Useful Things #03 (the wardrobe edition)
a changing body shape, timeless style and buying things to wear for years
Everyone should have the opportunity to feel good in the clothes they wear even though we don’t always feel good in the body we inhabit.
This conundrum has been a constant in my mind for the past few years as my body - irreversibly changed from pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding - moved into a new phase of life and wellness. There is power in surrendering to these changes and gratitude for the opportunity to feel healthy, despite my changing shape and shifting weight. I am marked by motherhood but the jagged lines that once had me in tears are now iridescent memories of growing new life. I wouldn’t change them for the world.
I’m a child of the nineties where I bought many copies of Vogue to see the changing face of Kate Moss. My late-teen body mirrored hers, as did my androgynous pixie cut that I decorated with flowers and feathers when I wore floral and heels in Alannah Hill’s Paddington boutique on Oxford St. I once sold a scarf to Kirsten Dunst when she was in Sydney to promote Spiderman. She was tiny and polite, disguised by loose clothes and big glasses.
My body has expanded and contracted in the past twenty years; dramatic change over a nine-month period and a slow and gentle deflation in the months that followed. Despite my size and shape, I have always loved clothes, even when it was challenging to fit my body. One of my favourite things about living in Tasmania is the opportunity to layer and wear wool, preferably with linen, especially when walking the beach in winter. So cliche! But I like what I like.
I’m sitting at my desk in the window now, wearing socks made from possum fur and cashmere, black cotton leggings, and a cream alpaca roll-neck jumper bought pre-loved from an artist friend on the south-coast of NSW. My creativity has left its mark; the babies I grew are evident in my soft, spongy belly; the sentences I’ve written are obvious in the thought furrows on my face. Ageing is inevitable and I wear it from my forehead to my hips yet I know how to dress my new body; with it’s extra weight and changing shape, in this season after childbearing and before peri-menopause.