058: The Return of MFW
How to dress for a major inconvenience and major disappointment
With the couture shows coming to a close in Paris, I wanted to turn your attention to a fashion week not as well regarded but one that many of us are all too familiar with: MFW, or Menstrual Fashion Week.
On a 91 degrees Fahrenheit feels-like-1000 day (32+ degrees Celsius for the rest of the world), Aunt Flo arrived for her monthly visit, like clockwork. Of course, the arrival of my period coincided with the day I could not shirk my responsibilities and absolutely had to leave my apartment in my role as a fully grown adult. I was tasked with not just dressing for the suffocating heat, but also for a body that wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole. How does one dress when it is hot enough to fry an egg on the surface of exposed skin and one’s uterus is pulsating so hard, it would be right at home at Berghain?
Quite thankfully, I was a late bloomer. When it was finally time for my time of the month, I hardly felt as though I had transformed into a woman or a blossoming flower. To me, it was nothing but a major inconvenience. A few years ago, I spoke to a woman who told me she felt euphoric each time she got her period. After several years of a strict diet, including the total elimination of chocolate and treats, her flora and fauna were in total harmony, and from then on, she was only ever grateful to receive her period. It would be total sacrilege to the essence of my being to summon such discipline and do away with sweets. My monthlies continue to be a major inconvenience.
When I was not a girl but not yet a woman, nothing was worse to me than when I got my period in the summer. Clothes that would cling were unbearable; what I needed was to feel nothing against my skin, and preferably anything that could manufacture even the slightest breeze. Having spent most of my childhood and adolescence in Bangladesh, where the weather during summertime was not unlike fresh hell, I’ve learned a thing or two about dressing for extraordinarily hot temperatures during that time of the month. For example, cotton is your best friend, spandex is a heat stroke, and nylon is a death sentence. Volume is ideal for when the body becomes engorged, and excess fabric doubles as a fan when in desperate need of air. Length will save you from the horrific sensation of feeling a stranger’s lingering sweat on a subway seat, and one simply cannot shave their legs so often!
In spite of my preparedness, the arrival of my period this time around was more than a major inconvenience, it was a major disappointment. The first 91 degree day (of many) of this week also marked the third cycle of trying, and failing, to conceive. For some, three months of trying is hardly anything to fret about, but for me it’s been several years of obstacles, plus three months, in addition to Not the Greatest News from a fertility specialist. My hope of becoming pregnant by now had been so high that whenever I bought new clothes over the past six months, they were pieces that would work with a changed body in mind. In summation, it has seemed like a lifetime.
Loved ones vacillate between telling me that I am still young (helpful, despite everything and everyone around us desperately trying to convince us that women in their mid-30s are just about eligible for retirement) and that wanting something too much makes it harder (unhelpful). When I brought up the bogeyman that is the reproductive system of a 35 year old woman, my wonderful gynecologist first scoffed and then exclaimed, “Every pregnant woman in Tribeca is over the age of 35!” And somewhere in the middle of that are my ovaries, marching to the beat of their own drum.
Even though I had done bloodwork that indicated it was unlikely I was pregnant, so that I knew what to expect, getting my period was still crushing. All I wanted to do was wallow and sob hysterically like a mid-film 90’s rom-com heroine down on her luck, but I had to put my mask on and pretend to get on with it. Now, how does one dress not just for a major inconvenience, but a major disappointment too?
A few morsels of wisdom I have earned in my 35 years is that I have more or less come to terms with what clothes work for me, what clothes do not, and that it is always more satisfying to wear what pleases me. To get myself out of the house without feeling like too-much of an emotional mess, I instinctively reached for my trusty black dress by the Perugian designer Sara Lanzi. Made from cotton, it has a voluminous pleated skirt, deep pockets, and accommodating adjustable ties just where the shoulder blades end and low on the waist. Since the designer gifted it to me when I met her at her studio sale a few years ago, I have worn it countless times over the summers. In it, I feel protected and pretty (I need to add that Lanzi’s designs have Rei Kawakubo’s seal of approval).
For all the designers and brands that exist today, it is total madness that so few offer clothes from their summer collections that can actually be worn in the summer. It is as though the hotter the earth’s core gets, the greater the inclination to sell wool jackets and sweaters that have no place in the season. When it comes to clothes for the summer, I first turn to vintage, and when I say vintage, I mean from before the 1990’s. For the most part, the quality of vintage clothing appears to be better the older it is, and cotton offerings were more abundant. My search begins with Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, particularly from the later 1970’s and the 1980’s: roomy dresses and loose smock tops that are equal parts sexy and silly, and most importantly, made of cotton. When my vintage search is complete, I set my sights on Loretta Caponi.
And for my finale trick, you guessed it: Dries Van Noten. I know I am parroting myself, but not enough brands have cultivated an understanding of women’s desires and women’s needs. The success of Dries Van Noten, both the designer and the brand under the creative direction of Julian Klausner, has been driven by the acknowledgement that clothes need to support us, like armor, but that they can be protective too. As I write this, I am wearing this very skirt below, which is from Spring 2005, where an extravagant dinner table served as not only a dining surface for the guests, but a runway for the models.
That concludes Menstrual Fashion Week! It’s been a tumultuous season, but it is my belief that ultimately, the fashion delivered.