Time Waits for No Fashionista
Feast your eyes upon this beautiful and buttery soft light grey leather moto jacket for a moment … Be astonished and elated when you learn that I purchased it for a trifling sum – $15 – in a charity store! Sigh with anticipation on hearing how I waited with bated breath until the seasons turned and the temperature was right to don this garment with appropriate reverence …
And then weep and gnash your teeth in lamentation as you look upon its ravaged surface, wantonly desecrated by some unseen and malignant foe! Let us mourn together!
weep and gnash your teeth in lamentation as you look upon its ravaged surface …!
For a thing of beauty is not a joy forever, as the poet John Keats so optimistically phrases it. I cannot hazard a guess as to what distressed this leather so that such disastrous holes formed on the back of the jacket. The blistering and cracking was visible on the arms too, and it was easy to see that more tearing would occur with only a little encouragement.
This was worse than the time I gently hand-washed the vintage cashmere cardigan and watched the pearl coating float off the beadwork, or the time in my green youth when I washed a fringed silk shawl too vigorously and tangled the long fringing past redemption … then I could blame my ignorance.
Yet this time I had done nothing but hang the jacket in my closet! I was very disappointed since I had not had a chance to even wear it once.
We all have those beautiful clothes in our closets that we save for a special occasion – and we shouldn’t. I am sure you’ve heard this dictum before, but at the sight of this particularly abject lesson, you must surely be convinced.
Wear the antique silk gown you inherited from a stylish great-aunt, slip on those bejewelled cobalt silk Manolos you have hidden on the top shelf in your wardrobe waiting for their moment in the sun (ahem, that’s me), don sequins and satin from nine to five – don’t save them for a time that may never come.
Like ephemeral mayflies that live only from sunrise to sunset, some pleasures last only for the shortest time and ought to be enjoyed without delay. Seize the day!
Photos: December 2015