By Rita Glennon
The problem of lockdown during COVID-19 was this: my mother and I would no longer be able to present ourselves to one another in our “get-up”, the term we used to describe what we wore from wardrobes rich in staples as well as current trends and the odd items of fashion fancy. You know the ones: clothes that make you look more peacock than sparrow.
We had long shared a love of fashion. Mum’s own mother was a dressmaker, and Mum knew how to sew so well that she made her own wedding gown and bridesmaids’ dresses, as well as those of her sister. She also made all the clothes for her four children, including me, until I was 11. Mum and Dad didn’t have much spare cash, and as the only girl, I guess I was spoiled (and spared the hand-me-downs).
If you don’t believe me when I suggest that clothes can influence the way you speak and act, give it a try tomorrow.Credit: Stocksy
At 11, I was finishing primary school, and for the end-of-year dance and party in the parish hall, Mum made an exception and took me to Grace Bros in Sydney’s Roselands shopping centre to find an outfit. We settled on a peplum skirt and matching top that I loved and she delighted in buying. It was the first of endless escapades to those temples of capitalism that have brought us so much shared joy.
But now the shops were closed and we were self-isolating. Thank heavens we were, so far, free of the virus that statistics suggested would knock Mum over while leaving my two children unscathed. (They are under four; she is in her 70s.)
So, how would we keep our chins up and soldier on through the coronavirus crisis without anywhere to soldier on to? If a woman dresses well in her own home, and nobody sees her, and nobody admires her, does she exist?
Clothing may not make the woman, but for some of us, beautiful presentation lifts our spirits to occupy that precious sense of our best selves. It elevates our minds to peak presence.
Why otherwise would Marlene, a woman in her 80s, long “invisible” according to popular myth, dress as neat as a pin” for Sunday Mass – and every other time she was leaving the house? Not a hair out of place, not a thread loose, not a scuffed shoe. And the make-up!
I once heard, in a eulogy, of a woman who didn’t join the breakfast table with her family until she had put on the full pancake. What vanity, I wondered at the time. Not vanity, but humble pride, if you’ll excuse the oxymoron. Pride comes before the fall; humble pride comes after it. It comes when you pick yourself back up and soldier on, even if only to the kitchen table. Soldier on, even if only to the lounge room. Soldier on, even if only to the backyard to hang out the washing.
Mum and I would need to keep our spirits up, separated as we were by COVID-19. And with a six-month hibernation on the horizon, we needed a way to rise each morning through the oblivion.
The answer lay in technology, of course, and was oh-so obvious to anyone born in the Instagram
age: daily photos of our outfits.
Every morning, at various times (we don’t always look our best for breakfast), we send each other a selfie of our day’s chosen get-up. It reminds us that we may not be seeing anyone, but we are looking out for each other.
If you don’t believe me when I suggest that clothes can influence the way you speak and act, give it a try tomorrow. Instead of athleisure wear or loungewear or pyjamas, put on your glad rags: a smart dress, a sharp suit, your most gorgeous combo of top and skirt or pants. And I’m not just talking to the ladies here. Men, too, may notice the difference that a curated outfit makes to their disposition.
Given my young children (think yoghurt hands and teething drool) and kauri floorboards (forget the stilettos), I wasn’t aiming for any Met Gala best-dressed award. And the closure of beauty salons made longer hemlines, not to mention opaque tights, rather appealing. But even just the process of photographing my ensemble for Mum every day has fine-tuned my sense of what works for me – and what I should never bother wearing again.
Of course, anyone could be happy in an old hessian sack. But sooner or later, I bet, you’d want to change it up. Maybe add a scarf or headband, a chunky necklace or gaudy belt.
So, go on. Try it. If this is as close as we ever get to war, let’s wear it well.
This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale May 17.