Bras, Girdles, Feminism, and Science Fiction

I never burned my bra, I just quit wearing it. I had left home and found an apartment in Ghent, an old Norfolk, Va. neighborhood. At the time, late 60's early 70's, rent was cheap for turn of the century apartments and older homes converted into apartments. The hippys, the art community, the musicians, the ODU students, and young sailors from all over trying not to stand out with their military haircuts, they all converged on the area to rent apartments, studio space, and businesses. Small bars with live music were packed every night and little corner deli's were wall to wall on Sunday mornings.

Because I jumped into this new life feet first and ready to be free, man made plus natural substances were a part of the new me. Consequently my memories of my first year or two tend to be in vivid vignettes with hazy surroundings. One of the first is of an intense conversation on how women had been totally enslaved by the clothes they were expected to wear. The fact that a man had designed the most popular bra of our mother's era, still heavily influencing the bra designs of ours, was made much of. Now to be honest, I do remember that the conversation involved more aspects of female clothing. It covered the skirt and dress versus the pants topics and it covered the sexual topics of why we ended up being the ones that had to dress to attract when in most species it was the male who had the most sprucing. It spanned politics, social outlook and even touched on economy and skirt lengths.

Having immediately soaked up the ideals of the time, no more hypocrocy, no more ozzie and harriet facades, we are who we are and we're honest about it, I knew after that conversation that I wasn't a feminist and could never claim to be one. I loved clothes and loved the new freedom to wear any type I liked. Long skirts with halters made out of vintage silk scarfs, men's dress vests with blue jeans, big clunky platform shoes with bell bottoms, floaty jackets made of old lace curtains, vintage joan crawford jackets with wide shoulders and cinched waists with elephant leg crepe pants, there was no way I was going to stop endulging my affair with clothes.

The undergarment part of the conversation is what changed my life. My mother and her sister took me on a womanly rites shopping trip when I was fifteen. They bought me several long leg girdles with hidden garter attachments and some cross your heart type bras. I can honestly say that I did not need a girdle at 15. There were also some nicer softer bras but they were all in satin type materials with lace and as a "single good girl", I got white cotton and heavy stitching. My mother was old enough to be my grandmother, she was Portuguese, and she was raised in an old country enclave in New England. A good girl hid any signs she had curves and what body parts she couldn't hide were put in immovable containers.

The girdle and the bra were never worn again. Vintage full slips and camisols took the place of the bra when needed and a lacy garter belt was found to hold up my hose when I wore them. That freedome alone was enough to make me a diehard hippy. But due to the very things I replaced my old signs of female bondage with, I knew in my heart that by the true tenets of feminism in that time, I wasn't one.

About two years into my new life I met two older gentleman who owned a used book and antique shop in the neighborhood. There was a front section of used paperbacks, a back section of 1st editions and rare books and a side room large enough for a few pieces of furniture and a good smattering of decorative arts objects. After several months of shopping for books and checking out the antique shop, they engaged me in a conversation. They weren't known for their friendliness to females, in fact it was a bit of neighborhood lore, so when they spoke to me it was a happening. They wanted to know who I was buying the science fiction books for and when I said they were for me they gently quizzed me to see if I had really read them. I then asked them why they would think I wasn't reading them. They said they had noted that sci-fi was finally reaching a broader reader base but the majority was male and very few females, under 5 percent in their store anyway, were reading it.

Then, the real moment came, one of those vignette memories again. One asked me if I had burned my bra and was I fighting for female equality and freedom. The whole conversation was starting to get my hackles up and I snapped back since I was already equal and free I didn't see the need to fight but did see the need for some changes in the laws, some enforcement of same and some education of those who didn't consider me so. It was the right thing to say. They had a good laugh and I had to join them. Then one told me that believing you were equal and a free person, and living your life as such no matter how others acted, was the true battle, and the true sign that you weren't enslaved or unequal.

After that we became friends or perhaps it would be more truthful to say they became two of my mentors. Another quirk in my life where a conversation about sci-fi and bras led me to meeting two people of my parents generation who gave me hope that: a. Getting older didn't mean you'ld be stuck in a rut of doing things according to the neighbors' opinions. b. Just because I wasn't screaming for equality and freedom didn't mean I wasn't getting it. The way I lived my life could and would have a ripple effect, so I was part of the battle even if I hadn't signed up.

By the way, I still don't wear a bra, still read some sci-fi and still consider myself extremely free and very equal.

Why My Shabbi Chic?

I had to come to terms with the nomenclature of My Shabbi Chic before starting a blog. The results of my figuring out how in the sam hill I got myself stuck with that moniker will be the first post to my first blog. The fact that it is my first blog, and my first real stand alone presence on the web, really made me not want this as a blog name. Really wanted something with "old broad" in it combined with "musings", "rants", "chronicles", etc.. You know - mouthy old lady with attitude, heart of gold, philosophical, witty, warms the cockles of your heart while making you snort with laughter. But Google search changed all of that.

It wasn't that the dozen or so fabulous names I toyed with had been taken. It wasn't that the names flagged any obscenity no-no's. It was due to a whim that made me Google myshabbichic and the realization that I already had a web presence. Once I got over the thrill of that - and I'm sorry, it was a thrill for me, so sit on it, I realized the shabbi one was here to stay. A name picked to sell on ebay, chosen partly from pique, partly to save myself from loved one's suggestions for names and partly cause no one else was using it.

The resentment was probably menopausal reaction, but the lady who made all the cash on the whole shabby chic thing? well I had photos of my apartment in the early 70's, all white washed old wood and bamboo furniture with upholstery recovered in barkcloth cabbage roses and tropical ferns, distressed wood and gesso framed mirrors on every wall, candles in unusual glass holders, seashells and quaint old leather covered books laying around - and I didn't make millions off it. Then of course there were the charming names friends and loved ones kept coming up with, from the too cutesy and overly used types like Granny's Attic to the who would want to buy anything from soomeone named junkedouttrasher. With a sniff at English blondes and well meaning buddies, I decided it was my particular brand of shabby as in charming chic style that I was trying to sell - hence, the name.

Whether I'm just a glass half full type or one that always sees the silver lining, the name is finally growing on me. And truth win out - I've surrounded myself, dressed myself, educated myself in, the used, passed on, discarded, items of times past. Even when I don't need them or particularly even like them, I bring them home cause I can't stand to see them just trashed. Style is timeless and I like things with style - I love to dig thru boxes and crowded shelves for those special things that catch my eye - I love saving a beautiful pot or silk scarf from the landfill.

The photo at the beginning is a collage of items I have bought and have or will be selling or bartering in the future. Going from left to right starting in the upper left corner: A Florenza letter holder, an unglazed African folk art contemporary sculpture, a 1940s aluminum perpetual calendar, a Fornasetti box, a marked Mexican sterling silver turquoise inlay question mark pendant, Bjorn Winblad playing cards, a 1950's carpet bag purse, a 1970s 80s Kliban cat coffee mug over a mid century lucite paperweight with a full blown dandelion encased and a one edition 1980s deck of tarot cards, a ceramic spaghetti spaniel made in Italy, three older cameos over a very funky 1920s 30s made in Japan character ashtray, a ceramic sculpture by Fantoni, a handpainted silk tie on the naughty side, a made in Italy with pottery marks rooster pitcher, an engraved metal peacock with a 12 inch clam shell body, a 3D tooled leather purse with cowhide border made in Mexico from the 1950s 60s, a mid-century modern Mexican silver cuff signed, a Nagel mug and last but not least, another Florenza piece, a small double frame made out of an old locket on a stand up base of faux gems.

All in all, it really is a perfect name - my shabbi chic.