There is a certain magic about clothing. Something terribly enchanting about the way a human being can modify her appearance through the use of various fabrics, metals, leathers, plastics and miscellaneous objects (natural or manmade) which can be mesmerizing.This is why I like people watching. Walking down the street and catching a glimpse of a woman in an outfit so daring, or expressive that I am in awe of her ability to work up the nerve to wear it in public is an exhilarating experience. It goes beyond shock, admiration or even simple envy - it's a fascination with the unusual which creates a feeling similar to that which comes from meeting a celebrity in your backyard.
Can you tell I've lived most of my life in the Midwestern United States? Ok, so I don't see many unusual clothing combinations in Iowa, and you may feel inclined to laugh my awe of the odd into the next century, but you cannot deny that there is a kind of anonymous non-verbal communication which goes on between individuals based on what they are wearing. Of course, there's only one problem with this method of communication - a person's actions can take the magic right out the image.
For example, I was walking down the street in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada during a week-long business trip. In front of me were two young women in very daring outfits: Sheer black skirts which were too large to stay on their hips and had to be pinned closed at their waists, black panties (yes, the skirts were that sheer), black combat boots, dog collars, tank tops, and various jewelry items.
They were also thoroughly enjoying themselves, chatting away, and walking down the street with a confidence you could almost feel. They were fascinating! What would someone with the ability to walk down the street in her underwear do for a living? What would her opinions be? Where would she and her friends hang out? Would all of her friends wear the same overly-large-nightgowns-strapped-over-panty-clad-hips sort of apparel? Were their lives similar to the snippets of action illustrated by music videos and magazine ads?
A string of questions and images ran through my brain, all of which suggested adventure, glamour, and a wildly interesting life. Fantastic scenes, and imagined scenarios with men and women who were equally fascinating in appearing fluttered around my mind and began to envy them these lives I made up on the basis of what they presently wore.
Then, without warning, one of the girls reached around and scratched her butt.
All of those fantasies and appearance-induced deductions came to a screeching halt. She scratched her butt! Like any ordinary, base, uninteresting, and terribly familiar human being, she just reached around and drug her fingers across sheer fabric and black panties to eliminate an itch my imagination had not accounted for.
Well, that blew it. No more fantasies swirling about the brain. No more feelings of absolute surety that she stands just so beside a building with individuals dressed and posed in perfect underwear ad organization. No more sensation of being behind a surreal being with a life so distant from my own it would be hard to imagine her to be human. Nope. She scratched her butt - just like me, or my siblings, or my friends, or my neighbors! It's hard to believe but, with one sweeping (and less then elegant) gesture, she descended from the wild and fantastic heights my mind had placed her in and floated down in front of me, to the city street, with the hundreds of other average people moving along that morning.
In a small glimmering of time she went from a wild and envious image, moving along the cement sidewalks ahead of me, to just another woman in her underwear. I suppose she takes showers alone, does laundry, and puts gas in her car too.
Disappointing, isn't it?
Clothing and appearance can be an incredible method of communication and influence, and it can be a source of imaginative inspiration. But images have this way of losing their magic when they are seen taking action. It's the jarring movement back to reality and the mundane that rips the fantasy away and forces a person to reconsider what is and is not real or unusual.
I like that.
Oddities are necessary. Fantasies are necessary. And the discomfort that comes from realizing just how far-fetched your fantasies really were are necessary. They're a source of growth, as well as a simple definition of your surroundings. Which is why I wish there were more women pressing the edges of fashion here in Iowa - when people habitually build their fantasies around what they see, and then tear them down based on what is real, they become less inclined to find their initial perceptions to BE reality.
Pleasant daydreams and intriguing ideas, perhaps, but not necessarily reality.
