Window Shopping

Although I don’t like malls, I’m a sucker for a perfect window shopping street. There’s one not too far from me, and I go there as often as possible. It’s got a lovely artisan jewelry and baby clothing store, a pretty good happy hour place, a place to buy (and therefore, sample) expensive imported lotions and perfumes, one of the few remaining independent bookstores, a lovely kitchen store, to which I have heartily offered up hours of my life in order to be surrounded by colorful table cloths and ceramic serving dishes and floor-to-ceiling gadgets, and a high end place offering handbags, shoes, and tasteful collections of erotic photography – I know, that surprised me, too, brightly colored books celebrating male and female sexuality, right alongside some greeting cards and hand-made soaps. I’m not going to describe the coffee and pastry shops, nor the fragrance of the decadent Chocolatier’s – it’s just a great place to stroll and browse.

But one clothing boutique is an anomaly. Each time I walk past, I am struck by how unattractive its clothes are. The display windows show two headless, chalky white mannequins shrouded in all black, although occasionally there are some gray pieces; some clothes are shapeless, some body-hugging, but all are monochrome and all look unfriendly. The dresses are often paired with black leggings; clunky, chunky monochrome black or grey shoes or boots; and big, black, leather satchels. Satchels large enough to hold a full picnic luncheon for a group of friends, or to be a mega-sized baby bag jammed full of diapers and wipes and bottles and clothing changes and snacks and toys and parenting how-to books, but I doubt that any woman choosing these outfits is going to a picnic, or will be anywhere near a baby.

They frequently have at least one black leather dress in the window, but never supple or soft-looking leather that evokes the desire to touch or caress it. The most recent black leather dress (sleeveless and thigh-length as we’re headed into winter) has a rather bumpy nap, like you’d expect in cheap car interiors or even a floor mat, and it’s four panels are sewn together with outer stitching lines, smack dab down the front, each side, and the back.

Behind the windows, the store is austere, with a few clothing racks in a much-too-large-space, beige walls, uninviting yet nondescript wall hangings, and, not surprisingly, the clothes are all monochrome – but there are some browns hung next to the blacks and grays. Nothing looks chic or elegant, not even vaguely “European” – even though I imagine (hope, really) it’s meant to.

The shop owner is a tall, big-boned woman, who wears black, but usually in a kind of shapeless fashion. She’s pale, which is odd because she has olive skin. She has what I grew up calling dirty blond hair, shoulder length but without body or shine. She smokes cigarettes, which ought not warrant mention, but it seems out of place these days. She doesn’t seem chic or elegant, either, but vaguely unhappy, drawn, bored even.

The one feature of the store that seems remotely lifelike is the overlarge, stuffed (black) dog bed, for an overweight, old (black) Rottweiler. But the bed is usually empty, and the dog’s obvious absence lends to the heavy atmosphere.

I don’t know who shops in this shop; it doesn’t seem to have a lot of people in it, but maybe I’m just there at its slow moments. It’s hard for me to imagine that these clothes will flatter anybody, even women with terrific figures and long, slim waists. Maybe, maybe, a runway model, with tons of color in her make-up or who could add colored stockings or somehow breathe life into these outfits; but it is too ironic to assume a rail-thin, stiletto-perched woman, empty from self-denial and starvation, could bring anything resembling vibrance to whatever she wears. Maybe the clothes are simply for really young women, the ones who can wear clothes as a dare, whose slim, still-developing figures can make a statement in low-rise jeans or in austere couture. Women who really are just wearing their youth and vitality, and yet they have to put something on when they go out.

I’ve spent months walking past the shop, thinking they’d eventually have something more appealing, something more feminine, although don’t get me wrong – all they sell is very clearly targeted for women. But I haven’t found much I like. What I do find is that I get angry each time I pass. Angry that this is what’s being offered up for women to wear, as if someone somewhere wants women to look this bad. Angry that the store seems to induce a bitterness, that it conveys I’m too old and no longer part of whatever slice of women want such clothes, and will wear them. Because, let’s be clear – these clothes have been designed and manufactured, then selected and brought in to a small boutique, hung on the (drab) racks and (pasty) mannequins, but they are expected to sell, and such sales must pay the rent of this high-rent dungeon. I don’t get this anger when I walk past other stores whose target audience is decades younger than me – I usually feel a combination of nostalgia and pleasure as these stores and their clothes radiate life and the joy of living it.

I’d like to say the anger has passed, but perhaps it’s more truthful to say it’s mellowed just a bit, and no new insults come to mind when I walk by. But I’ve also come to feel a wry smile on my face, a sense of anticipation as I walk by, as I wait to encounter the next unappealing morsel hanging there. I slow down and really look at the clothes. I analyze the fabrics, the cut, the lines. And after that, I feel smug: I will NEVER wear these things, but please, please, please, dress the whole rest of the city in these garments, because if that ever happens, I’m gonna look great standing next to these women.

I don’t claim to have much fashion sense. My clothes are not from designers, and nothing in my closet dates from “this season” – let alone last year. My stuff is just plain old, frequently purchased at consignment shops, so I mean, old. But nice. I put on my clothes, and I look good. Not runway model good, certainly not fashion industry good, not even chic, but good for me. Good with color, good even with occasional black, good somehow. I look happy. I have several friends who understand fashion, stay up on the latest trends, add a few new pieces to their wardrobe seasonally. But they never look ashen or joyless (although I’ve never seen them in nappy leather, either).

I heard once that the goal of women’s fashion magazines was to make the reader so miserable, so quickly, that within just seconds of picking up the magazine, the woman was likely to take some action to make her feel better about herself. Any action was likely to result in spending money – buying a beauty product, clothing or services so she could look and feel better. Not too unlike the evening news. Misery sells, I guess.

But maybe not to everyone. I don’t watch the news; I don’t buy fashion magazines. I don’t shop at the cold/black/gray/unhappy boutique. This little storefront initially threatened my sense of self, then reinforced that I like the way I already am. So I won’t go in to feel better. Instead, off I trot, smug and happy, to spend my time on things that generate more happiness, with nary an induction of misery in the process.

And, oh, the treasures I sometimes buy from the bright, lively, joyful shops peppered up and down the rest of the street.