In the summer heat, when all you want to wear is nothing, how do find that one article of clothing that still says, "Hey World, It's Me"? Fiona Duncan explores.
Seeking difference, I dye my hair red. A shade greedy for light, it sucks up the sun and burns my crown. My friend Durga calls the color Bridget Fonda in Single White Female. Mekele says Under the Pink Tori Amos. I can't tell what tone it is, only how it feels—like a dropped pin on a Google Map, like a fire started from a magnifying glass, like Not Me (the title of a favorite book of poems, one of which goes, “Summer as a / time to do / nothing and make / no money”).
In summer, I look in mirrors as much as ever but hold onto nothing. Today, I left the house without underwear, took a seat on the A train, and made a lychee-round stain on the tail end of my pale jersey dress; in the few blocks walk it took to evaporate, I considered the difference between careless and carefree.
“Summer in New York is sexy,” a poetics PhD repeated to me three weeks ago on a pedestrian sidewalk in downtown Montreal—encouraging my return home. I left New York for a month because I kept saying, "I'm choking on culture.” Abroad, I declined invitations to museums and met people in parks instead. I told everyone I had no idea why anyone lived in New York. Five days back in my home borough, though, and I remember: because it's sexy.
July and August in New York are sexy to me (bacchanalian) for the dissolution of differences in space, time, and class. Inside and outside feel the same. Night and day, too. The rich skip town, leaving a more Canadian wealth distribution behind, and the culture calendar slows—with fewer film festivals, art fairs, and fashion weeks—time seems to expand.
Littler, more localized differences arise, like tan lines, freckles, and sweat stains. Clothes frustrate. Synthetic fabrics suffocate the skin and cling. T-shirts want laundering halfway through the day. In short shorts, your thighs stick to subway seats. Perspiration pools in jewels. Minimalism becomes a necessity.
Come fall's layers, I’m always pained by the return of my sidewalk inventorying. Expertising in contemporary fashion markets, I think I can count a person's wealth, or their desired projection of wealth, in a quick body scan. This becomes a primary language of my social life. In summer, to my relief, most of both 99 and one percent of citizens undress.
With the body revealed, New Yorkers' fetishes are fed, as it’s specifics that get the pervert off—puffy nipples, concave clavicles, toe cleavage, love handles. "It's like the summer's a natural aphrodisiac," Fresh Prince truthed in 1991. "The weather is hot and girls are dressing less, And checking out the fellas to tell 'em who's best." And here is my "new definition of summertime madness": giving into my body's chaos, and up on decoding others, I groove to these 88 humid degrees.
Curious if my sweat surrender is common, needing a secondary for this self-indulgent discussion, I walked next door yesterday afternoon. That's where Hari Nef, a fellow Adult Magazine columnist, lives. Hari opened the door in black sports sliders like mine, bleached-thin jeans like mine, and a cap sleeve top not unlike mine. She seemed less pleased with her uniform simplicity than me.
"I get very frustrated in summer," Hari told me. "Because I like to
Seeking difference, I dye my hair red. A shade greedy for light, it sucks up the sun and burns my crown. My friend Durga calls the color Bridget Fonda in Single White Female. Mekele says Under the Pink Tori Amos. I can't tell what tone it is, only how it feels—like a dropped pin on a Google Map, like a fire started from a magnifying glass, like Not Me (the title of a favorite book of poems, one of which goes, “Summer as a / time to do / nothing and make / no money”).
In summer, I look in mirrors as much as ever but hold onto nothing. Today, I left the house without underwear, took a seat on the A train, and made a lychee-round stain on the tail end of my pale jersey dress; in the few blocks walk it took to evaporate, I considered the difference between careless and carefree.
“Summer in New York is sexy,” a poetics PhD repeated to me three weeks ago on a pedestrian sidewalk in downtown Montreal—encouraging my return home. I left New York for a month because I kept saying, "I'm choking on culture.” Abroad, I declined invitations to museums and met people in parks instead. I told everyone I had no idea why anyone lived in New York. Five days back in my home borough, though, and I remember: because it's sexy.
July and August in New York are sexy to me (bacchanalian) for the dissolution of differences in space, time, and class. Inside and outside feel the same. Night and day, too. The rich skip town, leaving a more Canadian wealth distribution behind, and the culture calendar slows—with fewer film festivals, art fairs, and fashion weeks—time seems to expand.
Littler, more localized differences arise, like tan lines, freckles, and sweat stains. Clothes frustrate. Synthetic fabrics suffocate the skin and cling. T-shirts want laundering halfway through the day. In short shorts, your thighs stick to subway seats. Perspiration pools in jewels. Minimalism becomes a necessity.
Come fall's layers, I’m always pained by the return of my sidewalk inventorying. Expertising in contemporary fashion markets, I think I can count a person's wealth, or their desired projection of wealth, in a quick body scan. This becomes a primary language of my social life. In summer, to my relief, most of both 99 and one percent of citizens undress.
With the body revealed, New Yorkers' fetishes are fed, as it’s specifics that get the pervert off—puffy nipples, concave clavicles, toe cleavage, love handles. "It's like the summer's a natural aphrodisiac," Fresh Prince truthed in 1991. "The weather is hot and girls are dressing less, And checking out the fellas to tell 'em who's best." And here is my "new definition of summertime madness": giving into my body's chaos, and up on decoding others, I groove to these 88 humid degrees.
Curious if my sweat surrender is common, needing a secondary for this self-indulgent discussion, I walked next door yesterday afternoon. That's where Hari Nef, a fellow Adult Magazine columnist, lives. Hari opened the door in black sports sliders like mine, bleached-thin jeans like mine, and a cap sleeve top not unlike mine. She seemed less pleased with her uniform simplicity than me.
"I get very frustrated in summer," Hari told me. "Because I like to