It's about time
The familiar comfort of getting body-shamed at Los Angeles Apparel
I went to Los Angeles and all I got was self-forgiveness. (And some fairly priced, ethically made t-shirts from Los Angeles Apparel, but we’ll get to that in a minute.) I have spent roughly one of the last two months in LA, a city I sort of dramatically swore I would never visit again, but I also sort of meant it (see here).
There were so many things I loved about Los Angeles. Having been born in brutalist Budapest, raised in grey London, and lived most of my adult life in sparkly New York, I felt that my life had been, at least aesthetically, improving since birth, and that Los Angeles was the crown jewel of this. When I left a year and a half ago I willed myself to forget the things I loved about it, but I’m happy to report that they’re still there — with some new additions, too.
I would have rather died than admit that something that used to make me happy could actually make me happy again (I’m talking about Los Angeles and also love). But the last few years have been a nice reminder that I am not exempt from life’s standard rule, that we are constantly dying and being reborn and dying and being reborn again. Which is to say that I am not the same person I was before and I am also the same person I always have been, and that’s a person that can love and be loved in return, in Los Angeles and everywhere.
Okay, now for the t-shirts. Lillian and I went to the Los Angeles Apparel factory store and, immediately upon entering, were taken on a journey through space and time, all the way back to the American Apparel stores dotted all over Manhattan that I used to spend all of my babysitting money at in middle and high school.
The trip was a trip to American Apparel like any other, in that I blacked out as I threw all black clothes into my cart ranging in size from an XS-XL (it’s impossible to tell one’s size there! Thrilling, especially as the majority of its female clientele either currently suffers from an eating disorder or once did) and came to as I was being… subtly body-shamed by an employee. I was (just for fun!) trying on one of the Disco Dresses — loyal as I was (of course) to the Disco Pant back in 2012 — when I was approached by an employee. The exchange started out subtly enough: “Is that the… large?” she asked, the last word nearly whispered in a hushed tone. “No, the medium!” I replied cheerily.
“Oh!” she said, trying and failing to hide her surprise. “It looks great on you!” Then she leaned in, almost conspiratorially. “My boss and I were talking about that dress last night,” she said. “We were saying that it’s not for skinny girls. It’s for girls who can… fill it out. Like you.”
Tail between my legs, I retreated into the Los Angeles Apparel changing room, amazed that I was leaving the shop, just as I used to in the years 2008-2014, aesthetically satisfied and yet spiritually soured. Even with a rebrand, the company remains on-brand.
The night before I flew back to New York, I asked my girlfriend if she’d learned anything new about me on the trip. “I learned that you have a strong relationship with familiarity,” she said. “And sometimes it brings you comfort, and sometimes it makes you anxious.” (She is also a writer. And a Taurus!)
I’m back, and I’m ready to talk about claw clips. As I wrote about here, I’m still thinking about how getting older is about buying more and more expensive versions of the same things. I live in the West Village (something I am newly embarrassed to admit, following that cover story) and this is apparent everywhere I look. You have Bob’s Bagels, and then you have Apollo Bagel. You have the Steve Madden buckle boots, and you have the Miu Miu ones. And finally, in the cosmetic arena, you have CVS on 6th Avenue, a mere block away from my personal favorite place to spend a Saturday afternoon: CO Bigelow.
At CO Bigelow you can find premium versions of everyday necessities ranging from toothbrushes to… claw clips. When I discovered the storied pharmacy’s hair accessory counter last summer, I was ecstatic, and I’ve continued to come back to visit every few weeks as they consistently update their inventory with sparkly pieces of acrylic and plastic that change with the seasons; e.g., the Santa hat claw clip I saw when it was snowing has recently been swapped for a vaguely Catholic bouquet of flowers, presumably for Easter. Indeed I am hoping to find a dreidel claw clip at some point but I digress.
While there’s technically no reason to purchase a $30 claw clip from CO Bigelow that you could find at CVS for $3, this is a treat that checks all the boxes; expensive enough to feel special while also being cheap enough to justify, and glitzy and statement-making enough to add something to my wardrobe but not so show-stopping as to be difficult to style. And while I love my claw clips, they do remind me of the central conflict that interests me in style, luxury, and, even more largely, class and money, and that is the relationship between fashion and function.
Some purchase decisions serve an aesthetic purpose: for example, a pair of shoes that aren’t particularly warm or comfortable but look great. Some purchase decisions serve a functional purpose: for example, a moisturizer that’s more expensive than a drugstore brand but that really works for you. But if the purchase decision is neither aesthetic nor functional — as in the case of the hair clip, which can be found for cheaper elsewhere — then why do we still choose to go premium? While the real answer is probably more complicated, the truth is that, for many people, spending money because you can feels good. Welcome to America <3
And on that note: Twitter is awful, so I deleted it. Lo and behold, water is wet, life is still livable without it. The interesting thing about not having Twitter is that it’s making me spend more time on Instagram and TikTok, which is, in turn, making me hate Instagram and TikTok, and now I kind of just want to delete everything. I used to actually enjoy the time I spent on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, and felt that, with careful and strategic algorithmic adjustments, I had curated the platforms to make me laugh and teach me new things rather than function as time- and energy-sapping black holes. Without Twitter, though, something has been lost from my social media diet and I, as a result, feel… malnourished. Like how a meal of protein, carbs, and vegetables is not as enjoyable without any one of the three components.
If you aren’t following Laurie Stone on Substack, you should be. I came across her writing via this wonderful essay and now I want to be her when I grow up.
Being married to Richard feels like the name of the pub in Lancashire owned by Richard’s grandparents. It was called the Help Me Through, short for the Help Me Through the World. Our getting married has made other people happy. A look comes over their faces that is made of angora fur. Angora is a kind of rabbit. I don’t often receive looks that are the fur of a rabbit. I try not to lift the lid on why our marriage makes people happy, in case I find a moldy old tea bag left in the pot.
Are StorQuest and Quest Diagnostics owned by the same company? I only put ~three minutes of research into this so I would love an actual answer, but their logos are very similar. In our distant post-apocalyptic future, we will live in a Pangaea of sorts that’s just called Quest.
I made this delicious recipe recently. Highly recommend! There is no media accompanying this because it looked exactly like vomit on a plate, so you’ll just have to believe me, but it was really good. I made it in a cabin in Big Bear using barramundi sourced from a tiny fish market (I was gobsmacked that they had it!), and I had to go on a long walk to dispose of the fish carcasses afterwards because I was scared that bears would break into our cabin if I left them in the trash. I don’t really know if that’s true, but it felt right.
I’ll leave you with a mantra I’ve been repeating since it popped into my mind during a particularly intense hot yoga class. “If you give me strength, I will give you permission.” 🧘🏻♀️
Love,
Vera x
Go Greek is the BEST