the girl dances

Rather than the fashion trend that I hope to go out of style, the trend I hope to see grow is repurposing something old into something new. With the growing reality of textile pollution from the childhood insecurity of not really having many options of clothes--always outgrowing clothes but never having any to grow into, I definitely had to get creative. I would wear in 9th grade the same black tank top, sweater wrap, and jeans nearly every day. Each day was defined by a different braid in my hair and one of the 99 cent scarves from the thrift store display. Hopefully leaving behind the scratchy feeling of plastics looming in your clothing--repurposing, redesigning, and recycling the garments we already have into something completely novel would be a step forward to the future. I have been shopping at thrift stores for as long as I can remember--it was all my family could afford growing up. Exploring through the aisles of nametags from past lives felt as if I was wandering through a library of books waiting to be opened.

The unspoken expectation for females to have a different dress for every event, while men changed their ties wore me down quickly. I turned to one of my close friends in college, Stephanie. She would take two pieces of clothing that she found thrifting on a Friday, then on Saturday have a date with her sewing machine and come out on Sunday with a garment that bids a love letter to both stories of the time, while designing the story of her own life.

The event I had coming was the final recital for my modern dance class. The dance our trio made was themed around a puppet show of masks. Exploring the closet of past costumes from the studio, there wasn’t really any clothing there for a woman shaped like me. I was quite stressed. I didn’t really think being a plus-sized woman meant for me to draped in layers of fabric to hide the fat on my body. I just didn’t feel it was necessary to be ashamed of what I knew was there: fat, curves and love-handles are all just parts of who I am.

So I had to get to work quickly--45 mins after class let out, I got my roommate Kat, we got some bubble tea, and the next thing I knew we were two hurricanes in our local thrift store. The goal was to make a white dress; resembling a wedding dress of sorts, (but make it dance). The top I used for the bodice didn’t fit one bit. It flattened my chest into pancakes and wouldn’t zip up all the way in the back. The skirt was a white bedsheet we found by the cash register during checkout, right before we were on our way out.

Kat and I spent the whole night trying to figure our plan out. It morphed into one of those projects where you feel like “this isn’t going to work”, and you keep telling yourself “why am I even trying?” But between every ounce of self-doubt was a giggle cast by the pure comedy of sequential errors--and of course the Sailor Moon theme song on repeat keeping the blood flowing. To make the top able to fit around my chest, we cut out the sides and replaced them with panels of white lace we found in an old craft bin. The skirt of the dress was definitely Kat’s brainchild--I still have no idea how she was able to turn a bed sheet into an a-line circle skirt that hugged my hips each time I spun around. The dress came out beautifully, truly. No one knew all it took was $3 of thrift ware mixed with 8 hours of hard work, little to no sleep, some self-love, and care.

To 2021, I hope to not throw away the old, but to cherish what it meant to me and all of the stories they have told. I hope to take it somewhere far and bold, and let it be something old and something new.