When I was in high school, I was more of an in-betweener than part of any specific clique. Where I ate my lunch alternated between outside the gym, the student council room or the “popular” table, while crushes varied from sensitive boys trapped in a jock façade to bookworms who boasted about their close ties with the physics teacher. But most markedly of all was the misnomer that was my “personal style.”
A slave to sweater sets and floral skirts paired with clogs (in style at the time), I was a 90s Sandra Dee. Something of a doll to my mom (whom I adore despite her love of Cabbage Patch Kid-worthy sweaters), what I wore did nothing to represent what I was watching, reading or listening to — except for maybe Felicity; she was a bit of a sweater fanatic herself.
Ironically, my closet was where I hid my pulsating secret love for what was then categorized under the umbrella of “alternative music.” Posters of bands including The Replacements, Pavement and Sonic Youth were plastered on the interior walls, hidden from sight. They were the anointed guardians of my cord skirts and lilac-coloured cardigans.
By the time university rolled around, I was eager to shed the mohair weight of my high school days. Finally, I could embrace a slacker-esque style that would speak to my adoration for all things lo-fi.
Being an adult and a professional now, I haven’t thought much about how effectively my clothes communicate my taste in music and such. While I do own an old Levi’s jacket, wearing it while hanging out on Ossington might trigger an existential crisis (what does the death of irony mean?) or at the very least, an awkward conversation with someone who has mistaken me for a girl in their Media and Culture course.
And then, along came the Juno Awards and an invite from Grey Goose and Muzik to attend Drake’s official after-party at the club. All of a sudden, “cool” — as a state of being — suddenly found its way back onto my list of valid concerns.
When negotiating with one’s cool factor, whether for a concert or a younger co-worker’s birthday party, many style elements must be taken into consideration — age-appropriate being amongst the top. Too old to go the cutoff-jean-shorts-over-leggings route and too young to bring out the gaudy ex-rocker-groupie-bangles for this party, I decided to do my best impression of a record label rep. Her narrative: rising agent at Sub Pop, former lead in an otherwise all-boy band, no tattoos and a die hard Peter Sellers fan. For her, I chose a cinched silk chocolate and navy polka dot skirt, matched with a cream lace cap-sleeved shirt, minimum baubles, a messy wave of hair (more of a practical choice than a nod at the current 70s trend) and a pair of high heel booties — which, though I suspected would begin to pinch about mid-way through the night, would be the rock ‘n’ roll of my outfit.
It only took a few steps into the mass of embellished tube dresses — each body taller than the next — for me to realize that this party was not the Juno party that I had envisioned for my alter ego. No, unfortunately for me, my clumsy grasp at cool rendered me the fallen McIntosh in a barrel of freshly picked Fuji apples. What I needed — what I was missing that everyone else at the party had — was bling.
For every Amazon beauty that flashed costume ice, there was a punk-popper with knuckle dusters. The only one that seemed to be without anything large and ornate was the party’s host, who bobbed his head under his nondescript solid hoodie all night.
What could my little record agent persona have done differently so as to have avoided this sore thumb scenario? A combination of Canadian designers diepo and Carole Tanenbaum would have more than sufficed. Helmed by Justine Diener and Kristen Poon, diepo — showing tonight at LG Fashion Week — offers anyone with a penchant for vintage lingerie a modern daytime fix. Easy to mix and match, the label’s spring/summer 2011 collection of separates such as the strapless body shaper matched with the culotte short (at right) are a ready remedy for the partygoer looking for an alternative to the average solid, short and tight.
And as for the mandatory decorative extras that events such as the Junos after-party demand, no one knows costume jewellery better than New York native and Toronto resident Carole Tanenbaum. Any piece from her expertly curated collection of vintage jewellery would transform even the plainest of outfits to an ensemble worthy of Hollywood’s golden age.
Alas, cool had eluded me, or so I could only assume from the response I got from friends after making a joke about sticking out amongst the clubland Stepford Wives: “But you look like an intellectual, so don’t worry about it,” my friend reassured me. An intellectual? At the Juno after-party? Not quite the look I was going for. Not even my booties saved me that night; after sporadically teetering on the left heel (nervous twitch), it finally snapped at around 2 a.m., shrinking me down to just below the bottom of most of the female partygoers’ long cascading curls.
Cool or not cool, at least the next time there’s a book reading, I’ll have an outfit picked out and ready to go — minus the booties.
Toronto-based writer Jennifer Lee is the Editorial Director of FILLER magazine, an online fashion & culture journal. She is also the Co-Editor of Hardly magazine, an arts-centric online teen publication for Canadian girls. Her column, The Dressing Room, appears weekly.
