a moment of contemplative quiet in the home. I stood in the empty gallery and found a calm I hadn’t been expecting. A woman alone in conversation with God is open to receiving life changing news, or even merely a shift in perspective. Open to receiving calm to a frazzled nervous system through the quiet of a gallery.”

In Winter Quiet in The Clayjar Review

This Fall began beautifully—sun soaked days glimmering down over gold and red leaves, temperatures that necessitated jackets and boots, but not many other necessary considerations (ideal conditions, imo).

Where October brought clarity and hope for a new season, the transition into November felt abrupt, with its intense temperatures and an early Midwest snow. The darkness now too all-consuming to ignore, I’ve felt myself falling headlong back into a head space I’ve worked hard to forget. My seasonal depression scrapes along my bones in an acute way; when combined with old triggers, new routines, and more time stuck in the house, I begin to feel pulled in conflicting directions. The seasonal split has begun.

Cohesion feels like a distant memory, and this is most immediately felt when I try to get dressed. I have to remind myself, perhaps cohesion day in and day out isn’t the point—being present with my body and spirit each day is.

My day to day necessitates a spectrum of wardrobe requirements and restrictions (I’m resonating a lot with this piece!!). I’m experimenting with ways to wear comfortable pants in a variety of situations… perhaps that’s my one through line in the midst of a time where I feel conflicting sides of the self negotiating. Below is a mix of outfits from September through November. Enjoy! xx

I’ve been living in these Gap sweatpants lately. When I want to feel a little more pulled together, I throw on my Grandpa’s button up and a very cool/silly knit dickie I got a few years ago at Clash.

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In September, I was invited to a celebration thrown in honor of the Kent State University Museum’s 40th year. The theme was “Dazzle,” a nod to the theme of the original opening soirée. This outfit felt way out of my comfort zone simply due to all of the COLOR. But I love each piece and was excited to pull together something special and a little outside of my norm. I often chicken out when it comes to event looks, but I felt comfortable with the shape of each piece which is why I think I was able to actually wear this out of the house.

The sequin cardigan is vintage Georgio di Sant’Angelo that I found by sheer fate at a going out of business sale at a small shop near my apartment in Philadelphia years ago. The last time I wore it was on my 30th birthday.1 Underneath, I wore one of my prized possessions—a late-70s Calvin Klein silk charmeuse camisole.

The skirt is Tibi. Yes, I was Substack influenced and yes, I have opinions! (!!) Despite the wonderful color, shape, and details (wraps all the way around and has clever pockets), I immediately noticed how poorly things like buttons and hooks were sewn on to the garment. The first time I wore it, a button actually popped off as I got in my car. For this evening I made sure to bring a backup safety-pin to avoid any wardrobe malfunctions! My official review: Cool cool, but kind of wild considering the price point (relieved I found this on deep sale at a small business). My shoes are Jeffrey Campbell found second hand and my bag came from the gift shop at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

I was bonding recently with someone over the fact that I’m obsessed with blazers and jackets. They constitute a sizable portion of my wardrobe and I have two racks in my closet dedicated to them. This fall I wanted a tan or brown blazer and found this lovely version via TheRealReal by Luca Luca. The asymmetry won me over immediately. Pants and boots (recently resoled) are tried and true Everlane from 2017 and 2018.

I think any good millennial worth her salt holds some proper devotion for the Olsens, and in doing so keeps certain outfit formulas passed down from the twins in her back pocket. For me, I’ve been dipping my toes into pairing navy and black, a la Mary Kate. Last year I did so with my black eBay knockoff Pleats Please pants and a navy wool coat my Great Aunt made for my Grandma. I love pairing the same pants with a COS cotton button up this fall. I think the key to the first iteration pictured above is that the navy isn’t too blue (I don’t mind the brighter navy for the coat layer). The sailor collar stirs up my longing for the sea, and in this way I don’t have to leave the Summer completely behind. Outfit completed by my family’s Scottish clan tartan scarf.

I’ve been wearing some iteration of the outfit below on a weekly basis since the weather turned. I start with a stretchy black base layer and then I pile on this all-cotton JCrew barn jacket, the same scarf as above, and my Sam Edelman boots. I love the action pleat on the back of the jacket and the giant pockets have been *chef’s kiss* for toddler outings.

I’m off to catch up with family and friends over the next few days. Thank you to all who read and share my work. I’m so appreciative for each and every one of you! Hope to be back in December with a more festive spirit and perhaps another interview to share. Stay warm!

1

Photo proof of the sweater and camisole on my 30th birthday. Also perpetual proof that neither of us can take a photo without blinking.

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Long celebrated have been the Irving Penns and Richard Avedons of the fashion photography world, but I’d love to share a little book from my collection that shines a spotlight on the equally fabulous and successful Louise Dahl-Wolfe. Dahl-Wolfe is best known for her fashion photography work for Harper’s Bazaar from 1936-1958 in collaboration with fashion editor Diana Vreeland, under the leadership of editor-in-chief Carmel Snow. It was there that Dahl-Wolfe’s foray into color photography, a relatively new medium at the time, was perfected and utilized to great effect. Curator Lisa Hostetler, writing for the International Center for Photography, notes:

“Dahl-Wolfe was especially well-known during the infancy of color fashion photography for her exacting standards in reproducing her images. Her insistence on precision in the color transparencies made from her negatives resulted in stunning prints whose subtle hues and unusual gradations in color set the standard for elegance in the 1940s and 1950s.”

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It is with great irony and some real disappointment that I must share that this photographer’s scrapbook is, for some wacky reason, printed in black and white! (?!) Despite this, the book is beautiful and delightful, akin to paging through someone’s diary, being written by Dahl-Wolfe herself. Image-heavy and including comical, gossip-laden stories that serve to invite readers into the tantalizing art and fashion worlds, it serves as a unique visual autobiography of her long, winding, and fascinating career.

Dahl-Wolfe attended art school as a young women with an interest in painting and interior design. Around 1919, a mutual friend invited her to the studio of photographer Anne Brigman and Dahl-Wolfe was immediately taken with Brigman’s haunting nudes. She resolved to buy her own camera using the funds she earned designing electric signs.

After meeting her husband, painter Meyer “Mike” Wolfe, the pair moved to New York City in 1933 and Dahl-Wolfe began working for Woman’s Home Companion magazine and submitting other work for publication in Vanity Fair. During this time in her life, Dahl-Wolfe recalled several awkward interactions she had with Condé Naste art director M. F. Agha, several of which he referenced her age in a negative light, as reason not to employ her. As she began to grow in her career, Agha came asking her to work for him at Vogue; she declined, later playfully sending a bouquet of flowers to his home with a copy of his dismissive words as the accompanying card. He promptly invited her to lunch and they remained friendly.

In 1936, Dahl-Wolfe came on board as a staff photographer for Harper’s Bazaar and served the publication for over two decades. The majority of the images in the scrapbook come from this time and are beautiful examples of the development of mid-century fashion photography.

A great example of Dahl-Wolfe’s eye for shape, texture, and her appreciation of fine art.

Dahl-Wolfe worked closely with legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland while at Harper’s Bazaar. The pair is responsible for the 1943 cover of a young and then-unknown Lauren Bacall.1 The cover would ensure a screen test for the teen, catapulting her to movie stardom.

Dahl-Wolfe stated that left to her own devices she would have been a portrait and still life photographer. At the suggestion of a friend she began photographing fashions in a showroom for a local newspaper. The idea of fashion photography was initially a bit foreign, and she noted that up until that point fashions imagery had been captured through illustration by fine artists.

As that skill set began to wane in the 1930s, photography slowly started to fill the gap. Her skill at capturing a solo subject speaks to her training in still life and portraiture, best displayed in the Designer section of the book, where she captured her subjects with a knack that is both curious and exuberant.

I think one of the most special aspects of Dahl-Wolfe’s scrapbook is the documentation of her close working relationship with her husband. Mike would often collaborate with her on photo backgrounds, creating surreal set designs on paper with paint or scissors. A portion of the book is dedicated to her long and happy relationship with him.

Dahl-Wolfe ends the scrapbook with these words, a succinct and contented end to her story (and one that feels relevant for today):

“And so I retired to the country.”

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Here’s my very quick take...

It would be impossible to think of fashion in our current day without thinking of the pervasive imagery of social media; targeted ads, video campaigns, influencer shopping hauls, all inescapable across TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest. Fashion writers crowd Substack sharing their mirror outfit pics alongside affiliate links. This phenomenal collection of fashion imagery and inspired trends doesn’t spring out of nowhere and is rooted in a history that stretches back to the 1500s. Fashion as portrayed by duplicated images originated through the medium of illustration, and then as technology developed, photography. Fashion historian Sarah Goethe-Jones writes:

“The majority of fashion illustrations were created to be seen on a page at close range, allowing for the personal experience associated with books and letters. Therefore, fashion illustrations possess a unique feeling of intimacy, with the image held in the viewer’s hand, as well as an urgency, the need to stop us in our tracks before we turn the page.”

In this we see hundreds of years worth of maintenance surrounding the intention for fashion imagery to be extremely personal as well as portable. In our modern day our phones serve as a substitute to the paper or print magazine that used to be the sole communicators of a fashion image. Now, though, there are algorithms at play, feeding us constant editorial images and targeted ads designed to make us feel unique and fashionable, able to accrue good taste with the simple click of a checkout button. We no longer pick and choose which fashion imagery to consume, at least not as often as we may think.

It’s been noted across social media that this constant access to fashion images has begun to work itself out in a flattening of personal style and a singularity in that which is considered fashionable. This is best seen in a viral photo from November 2024 in which a group of women was photographed during a night out in Alabama all wearing a black shirt and denim jeans. Writer described the phenomena as a “frightful sameness.” He writes:

“... the dominant attitude of modernity is built on sameness and this sameness forces the beauty and the weirdness of the world into an ‘it’. There is no texture.”

As we see from historic examples, such as those used by Goethe-Jones, the fashion image has always been about Sameness to a degree; exclusive, yet always adhering to a set of acquirable codes.1 And those who follow the codes can succeed in achieving the “look” and fitting in with others who also adhere to the same aesthetic. We see this in more obvious ways with the outworking of subcultures and the way high fashion appropriates and waters down said subcultures to create its own exclusive image to be adhered to— a blatant example being Vivienne Westwood and the elevation of Punk from the street to runway. You can be drastically different from the mainstream, but still fall in line with the idea of Sameness.

More people than ever in history have access not only to fashion images, but with the juggernaught that is fast fashion, all different price points to meet the modern expectations for getting dressed. Fashion inherently proves that the Sameness it demands through ceaseless images doesn’t have to be boring. But it seems at this current moment, Sameness is being equated with the quotidian, or to be more stark, blankness.

One of my favorite Anne Hollander quotes applies well as I think about the imagery we consume:

“The eye is full of lust for change and for certain changes of a certain time. There’s always an influx of practicality into fashion — all of a sudden, we must all wear blue jeans — but then people suffer from visual indigestion, and a surfeit of one type of thing brings us the delight in the opposite. But the appeal is constantly to the eye, I would say.” — Anne Hollander (1978)

I think a lot of our contemporary Sameness begins with the Olsens and the pervasiveness of The Row to create not just clothing but “looks,” as styling can often be replicated without the hefty price tag. The above image was taken in 2019 and inspired by The Row, but replicated with pieces from Cos, Everlane, and Mia. I remember feeling a little embarrassed as I headed into work that day. Would this dress, worn as super-long, over-sized shirt read too frumpy? Would anyone get it? Now I’m asking why this outfit feels right, six years on? And I think I can credit the current Sameness we are experiencing, at least on Substack and in fashion media.

If the most recent fashion month shows are an indication of anything (I’m looking at you, New York), the eye is beginning to droop, blinking back tears waiting for something new (and imo Paris largely delivered; see also, excellent round ups of small designers in NYC by Emma Evatt and Kendall Flavin). This fatigue, though, may not necessarily because of the clothes, but because of the insatiability of the eye.

I end with this curious thought that popped into my mind this morning: After writing about the prophetic nature of getting dressed earlier this year I have to wonder—is the desire to achieve this Sameness just a pursuit of a fuller image, the image we were all born with—the Imago Dei? Perhaps the constant desire for change in fashion can be subscribed to our searching for the fuller image of God missing within us.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
1 Corinthians 13:12 NIV

My friend Aumaine is a poet, editor, writer, mother, and fashion enthusist. She and I maintain a text conversation that often cycles through these topics on a near weekly basis, with various frequencies depending on the duties pulling in our lives. We have both been processing our respective adjustments into motherhood and how to best navigate them alongside work and all the other loves that came before. In the spirit of fleshing out some of our text conversations, we hope you enjoy our chat.

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Sarah: Let’s catch everyone up. Can you remind me when we met?

Aumaine: We met in Cleveland, Ohio, in the summer of 2021. A friend told me that you and your husband had just moved in on our street in Ohio City and that we might have some interests in common. Where were you coming from at that point, and what were you hoping to find in Cleveland?

Sarah: My husband and I had been living in Philadelphia for a few years after getting married but loss of work from Covid brought us to Cleveland. My family was still in Northeast Ohio so we hoped for a safe landing pad after such a turbulent time. We were attracted by the lower cost of living in the area compared to the East Coast. Proximity to Lake Erie also felt like a huge perk!

Aumaine: I remember you were working at the time in an archival role, right? The organizational and memorial aspects of that piqued my interest as a writer. But you’d also mentioned your museum and fashion background when we first sat together for an afternoon snack on the patio of our common friend. I remember being fascinated, as someone who has always loved getting dressed and seeing what others wear, and who has family history in tailoring and dressmaking, that someone could study clothes academically. Can you redescribe your movement through these professional spheres?

Sarah: Yes! So my career trajectory (though I sort of laugh to call it that) has been directly impacted by the cities I’ve lived in and various life circumstances. When I met you I was working remotely from Cleveland for the archives at Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside, Pennsylvania (outside of Philadelphia). Like you mentioned, my background, though, is in museums and fashion.

In 2015, I was living in New York and got my masters at FIT in fashion and textile history. From there, I worked in the archives at Calvin Klein before accepting a contract role in collections management in the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After marrying my husband a few years later, I moved to Philadelphia and took short-term contract work with the fashion and textiles department at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Job prospects for a fashion historian were not as rich in Philly as in NYC, so I ended up working some odd jobs and archival projects over the years, which is how I ended up at Westminster.

There are similarities between archival care and collections management work in terms of a dedication to organization by hierarchies, a focus on preventative storage, and the desire to enable the objects or records to share their own histories in as true a way as possible. I find this so beautiful when applied to fashion objects; there is such satisfaction in seeing a priceless piece of fashionable history easy at rest in layers of acid-free tissue and undyed muslin slings, a beautiful gift from the past to those who study in the present and the future.

I remember being struck by you when we met—so easy going and kind, living in a dreamy little cottage, and a poet! I don’t think I had met anyone who’d studied poetry the way you had before. Remind me how you ended up in Cleveland at the time we met.

Aumaine: So I am also from northeast Ohio, though I’ve passed in and out of the area for the past 15 years through schooling and a stint on the West Coast. When we met, my husband and I had also just moved to Cleveland after finishing our MFAs in creative writing at the University of Illinois. Like your situation, it was a strange time career wise for me, as for so many creative people during Covid.

I had started my own editorial business in 2019, mostly supporting academic writers, and along with editing articles for publication and dissertations, I was working on projects (cookbooks and crime fiction!) with a Cleveland-based publisher of works in translation, Clevo Books, and doing some admin for the Beloit Poetry Journal. A true mixed bag. Editorial work is a pleasure for me, and evolves easily from the close attention to minute details like diction and syntax that poets attend to, as well as higher-order questions about form, references, and audience.

I was also writing poetry “on the side,” as working poets outside academia do, publishing in journals, and arranging my first manuscript to send to book contests. It was a rich and exciting time, and I had a lot of anticipation for the kinds of work that might be possible for me, both editorially and with my own writing. But I also remember anxiety about where future paid projects would come from, and a curious longing for a full-time job somehow involving language that could keep my interest, though I had no idea what that could be in a midsize, Midwestern city. I think we bonded over work uncertainty when we met. But then, things changed a lot!

Sarah: I think it’s so fun and special that we got to work together! You had already been working at the Cleveland Museum of Art as the managing editor for about a year prior to when I started in the Philanthropy department. I was in charge of a lot of donor and member communications, and our work intersected often with the member’s magazine.

Aumaine: Yeah, so a year or so after we met, I applied for an open editorial role in the Cleveland museum, which felt far flung for me without an art history background, though of course degrees in literature and writing helped, and I got it. Then not long after, you started your own writing role at the museum. We were both so excited. I remember really leaning on your experience in museum culture built in Philly and at the Met because my job was a new subfield of editorial work for me, where I edited gallery labels, exhibition catalogues, and a quarterly magazine.

You also helped me pick my first day outfit! It was special to work in that gorgeous building together, among so many moving works of art, and to share lunch breaks walking around the lagoon or resting in the sculpture garden together. Or even to say prayers in a conference room when our weeks were full of print deadlines, demanding donors, and stress.

Sarah: For sure! All of those moments really enriched the experience. One of my favorite aspects of working with you, besides learning from your expertise as an editor, was seeing what you wore to work each day! What ideas informed your practice of getting dressed to come to the art museum?

Aumaine: Oh man. It was definitely an evolving process. I have always loved dressing. I’ve been inspired by the clothes of both my grandmothers, garments in the historical novels I loved as a kid, and Tumblr-era street style and runway references, though my knowledge of contemporary fashion has been piecemeal. I also enjoy thinking about clothes expected in specific contexts, and how we can fulfill or subvert those expectations. My personality is to generally blend into a setting, while leaving small hints that I am closely observing the details of that setting, and possibly subtly challenging them.

I had learned to dress somewhat professionally, albeit creatively, mostly via thrift stores, when I taught writing classes at the university during my grad program. The Oxford shirt and leather slingbacks were already in my closet, thrifted in ‘90s mall brands like Ann Taylor or Gap, or Poshmarked from more recent brands that talked about sustainability or craftsmanship like Everlane or Vince. With the museum job came a higher paycheck, so in time I could afford to buy versions of these staples that were more designer-y, and I imagined wearing them for years, wooed by the stories of their creation and the shared knowledge of fashion lovers.

Your familiarity with both contemporary fashion and historical dress were and still are amazing to me! I love to hear you talk about favorite designers, historical collections, or the influences behind a striking garment. I’ll never forget your explanation of the gowns in Dutch medieval paintings like The Annunciation, how you glossed the pleating of that garment and shape of its sleeves and relayed their contexts to me one day walking through the galleries. In between editing exhibition articles for the museum’s magazine or putting together programs for the special interest group on textiles, we chatted about wardrobe purchases, and you’d often swap gossip about brands or give input on materials and prices before I made purchases.

Two of my favorite pieces from that period are a pair of ‘90s Jil Sander kitten heel pumps, the toe just elongated enough to be quietly weird, and a handmade poplin skirt with a section of pleating and a raw hem, reminiscent of Japanese designers, both found on Etsy. Those are tucked away in my closet now, waiting for another season not filled with sticky baby hands. Is there a piece or outfit that will always remind you of those days, now that we’ve both moved on from them?

Sarah: Yes! Quite a few. In general, I really miss a lot of my clothes at this stage in my life! Not working and then dealing with postpartum weight fluctuations left me feeling adrift a bit over the past year. I tried to focus during this past season on fabrics and shapes that felt good but were also functional for my day to day life. At the museum, I loved a structured look and a polished silhouette. Long lines were fun to play with. But like you, I loved to be sure there were interesting and unusual details at play. I liked when my outfits surprised people, in a good way. I think play and fun are at the root of good design and style.

Aumaine: You’ve written about how your wardrobe has changed since moving on from the Cleveland museum after the birth of your daughter. Our paths have continued to look similar in this most recent chapter, which delights me. What are you up to now, and what has the transition been like?

Sarah: It’s been really wonderful to bond with you over writing, fashion, and museum work. And just like those things, and even our life circumstances around the time we met, we also gave birth within eight months of one another! It’s been so helpful to have a creative and a mother to lean on through such big changes.

As you know, I ended up leaving work when my daughter was born. It was a tough decision to make from a financial and professional standpoint, but was definitely the right choice for my family. I’ve really valued all the time I’ve had with her and the opportunity for healing and bonding the first year together has brought. From a creative standpoint, it’s been wonderful to lean into my writing more and to challenge myself to stay consistent in ways that feel achievable for me.

Writing has always been a creative outlet for me but with multiple moves and big life changes in my twenties, I felt like I let the ball drop on many of my creative endeavors. Covid and the loss of work at the time really helped me find a way back to a very true part of myself in writing. I began blogging again, wrote and presented a bit academically, and eventually published with Christian literary publications like (fka Ekstasis magazine) and . Most recently, I took a part-time grant writing job with the Kent State University Museum, which allows me flexibility while I care for my daughter (the KSU Museum has a world-class fashion collection, and I feel so lucky I get to focus on fashion and motherhood in tandem). And I think that’s the way our creativity can function: it can ebb and flow, the slow seasons preparing us to bring new perspective to our craft when things open back up to us.

On the topic of writing and work, I was speaking with a friend recently about how different a writing practice can be for women as opposed to men and I’d love to know your thoughts. She shared with me an example of a very successful twentieth century male writer who had a family and often leaned heavily on his spouse to care for their children while he wrote in his spare time. It got me thinking about how women seem designed to be more fluid in many aspects of our identities. I could never keep a robust writing practice at this stage of my life, devoting huge chunks of time daily to reading and writing, as care work necessitates its own flexibility and by nature of it, I’m always “on call.”

But I think women are particularly adept at weaving practices together and adapting around the demands of their lives to create both in and outside of the home. This is something I wish was acknowledged more widely in society, with greater flexible work options for women who are caretakers.

Aumaine: Right. So many thoughtful folks are writing about aspects of this on Substack too—Shane Meyer-Holt, Elin Strong, Elena Bridgers. A majority of the books I’ve managed to finish since the birth of my son nearly two years ago have tackled the dilemmas of writing or making art while parenting (or doing anything else while parenting!) like Moyra Davey’s still-relevant 2001 anthology Mother Reader and Catherine Ricketts’ more recent The Mother Artist.

I always say I’m grateful that my first genre is poetry, which as I write it now is open to linguistic fragmentation and narrative leaps that I think can hold the blurry and hyperdetailed experience of time that new motherhood has entailed for me. I’m working on a book-length poem that covers the period I worked at the museum, including my pregnancy, my son’s birth, and our postpartum window. It’s inspired by the feminist epics of Alice Notley, the devotional work of Fanny Howe, and ideas about family inheritance, vacations, and the role of water in narratives about healing.

When I quit my day job—which, as a full-time, in-person role was just not gonna be sustainable for the vital, varied life I want where I can visit one of my grandmothers with the baby midday or work on dinner while he naps— to hone in on part-time work editing art history / museum writers in fashion, decorative arts, and medieval studies, the areas that really light me up, I imagined I’d find it easier to write. But even with generous grandparents less than a mile away, a husband who does a ton of household labor, and a now-flexible work schedule, I still have to muscle myself into pulling away, sitting down with the laptop, and letting my mind go to the poetry place.

You’re right that writing often seems at odds with the paid and care work in my days, as I absolutely have to leave all others to get it done. But the areas are connected for me. Writing makes me into the kind of mother I want to be for my son, one who is in touch with herself and her process, and therefore more full of grace for those others.

I found social situations that dictated different dress were always an exciting way to channel my creativity. But my excitement has not always been shared by others. As a child I had a favorite navy blue sweater featuring two bears in skiing gear, a derivative Ralph Lauren KMart special, I’m sure. I wore it with pride to church one Sunday only to be met by a friend saying, “Oh, that old bear sweatshirt again?” I was taken aback, as I had put intention into my sabbath morning outfit. Feeling embarrassed and a bit hurt, I resolved to pay closer attention to when and how often I wore my favorite pieces.

As far as religious rituals go, I don’t know that most people consciously consider dressing themselves as participation in a holy act as they prepare for work or school or daycare drop off each day. Discourse among evangelicals remains somewhat contentious on the topic of fashion. Caring too much about what you wear is often written off as materialistic and, at worse, idolatrous. Old wounds from purity culture pervasive in the ‘90s and ‘00s further complicate the way clothing is perceived, especially for women of a certain age.

The concept of simply embracing the utility of clothing seems pragmatic, bordering on holy and right, seen by some as the only option when approaching your sweaters and button downs. Perhaps the monks and the nuns are on to something, donning a uniform each day in order to concentrate on their holy tasks.

With a consuming focus on self image and societal status pervasive throughout our society, untangling a sense of moral goodness from a topic as large as “fashion” can feel daunting. It’s no wonder many Christians perceive an interest in fashion and clothing as base materialism and determine to dress for utility or perceived modesty or the like. It’s easier to restrict oneself as opposed to teasing out the good and the bad within fashion in this over saturated modern day and age.

I find myself no longer a creative child dressing for church, yet each Sunday, well into adulthood, I approach my closet with excitement at the chance of dressing for worship. With all the baggage materially and spiritually that comes along with getting dressed, how do I rationalize a continued interest in the beauty of fashion and clothing?

*

In my early 30’s my husband and I moved back from the east coast to my home state of Ohio and rented a charming duplex in an old neighborhood in Cleveland. On my days off from work, I would walk the half mile to my favorite coffee shop to read and unwind away from the stress of the week. I would put on a favorite dress, in the summer something billowing and loose and linen, and spend an hour reading fashion magazines or poetry. This ritual felt simple yet deeply cathartic. It was a period of rest soaked in sensory safeness.

I found out years later that there are fascinating reasons for this feeling of safety. Fashion psychologist Jennifer Heinen in conversation with Maura Brannigan astutely observed: “Clothing can serve as emotional armor, but it can also act as emotional comfort. The appeal of loose silhouettes, nostalgic cuts, or soft fabrics reflects a psychological return to the familiar. These garments regulate our nervous system by mirroring sensations we associate with care and containment — whether that’s the softness of childhood or the tactile ease of home.”

Clothing is one of the ways I could see God’s beauty and knew God’s love for me before I had words for it. There was implicit emotional safety in the act of dressing. Now, many years after my interest in fashion and clothing first took deep root, I’m unable and unwilling to shake the feeling I get while getting dressed. But the thought has plagued me well into adulthood: why does clothing really matter in a life lived for Christ? The answer comes not so much in the thing itself but in the spiritual utility and symbolism of clothing.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” Matthew 6:25

In Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith, author Matthew Anderson takes Jesus’s words from the sermon on the mount and acutely notes: “[Jesus] shifts from the necessary to the pleasurable, from that which is required for the body’s life to that which adorns the body as beautiful. He affirms that the beauty of our bodies is a direct concern of our father in heaven, a concern that frees us from the anxious demands of style and image that have consumed our time and our money.”

While Anderson qualifies Jesus’s teaching about clothing as a shift towards pleasure and away from necessity, I believe Scripture maintains both the beauty and the utility of clothing in relation to the body. In Genesis 1-3, The Lord first created human bodies, then after our separation from Him, chose to cover them with animal skin/leather in order to take away our shame. In doing so, God chose to bestow a symbol of grace upon the human body, a daily reminder pointing to Christ’s righteous covering of sin, a prophetic foreshadowing of His sacrifice on the cross.

In bestowing this covering, the Lord did not leave us to feel the full effects of our separation from Him; he gave us our bodies, beautiful and good as He made them, and then supplied a way for weathering the physical effects of the fall; protection from things like illness, violence, and inclement weather.

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The keenness of these truths about our bodies and the clothing that covers them seeped into my soul with the birth of my daughter. For those who haven’t experienced pregnancy and childbirth, the disconnect from your body can be surreal, like floating outside of yourself in a present memory. The transition into motherhood challenged my perception of my personhood; I expanded and stretched until I couldn’t anymore.

I gave birth in the first bloom of June, right before a major heat wave would waft itself over the Midwest. As the air grew heavy and humid, I was often soaked in milk and sweat, confined to my bed healing from an emergency c-section. My pregnancy had felt very long and brought with it unexpected health challenges that greatly limited my mobility. Combined with the rapid weight gain, it was a miraculous relief to sink back into a familiar shape. I found daily comfort in cool fabrics, cottons and linens that could be easily washed and worn, day in and day out. I was very excited to put on clothes that buttoned all the way over my slowly shrinking stomach and to revisit favorite pants that had sat untouched in the bottom of my drawer for months.

Over my first year of motherhood, with healing came the realization that the adornment of my body by God is made more significant by the fact that I am not merely a body existing in a temporal plane but a soul as well. In her research into fashion and its relation to the body, Dr. Fiona Dieffenbacher chooses to utilize the term “embodied soul” in her chapter of Silhouettes of the Soul: Meditations on Fashion, Religion, and Subjectivity. She says, “I feel this represents the human being and personhood from a unified standpoint as a totality versus body and soul as separate entities.” She goes on, “The embodied soul and dress work within the system of fashion to contribute to our clothed, social presence in the world.”

In becoming a mother, I learned I had to give up any rigid ideas of what my body was; to be willing to expand, and even break it, for the life of another. Its physical shape would be reborn from the experience, as would my spirit within. And I knew that would profoundly shift my relationship with how I viewed and utilized my clothing. In returning to my closet and finding pieces that covered my new body in a healing manner, I felt God’s kindness in a surprising way. He gave fresh shape to an old body and supplied the coverings to protect it as it grew into something new each day. Where I expected and experienced sadness at the unknown, there grew hope.

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In Romans 12, Paul writes,

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”

This sacrifice spoken of implies what has been done and what will be done. We can see that dressing ourselves each day (as one aspect of living sacrificially in our bodies) is not just a matter of mere vanity or utility, but a holy and prophetic creative act; a constant remembering of a body exposed and broken for us and a promise of the good that is to come in the renewal of our bodies with Christ.

With each shirt we iron, pair of jeans we break in, and jacket we button up, we exist as consecrated sacrifices worshiping as we move towards our “ultimate dress” in bodily resurrection. The coverings given to Adam and Eve served to point not only to the goodness of God the Father and the hope of the Cross but also to what will come much later at Christ’s final return. Clothing holds these truths and the tensions of the past, present, and future within its seams and folds.

Getting dressed takes different shape now as a full-time mom than it did when I worked in person at a museum for the last several years. I’ve traded sharp jackets and heeled boots for soft shorts and playground-friendly tanks. But choosing my clothing each day still feels significant, and that feeling grows greater as I contemplate the divine in my closet. I often pause and consider the garment Jesus himself wore at the time of his death. I wrote about this garment for Ekstasis magazine several years ago, and recently shared it here on Substack:

“It’s speculated by historians that to make such a garment would require an incredibly skilled craftsperson, capable of weaving in the round on a warp-weighted loom. Even by current weaving standards, this is a difficult and highly uncommon task. During Jesus’ time, a garment such as this would have been priceless. Christ’s tunic was literally the perfect covering, seeming to almost defy human creative ability.”

He who was a poor, oft homeless evangelist died after being stripped of one of the nicest robes one could buy. In His death, He became a perfect covering garment for the world. I still sit with this fascinating example in awe. The undercurrent of our salvation and hope has always been beauty.

*

1 Praise the Lord, my soul.

Lord my God, you are very great;

you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

2 The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;

he stretches out the heavens like a tent

3 and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.

He makes the clouds his chariot

and rides on the wings of the wind.

from Psalm 104

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Focus has turned with a new intensity to my body. I weaned my daughter last month and was suddenly greeted by extra weight and lots of bloating that I wasn’t prepared for. My summer clothes, that I had so eagerly waited for, still don’t fit quite right; they are too tight over a body that continues, somehow, to be in flux.

So what am I wearing at one year postpartum? Day to day, I’m drawn to quiet, reliable pieces. Last week I wore an old black cotton Ralph Lauren tank top with Gap jeans (purchased right after giving birth) to the playground. While swinging with my daughter I looked around and observed that every single other mother present was also wearing a black tank top. Some with denim, others with workout shorts. It seemed we all had gotten the uniform memo for one of these two outfit formulas. I found myself thinking, am I so disastrously out of touch with contemporary style that I accidentally stumbled into a trend unawares? Or was there something mystical about that playground that drew all of us mothers, lovers of flattering and gracious black tanks, to itself? Perhaps a bit of both.

I’ve been thinking on and off lately about the concepts of the “true self” and the “false self.” Formally conceived by psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, definitions of these selves vary depending on which camp of psychology you fall into. Winnicott’s original definition described the true self as one with little to no contradiction within oneself and a genuine sense of desire for life, while the false self served as a protective facade for dealing with the complexities of relationships and society. In relation to clothing and dressing the body, I think the application is immediate, as we dress to present, to protect, to work, to play, to show off, and to hide. I began to think: in seeking to dress an ever-changing version of my body am I actually cultivating a false or past sense of self? Or chasing after the actual, truest version? Can I really attain and present a “true” sense of self on my own?

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I’m finding over time that in becoming a mother and undergoing matrescence, I truly left behind old versions of myself and am undergoing multiple transformations as I become something new. This shift is active and I feel like an awkward teen half the time I get dressed and leave the house, all the while feeling much more confident in other areas of life. True, false, or otherwise, our bodies and our clothes change. In our physical and spiritual selves we mirror God’s image, but in the passing of time we have to acknowledge we are not exactly like a changeless God. Grappling with a changing body is intimately human, but perhaps a sadness I can loosen my grip on. Motherhood has been humbling in more ways than one.

Utilizing a God-lens to view myself, I have to start with His image in me when I begin to tease out a true or a false self while getting dressed. This process is slow, full of experimentation and a new cultivation of kindness for myself. I’ve intentionally tried to think outside of the box this season and plan outfits that I enjoy but that also allow the ease and functionality dictated by mothering a small child.

One outfit I’ve worn on repeat has been this vintage cotton top I thrifted two summers ago, paired with JCrew linen shorts in butter yellow. I always wear it with my green Jeffrey Campbell jelly shoes. The top has such great texture and I love the peek of the shorts underneath. It’s been a practical choice for riding out the heatwave and making it to playgroups, all while allowing me to feel put together in the process.

Something about giving birth has spurred a curiosity for color that I haven’t felt in a long time. As I have devoted myself to black and white for so long, it’s been fun to stick with one of those for a comfortable base but to play with colors that complement one another. I’ve felt strongly drawn to green this year as opposed to red as in years prior. I’ve been wearing the thrifted linen dress below several times a week as my pool/splash pad cover up. The color reminds me of cool, freshwater lakes or inky watercolors. A sensory spark each time I slip it on.

I asked for this Madewell vest for my birthday in March and have loved utilizing a cream color in my outfits as opposed to stark white. It pairs well with my Everlane straight leg crop pants (no longer made in this cut—SAD. Literally my favorite pants.) and flat sandals.

On special occasions, I’m sticking with silhouettes and fabrics that feel like me, that have felt like me for years. Sculptural shapes in cotton or linen. A low heel or flat that I feel good about. And always a Coach bag. These things help me feel grounded, and in that way I feel most like my “true” self while getting dressed. I know what’s worked for me in the past, and now in this new season, feel the freedom to play within the established form as I evolve and grow.

In other happenings that mark my first year of motherhood, I was offered a contract grant writing position with the Kent State University Museum, which houses one of the best fashion collections in the Midwest. I’ll be working remotely for now but am excited for the inspiration that will come from focusing on fashion exhibitions and dazzling historic garments. Here’s to a second half of Summer that's a bit slower, but still full of positive growth. xx

Personal Style Blogs: Appearances That Fascinate is Dr. Rosie Findlay’s doctoral dissertation analyzing first and second wave style blogs in the early 2000’s. Published in 2017, the book itself serves as a unique time capsule in regards to the perception of style blogging, as the medium has grown and morphed beyond the ways mentioned within due to the rise of the social media influencer in the 2010s and 2020s.

At the Spring/Summer Ready-To-Wear shows in September 2009, to the shock and awe of many a fashion journalist, a slew of independent style bloggers were given front row seats at the presentations of major designers such as Marc Jacobs and Comme Des Garcons. For the first time, bloggers were marked out as more than fringe internet dwellers. They no longer merely wrote about fashion as removed spectators but now experienced it firsthand by partaking in the industry’s most sacred of traditions.

As the popularity of blogging grew over time, style blogs became “less diaristic than presentational.”1 Findlay differentiates the first and second waves through this concept. First wave bloggers were not part of the fashion industry at large but worked to carve out their own niche of fashion-conscious and stylish spaces. Findlay describes the fascinating practice of dressing “one’s self into view,” “an articulation of self literally made material by their clothing.”2 First wave bloggers were largely concerned with capturing their every day outfits, often using their bedrooms or classrooms as the sets in which they took their fashion images.

Second wave bloggers grew out of the positive shift in perception surrounding blogging that began after the September 2009 Fashion Week shows. Mainstream media was surprised “at the abilities, activity and age of [the] bloggers” and began to regard them as taste makers as opposed to novice fashion enthusiasts. Fashion brands sought them out for collaborations, a practice that became wildly beneficial for both parties. Findlay writes: “Marking the difference between these two movements [first and second wave blogging], then, is not necessarily when they were started but the ethos underpinning the blog. The mentality of seeing a blog as an opportunity to generate income, as an online curriculum vita or to establish a professional platform as an authority on style (as well as a kind of celebrity status) is one that proliferated post-2009.”3

As the world of bloggers began to achieve mainstream visibility, personalities and celebrities rose to the surface. As the first street style blog founded in 2005, The Sartorialist achieved even greater notability when photographer Scott Schuman married beauty and fashion blogger Garance Doré. Leandra Medine Cohen achieved fame for her cheekily titled Man Repeller blog, complete with a range of revolutionary styling tips in order to achieve her distinct looks.

Findlay aptly relies on the example of Tavi Gevinson and Style Rookie/Rookie mag when discussing the transitions and growing pains bloggers experienced as the first wave bled into the second. She makes an interesting point that Gevinson’s invitation to her readers in 2010 to regularly “see” inside her bedroom, where she would later pose for a Vogue Paris shoot shot by Tommy Ton, serves as a “connection between place and space.” Readers felt an intimacy with Gevinson all the more because of this. The intimacy that style bloggers were able to build with their audience was a hallmark of the first wave that has remained a constant evolutionary factor throughout each iteration of style blogging. Making note of the importance of the co-presence of reading upon this intimacy, Findlay shares, “During my prolonged readership of style blogs, I found myself emotionally invested in the lives of the bloggers I regularly read[.]”4 She goes on to note that “this mediated relationality between style bloggers and their readers is best conceived of as an intimate public[.]”5

Throughout the book, Findlay leans heavily on Judith Butler’s theory of gender as a performative concept when analyzing the first two waves of style bloggers. Her framework argues that style blogs were spaces where bloggers could inhabit and explore fashion’s ideal roles in a solely performance-based manner: “One’s identity is thus not prior, innate or fixed, but is a phenomenon that is constituted by a sustained repetition of acts. Likewise, our dressed identity — and indeed our personal style — is ever becoming through the intimate and everyday process of donning certain clothing, and as a corollary, in performing that dressed self for a reading public through outfit posts. Our dressed identity is therefore a process, which problematizes the connotations of unidirectional communication implied by the statement that ‘dress is a self-expression.’”6

I differ with Findlay in the idea that style blogging, and in turn fashion itself, functions solely in a performance-based manner (of course there are a wide range of performance aspects to fashion and blogging, I don’t negate that in totality), believing instead that fashion ultimately is indicative of our authentic, lived experiences as embodied souls.

As someone who’s been consuming fashion content online since 2009 and began blogging on multiple platforms and with various frequencies since 2012, this book feels like a treasure trove of nostalgia combined with smart analysis that I didn’t know I needed. I’m curious to know Findlay’s opinion on everything that’s transpired in the style blog and fashion influencer space since 2017. Which wave would Substack writer’s be a part of?

Lanvin, Jeanne Lanvin (1867-1946)

When I think of fashion that elicits a lush, multi-faceted femininity, I think of the designs of Jeanne Lanvin. Her work managed to maintain balance between restraint and opulence, bridging the past and the present. Lanvin designed for women moving through the stages and stations of life with thoughtful grace.

What has always enchanted me about the work of Lanvin (alongside the exquisite craftsmanship and restrained yet opulent details) was the springboard of love by which the clothing emerged.

Like many designers throughout the 20th century (Coco Chanel, Charles James, Halston, to name a few), Lanvin began her design work as a milliner. After giving birth to her daughter Marguerite, Lanvin was so inspired by her child that she began to dress her in self-fashioned outfits. She then sold children’s clothing alongside her hats; her talent for design was quickly noticed and fashionable mothers were clamoring for their own Lanvin gowns. As Marguerite grew older, Lanvin adapted her designs to keep with the changing roles her daughter and clientele found themselves in; she expanded her selections to include debutant and bridal gowns, along with dresses fit for the evolving body motherhood would bring.

For a more in-depth overview of Lanvin’s career, check out this History of the House, Google Arts and Culture, and this entry from the collection at the Costume Institute.

Like many designers, Lanvin established her own fashion house symbols or codes, recognizable motifs that would be repeated throughout her collections over time. These included the daisy (a symbol for her daughter), the three leaf clover, Japanese mon emblems, circles, bows, and flora. Notable is the mother and daughter logo drawn by Paul Iribe, based on an image of Jeanne and her daughter, which was used most recognizably on the perfume Arpège.

In the book Lanvin by Dean L. Merceron, Merceron illuminates the way the designer worked simultaneous to the rise of modernity in fashion while remaining in touch with the current that preceded it. He included this quote from Fashion Memoir, Lanvin by Elisabeth Barille, where Lanvin said:

“For many years now, those who have seen my collections have always been eager to define Lanvin style. I know it is often discussed; nevertheless I have never limited myself to a particular kind of clothing, and have never sought to emphasize a specific style. On the contrary, I make great efforts every season to capture a certain mood, and use my own interpretation of events around me to put my fleeting concept into tangible form.”

Lanvin’s design drive was not limited to familial inspiration or the tides of passing time. In his book, Merceron chronicles the Catholic symbolism that shot through various decades of Lanvin’s work. Lanvin looked to medieval artwork, most notably that by Fra Angelico, in the creation of her signature color “Lanvin blue.” Her designs influenced by personal devotion achieved both modern and playful variations on monks robes, rosary beads, nuns habits, and angelic costume, taking cues from church finery and vestments.

Little has been written or explored in depth about Lanvin’s faith and its influence on her work in fashion, but appropriately, several of her designs were exhibited in the Costume Institute’s 2018 show Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. Despite the lack of rigorous scholarship in this area, it is apparent Lanvin was able to capture her religious devotion in the same, beautifully articulated way that she was able to design for her daughter and clientele.

Honorable mention: The Alber Elbaz years, 2001-2015, which were my entry into the house via Harper’s Bazaar (which I began reading while working in my campus library). The diversity in age of the models for his campaigns led to striking and memorable work.

I recently found a tote bag I bought from the Lanvin x H&M collab in 2010 and put it in my daughter’s wardrobe for safe keeping.

Every year I hit a point in the winter where I simply stick to a few tried and true outfits and find it really tough to deviate. The need to remain totally warm and covered outweighs any pressure to experiment with the way I get dressed. I quickly find it rote and boring but completely necessary. A creative hibernation, in a way.

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But this usually doesn’t happen for me until closer to February. I think being seven months postpartum is playing a big part in this early shift. My body continues to change, I continue to nurse my baby; things still feel in flux and I have a desire for a baseline sense of ease as I gain back strength and a sense of myself.

I’ve taken a lot less outfit photos since the weather has cooled, mostly because I find myself wearing the same sweatpants/leggings and hoodies/sweaters on rotation when I’m home with my daughter. But the photos I have taken during this time feel fun and aspirational. Besides the holidays, and they have now passed, of course, I have less going out to do than previous seasons in my life. Yet the few things I chose to document make me excited for the things on the calendar to come.

I think I was 22 or 23 when I first watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It cemented “Fashion” and “New York” and the idea of “what is chic” into my not-yet-fully-developed brain. I realized over the past few months that now, over a decade later, I’m still taking subconscious fashion cues from Audrey Hepburn (distinct eye makeup, good pants, a pointed shoe, sculptural silhouettes). One of my favorite looks in the movie is the mens tuxedo shirt her character wears upon waking and I finally found one (!!!). I threw it on here over the afore mentioned sweatpants to send a photo to a friend in my excitement. I wore it out for a family night with my hair back in a bun, paired with JCrew sweater pants, and my tabis. I dream of styling it as a dress, probably due in no small part to a sleepy Holly Golightly.

Can I just say, postpartum hair is crazy? I haven’t had my hair cut since last March and it has a mind of its own. Hoping to get it tamed eventually before the Spring. In the meantime, trying out a new shampoo and letting it do its thing.

Here is what I wore to help lead worship music on Christmas Eve at church. This is the Jones New York blazer I purchased while pregnant, paired with JCrew sweater pants, and the Everlane day heel. The scarf was free from an old job and the necklace was thrifted for $4 a million years ago somewhere in PA (I wear it alot alot). I ended up tying the scarf differently the day of, but you get the idea. This outfit made me feel good and festive and was extremely comfortable.

This outfit has not seen the light of day yet (see: lake effect snow) but it was so fun to put together. The blazer was another thrift find from the pregnancy, while the skirt I found in college. I wore it most often during what I’ll call my “soft mod phase” in my 20s, but it’s continued to prove its worth over time. I daydream about owning it in a few other colors and really should just learn how to take the pattern at this point. I bought the Jeffrey Campbell shoes secondhand on Depop (see, Audrey in my brain again with that pointed toe). I’m hoping to pair the white shoes with white tights and an all-black look soon.

2024 was the year I shopped at JCrew again. I did not anticipate this, after selling the majority of the pieces I bought there during grad school by 2019, and I don’t necessarily want to make it a regular thing again for a whole host of reasons. BUT, that being said, I love this sweater and own it in three colors. And when I’m not wearing the same hoodie for the third day in a row, I’m wearing one of these sweaters and a comfy pair of pants.

If you made it this far, thank you. I’m sleep deprived and a bit stir crazy and all I could muster to think through this month were my clothes. Will be back to sharing my favorite designers (Lanvin is up next!) and books I’m reading in February. Stay warm. x

I’ve turned on paid subscriptions; if you like what you read, please consider supporting my work each month!

Also, Andy and Julia’s angel drawings are divine and need to be shared this time of year. Blessed Advent and Merry Christmas!

This post is best viewed in a browser due to the amount of images.

Andy Warhol: Revelation is the exhibition catalog for the 2019 exhibition which opened at The Andy Warhol Museum prior to the pandemic and then made its way to the Brooklyn Museum in 2021-2022. I saw the show when it was in Brooklyn and it moved me deeply as I was contemplating bodies and spirituality (which I wrote about for here).

When the show opened, it brought to light a commonly overlooked aspect of Warhol’s life—his Byzantine Catholic upbringing (due in large part to his childhood in Pittsburg and his mother’s influence) and the formative yet complicated relationship to faith that wove itself throughout his career. In curator Miranda Lash’s essay in the catalog, she quotes from art historian John Richardson’s eulogy presented at Warhols’ funeral in 1987, “I’d like to recall a side of [Warhol’s] character that he hid from all but his closest friends: his spiritual side.” Richardson described Warhols’ relationship with his faith as “secret piety.” Contextualized this way, the exhibition became a means for viewers to attempt to decode Warhol’s work on a level beyond pop art symbolism: what secret devotion was actually informing his imagery?

The concept of icons within the Catholic church seems particularly formative to the way Warhol approached his creative process.1 His often repeated, singular images of celebrities, close up and in bold colors or stark gradations, stand up in similarity to the ornate and repetitive imagery of Christ and the Saints found in a variety of churches outside of evangelical Protestantism. Along this theme, the catalog states: “[Warhol] not only contributes to the common consciousness of organized religion but also celebrates the sacredness in everyday culture, such as that experienced through advertising, film, and television.”2 As an aside, I think this sentiment pigeonholes nicely to the work of current Christian writers and creatives who over the last few years have fueled the emergence of a more wide-spread theology that underscores striving towards beauty as it directly reflects the Creator.3 While Warhol’s personal faith was largely under wraps for most of his life and seemed to conflict publicly with his queerness, his body of work sets a model for the faithful artist to study.

The catalog divides his work up thematically into sections such as church and community, devotion and kitsch, women who made an impact, reflections on life and death, inspiration from Leonardo Da Vinci, imitations of Christ, and the Catholic body.4

On the Catholic body, the catalog states: “Christ’s position as ‘the Word made flesh’ intertwines the Catholic faith with corporeality, thereby making the human body a portal through which mankind makes its approach to God.” With Catholicism’s visual emphasis on the broken body of Christ and widely recognizable physical depictions of the saints, Warhol seems to have internalized both the power and fragility found within the physical body as symbol. This theme was incredibly personal to him in light of his own brush with death after being shot by a radical activist in 1968. He died briefly while on the operating table, though was ultimately spared by the hands of adept surgeons. Warhol utilized back braces after this incident and bore scars from the procedure for the rest of his life. Going back to the idea of Warhol’s “secret piety” and the struggle between his public and private image, this section of the exhibition and the catalog are where the most spiritual wrestling can be discerned. Warhol’s depictions of the body and its functions range from the beautiful to the explicit; at times he seems to embrace the spiritual traditions he grew up with, at other moments there is blatant mockery. This push and pull is common across Warhol’s body of work and humanizes a man who liked to hide behind his wigs and wardrobe uniform.

A small catalog, it is one of my favorites for the complex themes it explores and the beautifully curated work it ties together. Please enjoy this small sampling of the work included below.

There are many designers I admire and fashion houses I love. But defining my “favorites” (no, I can’t choose just one!) tends to hinge on individual designers working in houses at certain times throughout history. They are also based off of my experience studying fashion history and working within the context of fashion collections over several years during my 20s and 30s.

My friend asked me to round up looks from my favorites to share, so I decide to do so over a series of posts. My criteria for this exercise is: Which designers come to mind right away when asked this question? Which designers past or present still inform the way I get dressed today? Here is the first of the names that I immediately think of and that still excites me year after year.

Balenciaga, Cristóbal Balenciaga (1919-1968)

Cristóbal Balenciaga was famously described by fellow couturier Christian Dior as “the master of us all.” Influenced from an early age by design in his native Spain, Balenciaga built couture houses both in Spain and then Paris known for their meticulous cuts, fabrics, and embroideries. A private man, he gave no interviews during his career and was long-rumored not to exist.

I won’t try to craft a comprehensive biography or career summation for Balenciaga—for those curious, you can read The Master of Us All by Mary Blume, check out the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Google Arts & Culture, or this wonderful info and videos from the V&A.

Balenciaga’s silhouettes developed in the 1950s and 1960s are what stand out to me with a singular, striking quality. In contrast to the wasp-waisted and hyper feminine garments found at Christian Dior, Balenciaga began to play with the space that existed between clothing and a woman’s body. Among his most famous developments in silhouettes were the cocoon coat, balloon skirt, and sack dress.

In 1958 Balenciaga worked with the Abraham textile company to develop his own fabric, silk gazar, which would hold the shape and volume his designs required.

During my time working in the collection of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then as a contract worker in exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I was privileged to see, study, and preserve Balenciaga’s work up close. I appreciated his clean craftsmanship, sense of color, and use of fabrics that seemed at once both softly voluminous and armor-like.

While preparing for the 2018 exhibition Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, I was able to observe Balenciaga’s 1967 wedding ensemble both on the hanger and in full form on a mannequin (apologies for poor image quality, these were taken on an old iPhone).

Cut from silk gazar and crafted with no side seams, the dress relied on careful piecing, visible at the front and back of the garment, to craft the voluminous and modern shape. If memory serves, it was constructed of six pattern pieces draped around the body.

My interpretation: Many of these shapes and silhouettes live in my head rent-free and have seeped into the way I view and consume fashion. I wore this Cos trapeze dress to an exhibition opening in 2022 and would like to think I paid a small homage to the Master of Us All.

Honorable mention: Hubert Givenchy worked with Balenciaga before opening his own house. His relationship dressing Audrey Hepburn for film a la Breakfast at Tiffany’s was legendary and introduced me to many Balenciaga-esque shapes before I was familiar with the elder couturier.