How to Grow Up by Michelle Tea Read Free Book Online

belt and Tevas on my feet regardless of the season. I got my groove back eventually, but honestly, my political affiliations have remained a constant challenge to my fashion tendencies. It can be hard to care about poverty and economic disparity and also immerse yourself in the fantasy world of fashion magazines, where the garments are often so expensive the price isn’t printed. There is a dissonance in being a believer in a new standard of beauty, one that includes all races and body sizes and genders, while developing strange obsessions for particular models and feeling your heart skip absurdly when you recognize them in an editorial—in being a nonconforming, rebellious sort, yet turning hungrily to an industry that instructs you what to cease wearing and what to wear instead; instruction I actually believe.
    But, for all the paradoxical mind-fuckery, there was something powerful in my embrace of fashion, something that felt alluring and confusing, yet correct. And that was beauty.
Beauty.
During my conflicted fashion moment, beauty seemed more a tool used to whack women around with than anything else. Looking to subvert if not destroy the concept, I’d cultivated a“beauty” in myself that seemed at odds with the current standards—weird where I could be normal, torn where I could be tailored. I’d set out to widen my scope of beauty to include forms mainstream culture ignored or punished. But what I’d done along the way was demonize the rest of it. In this process, beauty had become my enemy. And suddenly I wanted to be its friend. I think it had something to do with getting sober—how thirsty I was for new things to occupy my psyche, or how the spiritual practice that was helping me stay away from alcohol cautioned against buying into the illusion that
anything
was my enemy. It seemed, after decades of fighting, of reveling in the sharp power of
No!
that the most radical thing left for me was a gigantic, all-encompassing
Yes!
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    Let me introduce you to my dear friend Annie. Like me, Annie is in recovery from a bout of radical feminism that temporarily destroyed her amazing aesthetic (think cherry-red or platinum-blond untamed corkscrew curls, Vivienne Westwood Melissa jelly stilettos, and body-con micro-minis). Reared in the same sort of low-income urban decay as I’d been, she, too, struggled to balance her desire for nice things with the knowledge that much of the world doesn’t have
food
, let alone a pair of Stella McCartney sandals. (Hey, at least they’re vegan!)
    Annie has great fashion sense, putting together outfits like a dumpster dress with Dior pumps and a leather jacket she had an artist friend paint the back of. Or a pair of leggings made to look like golden peacock feathers paired with giant clompy ankleboots and an actual—or phony—Balenciaga bag dangling from the crook of her arm. It was with Annie that I bought my first fake designer purse, on Canal Street in New York City, a Louis Vuitton Alma knockoff with multicolored monogram, a big “leather” bow, a gleaming little lock that came with an actual key,
and
a dust bag. It looked so convincing, so expensive, that people treated me differently when I carried it. Saleswomen in department stores were nice to me, and salesgirls in cool little boutiques snubbed me. I had mixed feelings about passing as wealthy. On the one hand, I had lived through grunge fashion, when every trust fund baby was decked out in a torn flannel and an ironic trucker cap. It seemed only appropriate that I, a poor person, should appropriate posh style. But when the girls working minimum wage at the movie multiplex started whispering about my bag, I couldn’t bear to have them believe I was a richy-rich. As someone long impoverished, I had a strong sense of solidarity with the downtrodden, and I didn’t want this illusion of wealth to come between me and my