035: Festive Outfits for the Holidays
Add a bit of sparkle to your everyday doom and gloom!
Well, well, well, if it isn’t the most wonderful time of the year! There are few things I enjoy quite as much as the blur that is the holiday season. I loved it as a child, when my parents would pack me, my cousins, aunt, and any other visiting family members into our clown car of a Mazda and drive into central London to see the Christmas light displays throughout the city. Of the actual lights, I have very little memory except for being in total and utter awe of Hamleys, a real-life Duncan’s Toy Chest. What I remember more though are of little feelings: our parents finally having the time between work and raising us for this very special ritual; the warmth and closeness of being in a car with my family; the child’s excitement of venturing into what we called “London proper”, where my parents took the train in to work five days a week but for me remained a distant, mythic place.
When we moved to the states – I as an adult, physically but not mentally – we resumed the ritual: my parents and I bundled up in the car, driving from the sparse suburb of Maryland we lived in to D.C. And when I moved to New York, and my parents followed six months later (only daughter, only child syndrome), the ritual of driving down Fifth Avenue in the evening to take in the Christmas splendor is in its tenth year, with the addition of a (my) husband. I love seeing the Christmas tree vendors set up along the sidewalks, and the widespread proliferation of hot chocolate, which always tastes better on long, cold, aimless walks. I love the seasonal return of the phrase, “Bundle up!”
The joy, however, is tinged with melancholy. Certainly there are regrets accumulated across the year and carried over from previous years, and the confrontation with the reality that it is time that has passed. The future on the horizon assumes the sensation of being larger than life, so much unknown now at my doorstep. This year has been the heaviest yet (aren’t they all?), and with the who-knows-what political rollercoaster that awaits us in January and all the disasters that have tallied up till this precise moment, it’s all feeling a bit…bleak. As a chronic worrywart since childhood, it’s this time of the year that mandates I stop looking so far forward and begin taking in the everyday. Hence trees and hot chocolate, mid-week viewings of Father of the Bride, Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life etc., Mariah Carey’s highest note and garlands, and my favourite activity of all – getting dressed!
One thing I’m not interested in is a how-to on “holiday party” dressing. Holiday parties in fashion media has increasingly come to mean those at the top of the totem pole in the fashion industry, such as editors, influencers, random beautiful people who seem to be everywhere all the time, coming together to ultimately sell something and make us feel a little bad about ourselves for not being a part of this orbit. All that staged exclusivity – with time, wisdom, a few hard knocks and first-hand experiences – is rather boring to me. I don’t think we need to save clothes that make us happy for a hypothetical special occasion. Who needs more regrets? Not I! What delights me, even on otherwise wistful days, is dressing for a party to do very everyday things, aka life is a party dressing.
I.
My husband and I got married five days before Christmas in 2020, a day before New York City was due for another lockdown. We were a total of eleven people, ourselves included, at our wedding. Our best friends and most of our family couldn’t be there. In the lead-up to the day, I knew there obviously wouldn’t be a lovely send off (it was just us and my tearful parents and my foot turning to ice in a mound of snow) or a sunny honeymoon or the requisite post-wedding family gatherings of Bengali families. All I wanted was a ridiculous and very pretty dress or two to potter about at home in after our wedding. So while everyone was stockpiling sweatpants (don’t worry, I had already amassed my fair share), I logged on to eBay and stocked up on dresses by the godmother of ridiculous and very pretty dresses, Simone Rocha.
II.
And oh were those dresses worn! After I’d awoken from my exhaustion-induced coma, we spent a few icy days in Springs, Long Island, and on our drive up I wore a jacquard and fur-accented dress from Spring 2015 (incidentally also worn by Keira Knightley, the eBay vendor’s main selling point) with our cat screaming hysterically on my lap. Even when I had to go to the emergency room and lost a fingernail on Christmas day, the aftermath of my husband preparing a romantic dinner for us, I did not give up on my “life is a party” dressing philosophy.
For an evening hot-chocolate walk, the juxtaposition of something pragmatic with something entirely fussy: a very practical coat and a very loud dress work quite well together for any inevitable chocolate spills. Or if you want to commit to the fuss, go full fussy by doubling up on (vintage and faux) fur, weird but sensible shoes and a flashy bag for an early-bird dinner at a restaurant where the clientele is painfully and expensively understated.
III.
I don’t know who decided it was gauche to wear silly things to do mundane activities, but for me it’s a stimulant, the only thing that gives me the willpower to leave the house on a grey and miserable day. An excerpt from a Vogue review of Prada’s Spring 2002 collection, which the gold skirt is from, serves as a good guiding principle when dressing up: “A vision of bygone splendor that never devolved into gratuitous flash.” So in practice, a tiara with this outfit = gratuitous flash, but a little old fur coat and oxblood velvet flats or patent boots (for the rain!) is giving bygone splendor. The math checks out as far as I’m concerned.
Lookalike styles of the skirt appeared on Miu Miu’s Spring 2024 runway, paired with striped t-shirts, oxford shirts, navy polos, and reasonable shoes, which I took as Miuccia Prada’s signal that we ought to inject a little glamour into the ordinary. Livens up my Trader Joe’s run for cheese puffs, dried mango strips, and eucalyptus stems! Honorable mention: the Bra bag from the Paris-based FANE; its strap goes easily over the arm of my swarthiest of coats, as well as this chunky fur coat.
IV & V.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m guilty of always reaching for a bland old sweater first, which is absolutely fine, but in the spirit of The Holiday Season, I’m giving my poor pilled sweaters and black trousers combination a much-deserved break. Red captures the spirit of the season, I think. After all, Santa Claus much prefers it and the Pope enjoys his Gammarelli socks in a radiant carmine hue.
I bought the bright red Prada jacket (Fall 1995) for my wedding as an added layer over the red and gold blouse for my sari. It was treacherously cold that day and snow blanketed the city. The tweedy coat and matching clutch which is actually a makeup bag are from Fall 2013. I don’t have a dog, but I imagine it could make for a motivating look for when you need to walk the dog but you just want to crawl into a hole, and the clutch would be great for stashing treats, waste bags, and emergency cigarettes.
VI.
Or you can’t go wrong with vintage Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche top to do nothing in particular!
Absolutely beautiful!
These outfits are spectacular, as are your special pieces! At the same time, they’re all so wearable. Hooray for wearing our magical pieces everyday.