Not Oprah’s Book Club: Trappings

I’ve been following these Two Girls Working, as Tiffany Ludwig and Renee Piechocki call themselves, for awhile. They are just so damn interesting and original—think fraternal twin Miranda Julys with an overtly feminist bent. For years they’ve been traveling the country, having little parties (which they liken to community models like Mary Kay and Tupperware, but with 70s-style consciousness raising thrown in) and asking women one seemingly simple (but obviously complicated) question:

What do you wear that makes you feel powerful?

They also ask folks to come to the party dressed in that outfit. Sometimes they have repeat parties to get a sense of how women’s ideas about power and appearance change along with their lives.
As they make clear in the introduction to their new book, Trappings: “This book is not about fashion and to a large extent not even about clothing.� Instead it is about power, gender, class, race, color, sensuality, sexuality, globalization—you know, the whole gamut of what we express through our aesthetic choices. Clothing was just the way in.
The book has 61 women’s stories and pictures. There are eight year old girls in track suits and old women in ruffled blouses and police uniforms and lots of black and hats and dashikis and ponchos and hockey uniforms and…and…and…

There is really something for every reader here. The variability of the women creates this beautiful tapestry of contemporary womanhood—sometimes very traditional, sometimes bending gender entirely, sometimes clearly influenced by markets and media, sometimes seeming to sprout from an organic, familial place.
And the best thing is that it gets you really thinking about what is in your own closets, your own spilling to capacity drawers, your own shoe nests under the bed.
My answer: my mom’s cowgirl boots, my grandmother’s ring, good ass jeans, a vintage blouse, some bangles, and some big hoop earrings. OR knee high boots, a simple black dress, and big turquoise jewelry. Always long hair, very rarely makeup. Sometimes my father’s old rugby shirt. I obviously draw strength from a sense of matriarchy and familial history, plus my western roots, with a little of the style of my youth thrown in.
What about you?
Next Time: Refresh, Refresh by Benjamin Percy and then Choice by Karen Bender in honor of the upcoming anniversary of Roe vs. Wade.