It's March, and this is my first newsletter of the year.
I guess it took me a while to find the thread.
My last real, in-person, selling event was October; the next one isn't until April.
My December home studio sale was socially warm but financially chilly.
And, I've decided to leave my beloved Evanston home and studio — without yet knowing where I'm landing. With all my inventory living here, finding not just a place but the right place feels like a puzzle I can't quite see the edges of yet.
My children are grown and adulting, and the concept of family gets a reinvention once again.
For the first time since 1999, I am living by myself. Though not alone.
To pull myself back in, I did what I always do when I lose the thread: I went back to the question underneath everything: Why does this matter to me?
In this case, the this is the art of dressing vintage.
Now, when I say vintage — I am NOT envisioning a plaid button-down from ‘07 layered over a 90s tank top (charming on some, surely) — I mean real, seriously historic, doesn't-look-like-anything-anyone-else-wears kind of vintage.
You already know the platitudes — buying vintage is good for the environment! Support small business! These are all (worthy) ideas appearing on a tote bag near you.
You're here for something else. Something more rarefied, perhaps, yeah, but also…magical.
So I did something else typical of me. I made a list!
Ten Selfish Esoteric Reasons to Wear Vintage
1. You enter into conversation with history
Learning to find, repair, wear, and style older pieces teaches you things no museum could — social roles, shifts in technology, the countless ways humans have always negotiated meaning through cloth.
2. You open yourself to conversations with strangers
People are magnetically drawn to someone wearing something genuinely distinctive. We all say we want more real human connection — a remarkable coat is an invitation. See where it leads.
3. You recover an energy you didn't know you lost
Creative. Expressive. Singular. It turns out these feelings don't just describe the clothes.
4. You give others permission
Stop quietly resenting how everyone looks like a boring slacker and do something about it. Your confident embrace of a much more curated aesthetic is a form of generosity — it tells people: this is allowed.
5. You play for the sake of the game itself
Many apparently serious people will tell you that unstructured play is therapeutic and that adults deprive themselves of it constantly. Fashion is absurd. It is dress-up. Theatrical! The trick is taking that absurdity seriously — which, it turns out, is one of the more playful things you can do.
6. (Speaking of theatrical) You try on new selves
Every styling choice is a choice — but most of us make the same one, on autopilot, every morning. Vintage interrupts that. It asks you to actively inhabit a role, a mood, an era — and in doing so, raises the question of why you'd ever agreed to play the part of an “extra”.
7. You think around corners
The habit of working outside convention in one domain quietly loosens it in others. And once you start noticing in the closet, you start noticing elsewhere. Turns out, the closet is a surprisingly honest mirror.
8. You learn to trust your own eye
Bucking trends requires you to develop actual taste — to know what moves you and why, independent of what the moment says you should want. There is a difference between putting on clothes and getting dressed. Discover it.
9. You add something to the world
Beauty. Art. Dynamism. A walking argument against the shittification of public life. A sartorial Hell NO to the homogenization of everything.
10. It's genuinely good for your budget
A well-made 1940s dress costs more than its mall equivalent. It will also outlast it by decades — and arrive bundled with reasons one through nine at no extra charge!
And now, having made my case so eloquently, I would like your old clothes.
You likely have vintage / interesting designer pieces sitting unworn, so why wait for Spring to declutter? Stay cozy during these last gray days and let me come to you.
