Today, Sal’s link (which has since disappeared) to Jezebel’s catalog fantasies post took me back to my not-so-distant youth.
In the late 90′s, my mother, little sister and I lived in a li’l southern Indiana town with two traffic lights. We couldn’t always pay the bills, so occasionally various utilities would be shut off. Sometimes we had a car, sometimes not. My best friends lived at least an hour away, and I felt cut off from the world.
Since we didn’t have the internet at home— our computer was so useless, we called it “The Solitaire Machine,” — I relied on catalogs (you remember, the paper kind) to feed my daydreams.
Luckily, my family got LOTS of catalogs: Delia’s, Williams-Sonoma, J. Peterman, Alloy, Land’s End, the Vermont Country Store, Sundance, Signals, JC Penney, the now-defunct Zoe, Smithsonian, L.L. Bean, Pyramid Collection, Things You Never Knew Existed, Musician’s Friend, Wireless… sometimes we even got Hamakor Judiaca: The Source for Everything Jewish. We are not Jewish.
In reality, I was a frumpy, frizzy-haired, depressed teenager who dropped out of school after 5th grade and wore men’s clothes. I chose to live mostly in my head, where I was the kind of edgy chick who’d wear the barbed wire chokers shown in Delia’s, the then-trendy bootleg corduroys from Zoe, maybe that $30 silver hair clip from Sundance. I’d throw slumber parties in my perfectly-coordinated bedroom, lounging carelessly in a hand-shaped chair.
Soulful-looking boys would long for my touch. Popular girls, though intimidated by my breezy charm and wholesome good looks, would want to be my friend.
Mind you, I cared about more than clothes and decor—I also needed the Williams-Sonoma toaster (available in an array of Easter-y pastels!) complete with two bagel slots and a THIRD slot for a sandwich-toasting rack. Clearly worth $115. I wanted old-fashioned candies from Vermont, and practically everything from Musician’s Friend. Hell, I even wanted pretty yarmulkes. If I had nice things, maybe I’d have beauty and success to go with them.
I’d have loved to live in a catalog.
A lot has changed since my teen years; I no longer subscribe to any catalogs, and that same Sundance hair clip now sells for $90. But sometimes I still expect beautiful clothing/jewelry/instruments/kitchen appliances to transform me into someone new, someone with an air of mystery and fewer stretch marks.
No luck so far.
Have you ever had a catalog-fueled fantasy?
Great, now I want a hand chair again. Curse you, power of suggestion!
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I buy some of my clothes based on the personalities/lifestyles I wish I had. It’s a lot easier than figuring out (or being okay with) the simplicity of who I am, in the event I don’t turn out to be very interesting. I wind up feeling like I’m wearing a costume a fair amount of the time. It seems obvious, but I’m still learning that buying a sewing machine doesn’t make me s tailor, buying a bicycle doesn’t mean I’ll exercise, buying food I think I should eat but don’t like doesn’t mean I’ll eat it…and buying boho clothes doesn’t make me a free spirit, nor do thigh boots make me braver or tougher. They do help a little to draw those things out of what’s already in me or forming, like dressing the part, but they won’t make me an entirely different person. I know what you’re talking about…
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Absolutely! I once bought a unicycle that COMPLETELY failed to make me fascinating or spontaneous. Also a short, skin-tight sweater dress that failed to make me sexy. Oh, it looked fine with a spandex-y slip underneath, but it rode up like CRAZY, and it turns out I don’t LIKE flashing strangers. How did I fail to guess that?
I agree we can use clothing to nudge ourselves in a good direction, but I tend to expect too much. Way, way too much. I have a serious crush on some earrings right now, and I have to REMIND myself that earrings cannot possibly make me a successful singer-songwriter with big, curly hair. If only!
I LOVE the illustrations in this post, I wish I’d thought of it first… and been able to draw: http://saturdayjane.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/with-apologies-to-potatoes/
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Ah….catalogs. They’re like travel guides for the personality. J. Peterman had the best copy writers. Williams Sonoma inspired me to actually learn to cook. And we humans do patchwork our lives of bits and pieces from here and there. Really. So I have a great respect for well-thought-out catalogues.
Also, I would like to point out the Soulful-looking boys DID long for your touch, and still do. Most likely always will.
You tend to forget these things.
My catalog-fueled fantasies tend to revolve around sparsely furnished rooms with cupboards that are probably empty. Wouldn’t that be loverly?
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Rebekah Reply:
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:40 PM
Visit “catalogliving.com” sometime, it greatly helps diffuse the fantasies.
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“Potatoes of the world, I am not trying to insult you. You are a noble starch, and you are very sexy to other root vegetables, I’m sure.”
I think I just fell in love.
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Rebekah Reply:
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:39 PM
AND she can draw!
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