A Case for Lipstick

In deepest February, it doesn’t take long for visitors to our fair region to notice things looking, well, sort of gray. The snow banks, the tree bark, the sky, even the people (mostly Caucasian, still) take on an ashen tinge. The sun is a most welcome, but intermittent, visitor, so no wonder.

The antidote is travel. The tropics are lovely, but hardly necessary. I only made it as far as Salem, Massachusetts to find my tonic, the wonderful exhibit that just closed at the Peabody Essex Museum, Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel, featuring sumptuous clothing owned by the irrepressible tastemaker, Iris Apfel.

I’m not much of a clotheshorse. I may dream of cashmere, but I dress for mud

season.

Apfel, even in her eighties, is my opposite. Just wearing her jewelry is a weight-bearing exercise that makes gym membership beside the point. She collected tribal pieces from North Africa, Asia and South America, then wore as many of them as could fit around her neck and wrists. She wore coats made of feathers, thigh-high boots, sequined boleros and satin harem pants in brilliant colors.

Although Apfel had a long and successful career as an interior decorator, and clearly has a passion for gorgeous fabric, she was not a clothing designer, nor was she a professional model. She has just spent her life loving and wearing outrageously beautiful clothes.

The four-room exhibit was itself a delight, but even better was the crowd of mostly women that came to view it. Watching my fellow visitors was a blast. Many were gussied up with beautiful scarves and jewelry, admiring the manikins or noses buried in their look books, exclaiming over one luscious piece after another. They were blooming.

Exhorting people doesn’t work particularly well. Everyone gets exhausted by the nagging, both the nagger and the naggees. Better, by far, to teach by example. Apfel’s fun with clothes does just that. Looking around that exhibit, her example is clearly as educational and liberating as anything Gloria Steinem has ever said. Apfel gives her viewers permission to dress for visibility, drama and fun.

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to wear lipstick, for myself. I’m going to wear the colorful clothes I have in the back of my closet even though I am nowhere near rail thin. I’m not going to wait to lose weight or otherwise approach the perfection I imagine is required in order to be seen. Except when doing garden or farm chores (and then it’s old karate pants and stained t-shirts), I am throwing off the drop cloth mentality I seem to have acquired. I am dressing up.

Thank you, Iris.