My thoughts on a pair of pants
and more
Happy Wednesday!
Sorry this is a bit late. I’ve been distracted this week. And if you want to know why you’ll just have to keep reading / scrolling!
Here is a tik tok I like.
Here is something I am NOT afraid I enjoyed non-ironically:
I hope you have all found things to keep yourself sane during this stretch of pandemie. I’ve been watching a lot of 2000s sports films, including: Bend It Like Beckham and Ice Princess. I would definitely recommend you revisit Ice Princess—it is very good! Plus it’s fun to see Kim Cattrall in a role that is not Samantha or this video:
Anyhoo. To the thoughts and articles!
Why do I believe in the pair of pants that will change my life?
The current pair to send me into the tailspin were the Classic Indigo Utility Jeans by Rudy Jude Co, a clothing company based in Venice, CA.
I first saw them on an influencer I follow who is close to my size. She raved about the fit on her size 10/12 body on her instagram stories. I saw the way they hugged her hips and then flared outward on the upward thigh. Could this be…the jeans for me?
I clicked through Rudy Jude’s entire instagram highlighted dedicated to the jeans. Women in sizes ranging from 00 to 16 raved about the fit. They had the cool California vibe that I constantly lusted after. Their denim was eco-friendly (or something). And…they were $240 dollars.
But.
They could be the jeans.
I should back up. Maybe you’re one of the lucky people who have never experienced the lust when perhaps encountering the jeans. Maybe you’ve never had issues with denim. You probably know your size confidently enough to buy a new pair online. And if you do have to return them and get a larger or smaller size, its an issue with the jeans, not with your body. Jeans that promise they will be high waisted and wide legged are, on you, high waisted and wide legged. You love working from the couch in your vintage faded blue pair.
And if that is your life, I am happy for you. But for me, and I suspect a lot of other women, it is not. Jeans are…hell. They almost never fit right. Their sizing is a nightmare. They pinch and leave painful indentations. They make my legs look like short stumps. They make my stomach protrude even more. They look ok with one specific shirt and horrible with everything else. They are unforgiving.
And this is especially true for the cool denim of the moment—rigid, vintage, high waisted. Unlike the late 2000s and early 2010s stretchy if tight skinny jeans, these jeans require you to up one, two, three sizes just to have a pair that you can button. And even if you can get them to button, they are too tight on your hips, or too loose on your thighs, or just look horrible.
This whole process is made even worse by my ever fluctuating weight. If I am able to get a pair of the jeans, eventually they will grow tight on my waist. Tight enough that whenever I wear them all I can think about is how I’ve gotten fatter, and if I had focused and tried to lose weight over the summer, if I had said no to Jeni’s ice cream and yes to hikes, they would fit me. And so they become an ever constant reminder of my failure to maintain a consistent weight, a sign that I will forever grow larger and larger until my body takes up so much oxygen and space no one will be able to get in a word around me.
In my mind, the perfect pair of the jeans will never fail me. They are high waisted and loose. They fit my waist with some room to spare so I can sit down without being choked. They cup and lift my ass. They look great with a tiny tank or oversized tee, with a giant fleece jacket or a skimpy going out top. They always fit, they always get compliments. When I wear them, I never feel fat, or unattractive, or unworthy. And when I put them on, I feel amazing. I feel invincible.
Jeans specifically have been branded as a miracle clothing item. Did the myth-making spur from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, a YA novel where a group of girls are brought together by a magical pair of pants that fits all of them perfectly? Or this scene from Sex and the City where Miranda finds she fits into her tight jeans from her youth and discovers her wild side after putting them on? I’m sure the myth began much before these pop cultural moments, but they are perpetuated again and again.
$240 on a single item of clothing is not money I would typically drop (ok, for an investment piece or a treat I would). But here, I was contemplating dropping more money than I could rationale on a pair of pants that might might fit me.
And as I kept the webpage for the jeans opened on my browser, continuing to go back to them, I had to really ask myself—will these jeans make all of my wishes come true? Even if they do fit, will they make me impervious to my body dysmorphia, the vestiges of my eating disorder, my existential dread?
No.
The fashion industry has promised us that if we just buy those jeans, get that bag, cut that hair, we’ll be happy with ourselves. And in some ways that’s true—a new haircut can make you feel more like yourself. A new shirt can make you feel sexy even when you’re just getting ready for a night out in your bedroom. A new pair of shoes may make you feel like you can land a job. But they can’t provide the happiness with ourselves that we so desperately want them to. An item made of fabric cannot alone cure the way I feel about myself.
So, no, I didn’t buy the pants. But I can almost guarantee that if I hadn’t started writing this piece during the pre-order window for the jeans, I would’ve bought them. But when I am forced to write down my feelings about the jeans, I am forced to see the truth.
And the truth is, they are just pants.
Everything else I would feel though? That’s me. No matter what I have on.
He Had an R.V., a Camera, and a Plan to Document America. Was that Enough?By Taylor Lorenz
One of my favorite recent instagram follows has been the New York Times resident internet guru/writer, Taylor Lorenz. I heard her on The Times’ Popcast talking about the relationship between the music industry and Tik Tok and was super impressed by her ability to spell out the drama between the Hype House stars and succinctly analyze what it meant for society today.
So when she posted this new article she wrote about a Youtube series called All Gas No Brakes, I clicked.
I have to come clean; I do spend a fair share of time on youtube. I like watching some vloggers, I’m a sucker for the Vogue getting ready series, and I enjoy the quick cuts of a “what I do in a day” videos. Suffice to say—it is not a place I go for thought-provoking or serious work.
All Gas No Brakes seemed to have started on the lighter fluffier side. It was the brainchild of recent college grad Andrew Callaghan who, along with his friends, drove around the US in an RV conducting interviews at Burning Man, Area 51, and a FurFest. But when the lockdown hit and protests around Black lives erupted, Callaghan grabbed his camera to interview the protestors the establishment media was afraid to.
Instead of labeling the protestors as looters, he asked them to discuss how they were feeling. It is a stripped down, guerrilla journalism that is meaningful in a way I didn’t know was possible in content that originated on YouTube. Callaghan feels to be only a mild physical presence in the story, wearing a bandana around his face, holding the camera up, watching the subjects.
Lorenz goes on to discuss how, due to a contract he signed, his show is owned by Doing Things Media—a company that runs several well known meme accounts. Callaghan and his team, consisting of his two close friends, wanted to continue to produce independent journalism. Doing Things Media insisted he keep things light. Eventually, they fired Callaghan from his own show.
It’s true that this is a story about how shitty organizations corrupt journalism and artistic work. But more than that, All Gas No Brakes makes me wonder if establishment journalism could benefit from this more stripped down style. Yes, All Gas No Brakes’ style remind me a bit of Vice News. But unlike Vice News, it lacks the presumptuous energy, the snooty judgement of Brooklyn elites. At its core, it feels like three young adults who are trying to make sense of the world their in by speaking to people around the country. That’s a show that I want to watch.
It Was a Banner Year for Asian Representation. Now What? by Connie Wang
I am leaving this article here with little comment, because I believe it needs to be read in full.
I will say that a large reason why I’m including it is because many people who read this work in the entertainment industry. Wang discusses even though representation matters and is important, it is not a means to end racism.
Wang writes:
When representation as an end-goal so dominates our conversations and energies, it diverts us from being able to identify and address the Goliath problems that lead people to commit crimes, take lives and livelihoods, and threaten public safety…
The key to eliminating racism… is dismantling unjust policies that protect the economic interests of a small minority. It is not putting oppressed people in positions of power in these same unjust institutions.
I hope you’ll all read and take the time to think about how you can dismantle the systems of oppression that you benefit from.
Congrats on making it to the end!
As a reward you will get to see photos of my NEW adopted dog Bobby!!! He is still decompressing so no playdates yet, but hopefully soon :)
