My closet door is wide open. Lesser-worn dresses drip off hangers onto the mound of clothes that streams out onto the floor. I stand in the middle of my room, toeing the brand-new knee-length red skirt that sits at the mouth of this mess, and I prepare to start one of my favorite chores--tending to my wardrobe.

This is my first closet in years. All through college I managed to find wonderfully odd rooms built without a closeted wardrobe in mind. I began, my sophomore year at Berkeley, with a room that seemed more like a pantry than any kind of real living space. I squished a suburban walk-in closet full of clothes into those narrow shelves and lived with the wrinkles. A year later I moved to a converted living room in a railroad apartment. The previous tenants, or perhaps the landlord, had left a behemoth wooden wardrobe--painted white and rising easily seven or eight feet in my memory--whose mismatched feet kept one door constantly open. I pinned both doors back for a grand effect--my wardrobe on official parade. Then, that fall, I discovered a charmingly misshapen attic space in a seven-bedroom converted carriage house. The triangular room hit six feet at its zenith, and the bars for my clothes were connected to the slanted walls at waist-height, while my long dresses hung from nails along the highest wall. Everyone referred to the room, complete with deep red carpet, as "the boudoir." I found a basement space in San Francisco when I graduated, making a literal move from top to bottom, while making the figurative move from top of my class to bottom of the temping force. The room was a perfect box with no adornment, one window at ground level and, of course, no closet. For years, then, I've been surrounded by garment racks, clothes hooks, and makeshift shelters for my ever-evolving collection of clothes. And even though my first proper apartment, this one in Boston, comes equipped with my first proper closet in years, my assortment of coats still stands on display on a garment rack at the opposite end of my room. My clothes have been exposed to me daily for years now, and I've learned to love them as part of the landscape of my room--indeed, to need them as part of that landscape. And that, perhaps, is why it's a rare day that my closet door is shut.

Tending to my wardrobe when it falls into disarray is perhaps the most therapeutic of all chores. I'm one of those people who loves chopping garlic and onions to have on hand later on. I take great joy in mopping and watching the wood floors change color as the water dries. And who can deny the immediate gratification of washing a sinkful of dishes? However, nothing compares to an afternoon spent sifting through a roomful of clothes and returning them to their proper places--such a truly rewarding endeavor. Unlike dishes and floors, clothes have history and even personality. They connect me to different people and different times. They speak of all the other people I've tried to be, the places I've seen, the history of my tastes and desires. I can't help but revisit each dress and skirt, each pair of pants--wading through the clothes as though they were the tide of memory.

This first piece, the new red skirt at my toes, is a beautiful wool, the color a bold and sassy maraschino cherry. It has been mine for only a few days now, already worn twice because I love it so. And the love is not limited to the perfect way it hugs my hips, nor the ingeniously slimming and original pleat in the front--it is, I believe, an elegant mix of form and function. I found the skirt while revenge-shopping with Kim, a friend up for the weekend from New York. This was her first visit to me ever, inspired by a fight with her boyfriend, and we were determined to spend money and look maddeningly fabulous as a result. Not only did our respective purchases satisfy our immediate goals, my beloved skirt held me through perhaps one of the most trying evenings I've had in months. After finally ditching my drunken date at a bar, Kim and I slipped into a restaurant down the street for a drink and a debriefing. And as I poured out all the horrible wrongs I must have committed to deserve such karmic retribution, she looked at me and said, in earnest,

"Honey, at least you've got the skirt. It's beautiful."

"Yes," I say, thinking of the slip I forgot to slip on. "But now it itches. I told you I'm paying dearly for something tonight."

"But he's long gone, and you look fabulous."

The next morning I remembered the slip and wore the ensemble to brunch with the girls. Sitting in the beautiful sunshine, recounting the now-humorous events of the previous evening, I appreciate the skirt even more. Alida comments, knowingly, "Great skirt," and I smile and nod in agreement. For these and future memories, the skirt is entitled to hang front and center in the closet, next to its darker, drabber cousins of the previous season.

After last night's v-neck sweater and tank top are folded and placed on their respective shelves, I come across a lone right shoe. This bone-colored leather shoe with black athletic tread is part of a new era in my shoe collection--a move toward color. Before, I was queen of black--17 different pairs of black shoes, all with their own special, subtly different, stylistic qualities. Then silver, red, and gold stepped in, and now bone. And this shoe is such a joy! I was shopping with Chrissy and Melinda in SoHo, the first reunion since Chrissy left California for New York, and I for Boston. The January fog and drizzle reminded us of our collective heyday in San Francisco, and we waxed nostalgic as we wove in and out of boutiques, alternately lost in dressing rooms and gossiping over sale tables. When we reached the David Aaron store, a standby when it comes to shoes, Melinda and I both gravitated toward this magical bone-colored pair. This is remarkable only if you know our respective styles--my self-proclaimed (though often unsubstantiated) tendency towards "class" and Melinda's own penchant for sportiness. But here was the perfected melding of our two aesthetics--a square-toed pump that would look great with my knee-length skirts, complete with an athletic-styled platform heel and black running shoe tread to go with Melinda's pants. A unique pair indeed. We eyed each other cautiously as we both tried the shoes on--mine a seven and hers an eight--for we've always respected each other's style without ever appropriating a single item. And as we walked out with matching bags, boxes, and shoes, we hugged for a moment outside the store, recognizing--however absurdly--this purchase as a new symbol of closeness in our long-distance friendship.

"Do you think we'll ever end up wearing them out together?" I asked.

"Silly," says Melin, "We're on different coasts. And by the way, I'm wearing them out tonight."

I look at the shoe now, scuffed black on the heel, and I toss it onto the bed, intending to call Melinda to find out how she deals with the marks, as soon as I find the left shoe. Not every item sits so near and dear to my heart; some have simple and distant histories.

This pink shirt I bought on sale with Sarah years ago, even though we both knew it would shrink beyond wearing in one wash. Such is the fate of all the ill-made clothes at Urban Outfitters. I was feeling petulant that day, and bought it anyway, only to find that we were 100 percent right about the 100 percent cotton tag.

These jeans are my first pair in over five years, since I swore off denim for good my freshman year at Berkeley. I associated my once ample assortment of jeans with the faux-poverty and thrift-store chic of my high school-to-college days, and donated them all within a week of breaking up with my high school sweetheart. It was high time for a change. I think I've finally let go of all that, so when I tried on these dark blue, boot cut gems at the Gap, and they fit as if I'd owned them forever, I bought them without a second thought. All the girls heard of it via e-mail the next day--a subtle shock from coast to coast.

This coat I coveted for months while it hung dormant in Amy's closet. It's the most unique red, blue, and white plaid car coat, circa the late 1940s or perhaps the early '50s. It never hung quite right on Amy's shoulders, a tad broader than mine, but she held on to it anyway. I cooed and ooed and awed every time I saw it, shameless I was. We often sat in her room deciding what she should wear out, and I was forever saying, "Try on the coat," just to see it moving in the world. "Nah," she'd always say, "What about this?" grabbing another of her vintage dresses. "Sure," I'd say, always a bit defeated. Though I tried and tried to hide my feelings, one day she just set the coat in my lap. "It's yours," she said simply, then moved on to the age-old endeavor of dressing herself for the evening. I've adored it ever since.

There hasn't always been such bliss between our closets--Amy's and mine. The relationship ebbs and flows to this day. Next to gifts of coats and suits that no longer fit or flatter her frame I have empty hangers where my favorite dresses once hung, and the sense of absence is still acute even after all these years. Oh, that exquisite black cocktail dress that escorted me to scores of G&T get-togethers in college. Every one of us in grand dame vintage--the faux furs, the slim-fitting suits and (sadly) the lamé--chatting each other up about Foucault's History of Sexuality (Part II) and all the while wondering whether anyone else knew what he was talking about. In that dress, with my faux pearls, an 8 inch cigarette holder, and those stockings with the wily seams up the back (those lines never were quite straight), I felt like Holly Golightly: all dressed up and everywhere to go. All this in some $295 a month room that stank of old beer and mold. How we ate up the irony.

Lending Amy that dress was tantamount to letting my lover stand-in as her date for the night, while I sat at home and darned socks. And when she held the dress hostage for so long, finally confessing that she was repairing a ripped seam, I felt nothing if not betrayed. Our intermittent squabbles--for we practically lived and breathed each other in those days--grew more consistent during this time, and it seemed that I was asking after the dress every day back then. Anyone who knows this language of clothes knows it's far easier to ask for the dress than for the apology. When I finally went to rescue the dress, supposedly just back from the cleaners, I arrived at nothing; the dress had vanished.

"What do you mean, it's gone?" I demanded.

"I'm so sorry. It was here, I swear," said Amy. "Now it's gone. We've looked everywhere. I'm so sorry. But, it's just a dress."

"You don't understand," I said. "It's everything."

And right then, at least, it was everything: memory and identity, the collective drag we all wore in those days. And in handing the dress over to her, it was an utterance as well. I told her a million things when the dress exchanged hands: be confident tonight, you'll look fabulous, take care of this little piece of me--without having to say a word. As we stood by her hall closet, stuffed with boxes and off-season coats, I knew she hadn't heard me.

In the space of an afternoon, the river of my wardrobe evaporates piece by piece. All these clothes and all their histories put back together in a new fashion, until time and negligence take hold again. The skirts are now center stage in the closet, as spring approaches in Boston, and the polyester work pants I love (they are just like my Dad's) are moving towards the unseen depths of my closet. I hang my favorite maroon pair--bought with Cathy on a congratulatory shopping spree after her last Berkeley final--and slip them to the far right, where I discover my brown suit, still in the plastic dry-cleaning cover. I pause and realize that I haven't thought about it in ages.

My mother, in an attempt to jump-start my career mindset, came up to visit me in college one weekend and took me shopping. "We're buying a suit for your interviews" she declared, and that was that. We shopped for hours on end, my stomach empty and my head aching while Mom's exacting eye never let me settle for something just okay. And then we found it--the perfect chocolate brown suit--size 4 top, 6 bottom. The mandarin-like collar and simple lines of the jacket gave me a professional look; the wide-cut legs of the pants slimmed my frame, creating that long, lean look my mother was searching for. The silk shirt, a creamy-white and celadon-green striped masterpiece, gave it a funky aesthetic I wouldn't go without. It was a rare and beautiful shopping moment, right when both of us were at our wits' end. I got the two internships I interviewed for that semester, Channel 4 Entertainment News and the San Francisco Jazz, and deemed the ensemble absolute magic.

My grandfather died later that year, and having nothing to wear to a funeral at such short notice, I looked again to the suit hanging, still in its Bebe garment bag, like a plaque on my wall. The suit--how I loved it so--managed to keep me looking poised as I fumbled through my first experience with death.

My junior year was also a fairly rough time. The lot of us lived in that seven-bedroom carriage house in South Berkeley, and personalities rubbed and chaffed as they do in close quarters. Chrissy and I were having an especially hard time, and when news of her father's death trickled through our house from her bedroom door, we weren't actually speaking to each other. Unable to simply walk into her room and hold her tight, wrapping my arms around her the way everyone else did, I stood at the door, watching and listening. "I've gotta go home. Oh, God, I've gotta pack," she mumbled from time to time, riffling through her own piles of clothes on the ground, then sitting in them as she broke down in tears. I ducked out of the doorway and slipped into my "boudoir." I grabbed the suit and silk shirt and walked back, smoothing the lapels and looking for the odd coffee stain or stray thread. As Sarah walked out, I slipped in and handed Chrissy the suit. "Here, for the funeral," I said, knowing she had nothing she could possibly wear to such an event. We didn't talk. We didn't touch. Her barely audible "thanks" told me she understood what I was trying to say.

Chrissy kept the suit, oddly enough, for months after the funeral, always telling me that it was about to be dry-cleaned, or that she was just going to go pick it up. It seems to me that I didn't get it back until we'd said our "sorrys" for past wrongs. It sits now, in Boston, in the same dry-cleaning bag from Berkeley, which means I haven't worn it in three years. No wonder I'm still not satisfactorily employed.

I take the suit out and pull off the plastic cover. The brown has faded a bit since I first saw it, or, at least, I think it has. The shirt is still phenomenal, timelessly hip, I think to myself, and I reason that the cut of the jacket hasn't yet gone out of style. I step into the closet as I move to return the suit to its place behind the maroon pants, and I pause again. I step back and scoot the red skirt over a pinch. I hang the suit front and center and leave the closet door open.

Photo by Jeffry Pike
Copyright © 2000 President and Fellows of Harvard College.
All rights reserved. Comments. Last modified Fri, Oct 6, 2000.