Black Friday

Yesterday Severin and I went Black Friday shopping. With two children whose birthdays fall just after Christmas, I'm usually stuck for inspiration and wary of buying something for the sake of it. Both boys' lists are surprisingly modest (Legos, books, Pokemon--for S, toy guinea pigs--for E and various branded sports clothing) so I was also hoping to observe and react to the things that caught his eye. In dire need of new Crocs, Severin was insistent we get them in store which turned out to cost about 30 percent more than online. Still, it was nice to spend a day with my almost 12-year old, even as he summarily told me I could not attend the birthday party he's going to today. Understandable at this age-- I'll take the mum and son bonding when and where I can even if it costs me a little more money and a sushi lunch.

I also had my umpteenth covid booster, largely because I don't want to get sick and pass anything onto my mum or Evan's parents. I'd thought about not having another one as I always get the most atrocious side-effects where I end up in bed with a flu type reaction that lasts a few days. As predicted, that's where I am right now. 

I can't really sum up the enthusiasm to prepare classes or send emails, so I spent the day going back in time, reading friends' old blogs. Apart from my sheer disbelief that all those events/purchases/reflections from 2006-2008 took place 16-18 years ago when my students were so small and my sons just a fantasy surrounded by desperation and hope, I was struck again by the differences between social media and blogging. This is not to say the line between the forms is absolute (how could it be?) but rather to point out the tendency whereby the former is often imbricated in the neoliberal logic of self-branding/work/profit while the latter acts more as community where like minded souls in the same liminal space of youngish adulthood collaborate, confess, reflect and help each other.

I'm also shocked how much we spent on single items of clothing, even those I (we?) still wear. As I've realised so many tmes, clothing is not an investment vehicle. It loses economic value even if it keeps its use, expressive and emotional worth. While it was surreal to think that those select Lyell and Tocca pieces that I still search for were relatively freely available, that all those brands and blogs were just a click away, it's also shocking to see how clothes that once retailed for $300-500+ may now struggle to reach $50 on ebay/poshmark/therealreal. Clicking on dead links, looking for defunct brands from my bed while I shiver away (and Severin tells me point blank how awful I look) shows me how those portals to our past may be tantalisingly close but ultimately, those doors are gone forever.

As for my purchases. A Lyell dress arrived today ($12 from Mercari plus postage--the red cotton frock from the S/S 2005 lookbook). It's a size 2. I can get it on but the ties that button at the back are a hair too short but hopefully by summer, that won't be an issue. It's not a replacement for the one I already have (size 6, purchased from the brand's legenday SS 2005 sample sale) but more a younger sister, less faded and somewhat more svelte. 

For me, I stocked up on discount make-up, particularly Victoria Beckham beauty--sparkly soft eyeliners, shiny eyeshadow and flattering lipsticks in beautiful tortoishell packaging. I use the event more to save, to purchase on a years' beauty products while they are fleetingly on sale. 

Eh bien. Demain, il va falloir que je fasse mes devoirs de français et écrive une lettre de recommendation. I'm just hoping I have the energy to do something. 

Updates

On Tuesday, one of my students mentioned that the 2010s were really coming back in style. 

Of late, my mind has turned to this decade, one that changed my life (for the better) as I became a mother, found stable employment and settled into what is probably adult life. By happenstance, I found an image on Pinterest, clicked on the link, and, to my surprise, it took me back to this long-abandoned blog. From there, I traveled back in time, courtesy of my blogroll, to the lives of those who didn't close down their personal narratives from the late 2000s to early-middle 2010s. What surprised me? How much I have forgotten and how, yes, indeed, the 2010s are definitely coming back in style.

I have no illusions that anybody else will ever read this entry but I'm again taken with the idea of an online diary, with its musings on both everyday minutae and much bigger things in a world saturated with images. In an attention economy that tries too hard to hail (and commercialise) the public, there was something reflexive about a blog--a moment out of one's day that preserved quotidian rituals, questions, pleasures and stresses. While social media always has to work too hard, always in thrall to the desire to capitalise, monetise and brand, blogs represented a pause, a moment to communicate, preserve, ponder. I regret that I didn't jot down the many small moments that surrounded the big things in my life that this blog never witnessed, most notably the birth of my second son nearly 8 years ago on a dark snowy January night. I'll always remember the serenity of our first hours together, but I'm sure I've forgotten the kind of details and opinions I'd have preserved here--other than the taste of the orange jelly I ate after his birth. Brought to me by a kind nurse, it was the only thing they had to eat on the ward and it tasted delicious, becoming part of my reverie. Today, my dear boy is neither calm or serene but a bubbling energetic ball of joy, love, intelligence, laughter and cuddles. However, our first nights together were indeed a wonderful pause, transporting me to a calm where just the two of us existed under the long night skies, woven together in another dimension, if only for a few short days.

So now I have two boys. I'm happy at work, although there is always too much to do. I still love clothes which led to a detour where I now mainly teach fashion related courses. I'm working on a second book (not on fashion) and I'm trying my hardest to be fluent in French (truly fluent, native fluency which only seems to get further away the more you know). I still buy clothes but mainly resale these days for the environment, the bargains and for the fun (and frustration) of searching for some of those key pieces I missed and couldn't afford back in the day. I also feel I missed several years of style as I grew and nursed babies, leaving me no real time to shop for a body that was leaky and shape-shifting.

And, in a weird cyclic way, that's how I ended back here a few nights ago. Recently, I have been recaptured by my love for an old favourite. No, I was not looking for Mayle but for Lyell and Emma Fletcher's Tocca whose minimal 70s does 30s style seems as compelling as ever but even more difficult to find. I regret missing out on so many pieces for so little money on ebay and Poshmark, but fashion does, indeed, travel in waves. Plus there was the small matter of fit. A year or so ago, I bought one of her peacoats from 2005 whose name I long ago forgot. Even though it was a size 10, I knew it wouldn't fit but it was pristine and the price was right. I was also right about the size, but recently, I've lost over 30lbs so I can indeed wear it, along with many other such fripperies--that is if I can ever find the pieces I want. But I'm also trying to be strong. As I once stated in a post here, I can fall into the rabbit hole of brand obsession, So this time, I'm reminding myself. I'm not a collector and it's perfectly OK to say no, even to a defunct brand. Or a (once) defunct blog for that matter.