Escape From Nowheresville

I find myself ambivalent over the new exhibit at the Met.  During the punk era I was a college student who worked at Bloomingdale’s and hung out downtown.  I was on a very tight budget and wore a lot of finds from the Salvation Army and hospital thrift stores as well as carefully curated bargains purchased with my employee discount at work.  I wore a very limited color palate, mostly black and white with touches of red and pink, because it made it easier to mix old and new.  I had always loved clothes and had beautiful pieces that had been my mother’s in the 1950’s and ’60’s:  an ivory linen dress with small orange flowers with a circle skirt that would wrinkle if I didn’t put it on straight from the ironing board, an ensemble of pink cotton burmuda shorts with a matching jacket topstitched in black, a silk chiffon blouse with short puffy sleeves and a plastron that resembled an Austrian pull up shade.  I had things from the thrift stores that would never be found today:  a boxy tweed Chanel jacket purchased on 50 cent day (later authenticated by one of Mademoiselle’s favorite models), a red striped black Mary Quant Scottish cashmere sweater, bias cut rayon dresses from the ’30’s and ’40’s, a fitted black Norell jacket with nile green facings, men’s crisp white tuxedo shirts.  I had some odd pieces of Sonia Rykiel and a beloved YSL blazer.  I had a pair of Charles Jourdan Mary Janes, scooped out with pointed toes, red with a gold strap.  I wore strippy canvas sandals from Woolworth’s on a small wedge.  I had oxfords on a sturdy heel that looked like they would be worn by a nun. And so many hats:  natural straw with velvet piping, a trellis of tiny fruits that sat on my head, a rich burgundy felt with a satin cocarde and matching veil, a leopard print bucket.  No outfit was complete without full accessorization.  All of this was very personal and individual.  I was more influenced by whatever literature or history I was reading (in whatever language) or a film or museum exhibit than by “fashion.”

Supposedly, if you remember the ’60’s you couldn’t have really been there.  I think punk might be the same way.  If you dressed in a certain way in a certain time, listed to a certain kind of music, enjoyed a certain kind of poetry, lived in an industrial building where you weren’t supposed to be, maybe you were “punk” and you just didn’t know at the time.

SPM