Moby Dick & The Teal Skirt

So Eileen wrote this sharp and snarky (with love, snarky with love) fashion post yesterday, which reminded me of a fashion post I've been noodling around with the last few weeks.

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I bought a teal skirt a year and a half ago and it has been driving me to distraction ever since. Sort of the way Moby Dick made Ahab mad, although maybe not quite that dramatic. On the other hand, maybe just like that.

It started off with being drunk. I bought the skirt when I was drunk.

That's the kind of thing people say, "Oh, I must have been drunk when I bought that", and everybody goes "ha ha". But really, I'd had way too much to drink when I went clothes shopping online one weekend. I knew perfectly well that I didn't wear teal skirts, that I certainly didn't wear teal skirts like *this* one, but inhibitions well down, I pushed "buy" anyway. (At a staggeringly expensive cost, too, I might add, like jaw dropping, who would pay that for a skirt kind of price.)

Children, do not drink and browse on Nordstroms.com at the same time, or, hide the credit cards before you do.

But, god, this skirt. It is a work of art. I have trouble finding the words for it. It's teal, but not just teal, a gauzy cotton fabric, in tiers, with teal that is almost tie dyed, but not, graduated tones, flowing up and down the entire, very long skirt. So it's teal, and then not teal, and then nearly white and then teal again.

There are ribbons, and fine detail work, but set so subtly in the skirt that it doesn't scream "aren't I cute, wearing a skirt with ribbons on it". And then there's the netting. Not much netting, just a little netting that peeks out at the hem of the very long skirt, dyed a slightly darker teal than all of the rest, just finishing it off.

The final effect is something breezy, light, and casual -- like a strikingly beautiful woman who really *doesn't* know she is nearly as beautiful as she is. What a gorgeous skirt.

Almost as soon as the hangover passed, the box from Nordstroms arrived. (Impulse control down, I'd paid for UPS overnight. God, I really can't drink and shop.) I pulled out the contents of the box which included, also, a pair of shocking pink silk pyjamas with stuff all over them. Tried the pyjamas on. The husband proclaimed, "Look boys, the circus is in town!"....and the pyjamas went in a return pile. (Don't hate him for that line. It was very funny at the time and I laughed much harder than he did. I looked ridiculous.)

One thing and another, everything in the box went in the return pile. Except the teal skirt. I could not bear to part with it, no matter how expensive and no matter that, when I tried it on, I felt nearly as ridiculous as I had in the shocking pink silk pyjamas.

This is the part where I need to back up and tell you a few things.

One of them, I'm a tall woman. There are a lot of advantages to being a tall woman, seeing over crowds being an excellent one, but tall women and body length *explosions of color* don't go well together. It starts to look as if, you know, the circus is in town.

The other, I've pretty much only worn black skirts for at least the last decade. I have at least 20, maybe more, in all sorts of interesting fabrics, textures, lengths, seasons. I love them and, unlike pink pyjamas, they love me and show it with flattery. I'm obsessed with having the best collection of black skirts anywhere and am well on my way. Black is beautiful, elegant, controlled. Fits with the version of me I wanted to share with others.

And then Mr. Teal shows up and rocks my world.

When I first tried the teal skirt on, it was no less beautiful than it was displayed online or wrapped in its tissue paper. It just looked horribly out of place. I didn't have the right shirt or jacket to go with it, but more than that, it didn't look like me. The skirt was beautiful, but it wasn't me.

Which should have been the end of it, "it's not me".

That was the end of it, for about a week, until I tried the skirt on again. Still not me, but another week or so later, again, I tried the skirt on. I fiddled with different pieces, nothing was right, spent more time than I should admit just looking at the detail work and thinking, god, how can I make this skirt work for me. There has to be a way. I love this skirt. I am obsessed with this skirt.

One of the problems with the skirt was that the air was much lighter and more open than I advertised myself to be. Sharp, funny, sarcastic, and protected -- that's me. Breezy and open? I'd been breezy and open at one time in my life. I remembered it fondly. But too many years, too many responsibilities, too much heartbreak baggage to go back to breezy and open again. Definitely not me.

And still, I kept trying the skirt on.

Cough. It didn't take a degree in psychology or a sledgehammer to make me realize that wanting something *so badly* that "wasn't me" meant something. That trying that skirt on every week, and putting it aside every week was about more than just a skirt. That when I found myself asking what I could change in myself to fit the skirt and I found myself wanting to change, this was about more than just wardrobe.

Life has stages. Maybe the skirt was ushering me into a new stage, where I could be a different version of myself, more like the open and breezy one from years back. It's not the first time I've asked myself to transition, and it's never easy, but it's always worth it.

And you all, though you never knew it, have been part of the change. If you think of me as someone who is open, genuine, funny, sometimes silly and simple, if you think "breezy" fits me, you've all born witness to the tail end of an evolution.

Thanks for the help along the way.


P.S. I finally wore Moby Dick a month ago. I found a gorgeous white lace jacket on Coldwater, paired it with a white camisole, and finished it with casual bone Birkies. Oh, and subtle white mother-of-pearl earrings. Smash hit, I felt fabulous.

Teal may be the new black.