I’ve been toying around with what I would write for this first blog post. I’m thinking I may have put way more thought into it than is needed and probably procrastinated (a little). I was cleaning my apartment recently and I came across my collection of old Vogue Magazines. As I tried to put them into piles (keep?/recycle?) I found my September 2006 copy with Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette on the cover. I had forgotten how much I loved the article in that issue on writer and philanthropist, Susan Fales-Hill. Like many women I reserve a bit of guilt about my love for fashion and the aesthetics of dressing. Imagine how happy I was to read an article in a fashion magazine on a woman (a black woman no-less) who unabashedly embraces “My two loves: books and clothes…” I share a lot of Susan Fales-Hill’s style characteristics: “…a bit Katherine Hepburn, a bit schoolteacher, a bit forties office girl”. Of course I would have to throw in a little Mahogany, on again-off again hippie, and sometimes bad girl to truly describe my style. What I loved the most about Fales-Hill’s interview is that she attributed her style to her mother. I am grateful to have been raised around smart, rabble-rousing, clothes wearing black women. Seriously, my mother’s motto is: “You don’t leave the house without two things, earrings and lipstick. No matter what you’re wearing”. Dressing was always fun, an activity that bonded me to my mother and the other women in my family. I loved when Fales-Hill took it there when she told the interviewer:
My mother believed in celebrating your femininity as a part of your strength. Remember, she was a part of a generation who redefined what a black woman could and should be. Completely moving away from the mammy image into the now—wearing the evening gowns, being the lady of the house—and it was nothing short of revolutionary. When I grew up, women dressed to deal with some of the big issues of our times, of civil rights. And dressing well was a part of that spirit of ‘We Shall Overcome’; that when and where I entered, the whole race enters with me, and it better be good-looking.
I bet you didn’t expect her to go there, but her statements definitely rang true to me. Dressing isn’t so much about clothes or trends but more about presenting who you are and what you’re about. In my case that means staying true to what, as my mama says, “Just looks right.”
Read the article here (click on the image):
