In Which I Become a Fashionista

My second year of grad school, I was promoted from a research assistant to a teaching assistant, which meant I would teach two classes of English 1101, Beginning Composition, and would be completely responsible for fifty freshman and sophomore students—God bless them.

At the first TA meeting of the year, the professor who directed us discussed the department’s expectations. At the end of the meeting, the department head looked at each of us, beaming, and said, “We’re delighted to have each of you. We know you’ll make us proud.” But as he looked us over, his smile faded slightly. What was that look of disappointment stealing over him?

He cleared his throat. “Some of you might want to invest in some, ahem, new clothes. Something…professional.”

I looked around. Do we really look that bad? I wondered. Behind me, a girl was wearing a faded, stretched-out shirt with some of the beadwork missing from the collar. One guy sat in the back of the room in a graphic T with cartoon characters on it. Even Elaine, who is usually dressed impeccably, and who usually refuses to leave the house if her makeup isn’t perfect, was looking a bit thrown together. I was wearing a pair of baggy jeans one size too big, sneakers with the soles peeling away, and a t-shirt with my college’s logo. My hair was windblown and my socks didn’t match.

I would give some excuse for my appearance—say I was running late or hadn’t done laundry lately –but the truth is, that’s pretty much my look. On any given day, I’m wearing jeans and sneakers, and the times I’m not wearing a t-shirt, I’m probably wearing what was a nice sweater—when I bought it back in high school, and before I carelessly washed it with socks and towels. To make matters worse, I’d lost around forty pounds since starting grad school, which meant that all of my old clothes now looked like they could either fit me and my conjoined twin, or double as a pup tent on an impromptu camping trip.

There are lots of things in life that I don’t enjoy doing. I don’t enjoy cleaning toilets in public restrooms, for example, which has been a part of every job I held until grad school. I don’t enjoy being outside in the South Georgia sun at three in the afternoon when the humidity is in the nineties. Nor do I enjoy trying to fall asleep after finding a spider in my bed. But of all these things I don’t enjoy, one of my least favorite is shopping for clothes.

What made clothes shopping so difficult back then is that I had no sense of fashion. I didn’t understand a good versus a bad fit, or know how to coordinate colors. I couldn’t tell if different fabrics worked together or not. Beyond the no-white-socks-with-black-pants rule I learned in high school orchestra (which may or may not apply outside of concerts), I was at a loss.

My mom sent me a check for my birthday, so the weekend after the meeting I steeled myself and went shopping, but first I called in reinforcements: my roommate, Elaine, and Stephanie, our neighbor and fellow English major, both of whom, unless they are blind, would be better versed in fashion than me. Little did I know that mentioning that I possessed “Kohl’s cash”—completely foreign currency to me back then—would unleash a frenzy worthy of the Viking Berserkers. Elaine was off digging through rows of cardigans, her favorite essential item. But Stephanie was the star of the day, finding and pillaging the sales racks in the Petites section, which proved as fruitful as Valhalla is full of mead. I swear, these ladies should have helmets with horns.

You know those little buggies that Kohl’s provides? Inadequate for the likes of Elaine and Stephanie; it was so full that they were piling things on top as things were tumbling out. By the time they were ready to send me into the dressing room, I could barely walk under the weight of the things they had selected.

The first shirt I picked up was an unfortunate choice. Pretty, but unfortunate. It was blue with a white camisole underneath. I tried taking it apart, thinking it would be easier to put the pieces on separately, but the cami was sewn into the shoulders of the shirt, forcing me to put them on simultaneously. No problem, I thought. My thinking, however, was wrong. As I pulled on the shirt, it began to twist, the cami going one way, the shirt going another. There were too many holes for my limbs to go through, and somehow I put my arm through the adjustable part of the cami strap, then through the neck of the shirt. I untangled myself and started over, only to have things go awry again, my arm going through the right arm of the cami, but the left arm of the shirt.  By the time I finished trying it on, I felt I’d wrestled unsuccessfully with an octopus.

The next item I tried on was even more difficult. At first glance it looked normal enough, but once on my body, I discovered the shirt had a strange, stretchy band along the bottom. What was that thing, and where exactly was it supposed to sit? On the waist? Where was my waist? The band seemed to sit right along my hips—the widest part of my body—and by sitting where it did, it created this funny bulge that suggested “second trimester.” Who thought that was flattering? No one outside of a fertility cult, surely.

Finally, I pulled on a fitted brown sweater. I liked it immediately, mostly because I knew how to operate it. Good clothing should not require an instruction manual.

There should have been music playing when I stepped out of the dressing room. Judging by my friends’ faces, it was like one of those Cinderella transformations from the movies. Stephanie and Elaine gawked, and Elaine cried, “Brittany, you have a waist! You’re adorable!”

“We’re just not used to seeing you in nice clothes,” Stephanie said.

What, because I usually look like I dress in my great-grandmother’s rejected hand-me-downs? I wondered. (It is psychologically impossible for me to accept a compliment.)

If I could have, I would have buried myself under the swell of clothing. At this point in my life, I still spent most of my life trying to be invisible, but now I was the center of attention, and not just the attention of my friends, but of the other women passing through the dressing room. (One of the women suggested I get a nice pencil skirt because those are very “teacherly.” I didn’t tell her that I’m pretty sure dressing up my writing utensils like Barbies will encourage my students to mock me mercilessly.) 

But my friends were not yet done amazing me. “Want me to do a quick add?” Elaine asked.

Now stereotyping is wrong, but let’s face it, there’s a truth behind most stereotypes that explains their existence. Case in point: it’s a stereotype that English majors can’t do math, and generally, as super-fabulous-awesome as we are, we are mathematically impaired. I’ve been to meetings of the English honor society where it took five of us to calculate the tip. So imagine my surprise when Elaine and Stephanie both calculate within ten dollars of the final cost—without the aid of a calculator.

Not only did I stand in awe of my friends, but I did so while looking awe-inspiring myself.