That's the thing about growing up. You start caring more about the quality of the thing you include in your everyday routine. Having a personal uniform becomes more chic than having daily costumes.
Today I passed out at 7 a.m.
Beforehand, at 3 a.m., after doing two hours of ceiling duty, I got out of bed and did the impossible. I cleaned out my closet.
Not just taking certain things out and adding them to the rotation pile. I took out 90 percent of everything in my closet and everything I had in storage (two rooms). The fashion purge. I decided then and there to hold a sale and find homes for these lost confections.
After living from juice cleanse to juice cleanse, why not a fashion cleanse?
I left just the basics: cashmere cardigans, some easy dresses, jeans and some cocktail dresses. My walk-in closet is so empty that I could drag my pillow and blanket there and call it another bedroom. It is liberating. I feel so clean, I feel so me.
Maybe subconsciously my TV marathon of the show Hoarders the week before freaked me out. Suddenly I had an almost clean slate. No more fussy dresses, no more sequined bomber jackets (why?), no more size zero dresses that I was holding onto for dear life (I will never be a size zero ever again, accept it) and every remnant of my tarty girl past — gone. Gone girl.
I have to admit that I kept some fashion memorabilia: My Gres wedding dress which will probably never see the light of day but I like just having it around. It’s Gres, for heaven’s sake. My fringed dress from my Pepsi campaign. My orange miniskirt Terno by Rhett Eala which caused a scandal among the lolas and earned a spot at the Metropolitan Museum when they did a show on Ternos. My Prada prom dress for obvious reasons. My Ghost slip dress that started my love affair with fashion.
Everything else went to the cutting room. I looked at the pile of clothes I have accumulated from my 20s to the present day and thought to myself: I have a shopping problem. All still had tags on them or had just been worn once. What struck me more was seeing the clothes that had survived the genocide. The clothes that were still confidently hanging in my closet? They all sang the song of the current me.
Even if I hate visiting France (and also revisiting the memories of my loser French exes), I have always loved how the women dressed. They wore and re-wore clothes like no one’s business. I started becoming that woman. I used to repeat outfits with some childish chagrin in the past. Each day was a day in the play called Celine Gets Wasted Again.
Now I couldn’t care less about repeating. My 71 Gramercy outfits consist of a tank top, jeans and flats. During the day I wear dresses because all it takes is one quick motion to get into. What started to matter to me was quality. My tank tops needed to be all quality organic cotton. The jeans needed to make love to my nonexistent ass. My shoes needed to be cobbled from somewhere respectable. My dresses were few but often got a tan from frequent use. They were carefully chosen and its quality always golden. There were less of them, but they were a few good men.
My evening dresses needed to come from some atelier, hand-sewn with love and born from a sheet of paper always. They are always singular and yes still mostly local. I may have left YStyle, but the spirit of YStyle still lives with me.
That’s the thing about growing up. You start caring more about the quality of the things you include in your everyday routine: Hendrick’s gin replaces gin from sachets, organic cotton replaces polyblends, cold-pressed juice replaces pasteurized juice and having a personal uniform becomes more chic than having daily costumes.
I look forward to getting older. I am more confident. I am more intuitive. But mostly I’m less stupid. Less stupid clothes.