Zebra Suit

Zebra Suit


By Robin Kozloff

I call it my zebra suit because that’s what it is: a black and cream, zebra-striped, long-sleeved, loose-fitting, jumpsuit out of heavy soft cotton jersey, like a little kid’s sleeper without the feet. The stripes are not evenly spaced but are varied in width and jagged-edged just like a zebra’s. It has black buttons down the front, a tidy black collar at the neck and solid black cuffs at the wrists. My eagle eyes spied it from barely inside the door of the thrift store as it hung unaware among the pale flannels and terrycloths of the lingerie rack. I crouched, sprang, and pounced. It was a sixty-second kill. I trotted home with it in my teeth, gloating and triumphant. 

When I wear it belted, the top half blouses out but the bottom half gathers in sleekly, leaving my haunches long and lean. Without a belt, it’s a baggy, shapeless, comfy retreat.
I wear it to amuse my nephew at Thanksgiving family reunions when everyone stays over, sleeping on couches and air mattresses. I wear it to read the paper on cold, gray Sunday mornings when I can’t bear to get dressed in real clothes. I wore it once for Halloween with a black stocking for a tail and a mask made from a paper plate. And I wore it the night of our mother’s first surgery, when we all just waited at her house, and my brother found me hiding, curled face down on the bed. He sat down next to me patting my back and the kindness made me cry. I wore it rollerblading one fine, clear midnight, on a smooth dark road under a starry sky, swinging my arms, humming along, until some jackass grabbed my butt from a passing car window, nearly making me fall and filling me with a spitting, useless rage as the red tail lights faded into the distance.
Thinking it silly looking and sexless, I once put it on to discourage the advances of an overnight visitor, but before the night was over I shed my zebra skin.

Plaid Jacket

By Mary Lynn Fisher

In 1972, I made this plaid jacket at the age of 20 years old.  I still treasure it to this day because I was so proud of it.  Why?  Because my Mom taught me to "match the plaid" and as anyone who has tried it can tell you, it isn't easy to do.  And then I also made the buttonholes with only a zig-zag stitch on a $69 Singer sewing machine that my boyfriend bought me for Christmas.  The only thing is, since it was going on sale after the holidays, he actually gave me a box of Almond Roca for a Christmas gift and I thought it was all over between us! 

I don't know what became of the skirt I made to go with the jacket.  It was a gored style with no waistband in the same type of fabric in the heather lavender.

It was very timely when I read about your contest.  My Mom passed away in January this year and I had just run across the jacket in going through some old memorabilia.  I can still see and hear her instructing me on matching that plaid but she never took over.  Quite frankly, that wasn't like my Mom to stand back.  Like everything else, the jacket wouldn't be the same and I wouldn't be the same person without a Mom who cared enough to spend her time passing along her knowledge and still giving me the ability to take that pride and say "I did it myself."

Island Friend

By Susan Lee


I have never been one to pay much attention to my attire outside of what is necessary for
business or occasion, but fashion is perhaps deeper than on the surface. It is a sign of our
times and something whose meaning is formed in one’s sub-consciousness from an early
age. Being first generation, my parents had different thoughts about what was important.
Going through grammar school, clothes was merely functional and changed only if they
needed washing, so I was constantly wavering between fitting in and making do. From
my formative years, I never quite developed any fashion sense, or perhaps even fashion
common-sense, until the following experience.
I arrived in Sacramento via a job transfer from Texas armed with (1) clothes for work and
(2) an assortment of t-shirts, shorts, and jeans for casual wear. Around this time I
befriended a family of Polynesians – a tight knit laid back bunch. Having never been to
Hawaii, I was immediately attracted to what was exotic – from taro to pigeon English. I
was particularly close to Pua, who was closest to my age. She was a little thing and
relative to me, on the other end of the fashion scale, piecing together a stylish and unique
statement.
In this part of the story enters a faded round-neck lime green t-shirt. It was from REI and
had little tribal figures printed across the chest. It was soft, comfortable, and in the deep
recesses of my mind, very Islander. I was set! We passed the months together and my
impressionable self was starting to speak Pigeon.
One weekend in the early summer, Pua and I went shopping at the Galleria. I needed new
tops and she graciously offered to help me. We perused the usual stores trying on
different things but I didn’t end up buying anything. Near the end part of our journey we
arrived at a sporting good store to look for bathing suits. I was in my comfort zone at a
rack of summer sale t-shirts. I happily flipped through the hangers finding t-shirts with
palm tree prints, surfing logos. I sallied forth to the fitting room. When I decided on the
one I wanted I stepped out to show Pua.
In history, patience and silence has won battles. Pua did not say anything but she had a
look of concern in her eyes that teetered close to horror.
“NO,” she finally concluded.
“What – what’s wrong with it?” I questioned pressing my face downward to inspect my
newly donned light green t-shirt.
Silence…
“You need to pick another color,” she finally replied.
“What’s wrong with the color, Pua?” I whined, “I look good in this color, the shirt I had
on earlier is…”
And then it dawned on me.
“You don’t like my t-shirt?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it,” she started slowly, “It’s just that…you wear it…a lot.”
A light bulb went off on in my head. Once or twice a week I would do my laundry and in
would go my lime green t-shirt. One or twice a week Pua and I would meet up for
dinner, hanging out, or a movie and coincidentally, out would come my lime green tshirt.
This had been going on for many months.
I was embarrassed and a little hurt.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Sue-babes (this was my islander nick-name), I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“But that’s my favorite t-shirt,” I explained,
“I KNOW,” she retorted.
And then, I started laughing. I buckled over in that store and laughed until I was crying. I
could not believe her restraint. I could not believe she had gone out with me in public
night after night enduring my green t-shirt. Little by little her story came out. She would
come to pick me up or vice versa and every time she would be silently thinking, “Oh
man, please don’t let sue-babes be wearing that t-shirt.”
Pua joined in my laughing. We would stop for a minute, sigh, and then bust up laughing
again. It turned out my beloved t-shirt was far from Polynesian. The little tribal figures
were Kokopelli, from the Southwest. Not that it mattered as my t-shirt had worn out its
welcome long ago. The t-shirt lived out its days as sleepwear, but long after its life had
ended, it has stayed with me as an endless source of giggling. I was lucky to find a friend
who could see past my one t-shirt and still love and accept me, all the while patiently
opening me to try something new. Of course, I still have made many mistakes, such as
my pique polo era, but that is a different story.

Kentucky Derby

Stephanie is watching the Kentucky Derby today decked out in a Wardrobe outfit. She is looking stylish in Nataya dress, Sue Wong coat and Toucan hat. Hope her horse wins!

Happy Earth Day!

Just in for Earth Day are these lovely jewels made from recycled cans by Restart. Come check them out!

SPRING FASHION SHOW!

Coming up this Friday is the Spring 2010 Fashion Show!  The Wardrobe will definitely be there, will you?

Click here to register!

Look Good, Feel Good!

Back by popular demand! Come take a peek at our special sale starting 

Thursday April 15th. The "Good Clothes Open All Doors" Sale is a sale comprised 

of older, back stock items and new or gently used pieces and samples from owner, 

Heather Caswell's, collection. Proceeds are donated 

to charities and projects to benefit the city of Davis.

Let all of your friends know and come down to The Wardrobe to find 

hidden treasures and fantastic markdowns!

Hello, Vogue!

Hello, Vogue


By Nicole Coombe



“She works where?!”

I was a semester away from a Bachelor’s degree in magazine journalism and wanted to kill my brother. He called me from Claremont, California, and while chatting, our conversation turned to a recently graduated friend of his whose senior thesis in Art History had focused on French Couture. She’d just moved to New York. She was in charge of running the infamous fashion closet at Vogue.

When we hung up the phone, I had both sufficiently and equally reprimanded him and made him feel utterly guilty for keeping such information from me, his little sister. I was head-spinning obsessed with New York Fashion and fresh out of an internship at Harper’s BAZAAR. The idea of Vogue was like a white light in the deafened darkness of fashion inferiority—it called to me. I was determined to get into those offices. I forced my brother to agree that if he ever had the chance to put a word in for me, he would.

He did.

Two weeks later, I listened to his voicemail.

“Dude. You gotta call me back. My friend at Vogue needs an intern. Don’t wait. Hurry Up.”

Within the week, I was in touch with his friend and in the process of scheduling an interview. Dialing her 212 office number, my nerves half hoped for voice mail. And then she answered.

“Hello, Vogue,” she sung, her voice rising. It was a famous, light-hearted, and somewhat old-fashioned greeting. Two words that I was sure would change my life. Later that evening, with an interview set for sometime the following week, I began to sketch outfits for the meeting. I wanted to look classic, to appear effortless in appearance… not to stand out as a fashion junkie but to fit in as a woman of style. Piles of crumpled up paper later, I put on a timeless black pencil skirt and a pair of black platform peep-toe pumps.

Then it struck me. I already owned the perfect top.

While out consignment shopping months earlier, I’d come across a lightweight cotton Miu Miu blouse in a sheer cream. It was short-sleeved with a wide neckline and trimmed in a very slight ruffle. Cut in tight princess lines, a strip of hooks and eyes going down the center front acted as closures. It was my first designer buy that wasn’t from the Bridge section of a department store. Referencing historic undergarments, Miuccia Prada’s modern interpretation of the corset cover was originally intended as a modesty piece and now injected with the ingénue innocence of the Miu Miu label. It was real, live, made-in-Italy fashion, and it gave me butterflies.

It was the shirt that was going to get me a gig at Vogue Magazine, the fashion bible of America—perhaps the world. On that hot summer, New York afternoon, I walked into 4 Times Square and met the Fashion Assistant in charge of “the closet” and the American Market Editor. With my nails painted French Pink, I shook their hands and warmly smiled, convincing them I’d do whatever they needed, anything they could ask for. I’d start next week if they would have me as soon. I gratefully and gracefully accepted the position.

For the next few months, I took the train into Manhattan, and in a stall in the ladies room of Penn Station, I changed out of my street clothes and pulled on my skirt and tights. I slipped into my heels. I was the Superman of Fashion Interns. Most days ten blocks to Times Square was my personal runway. Other times, there was a Town Car outside waiting for me. Sliding my sunglasses down over my face and getting into the back of that car, I was transformed.

And it was all because of that fatefully found Miu Miu shirt.