How My Mom Shaped My Style
The smell of freshly baked cookies wafts through our house every day during the summer. But even compared to her chocolate chip banana bread that melts in my mouth every morning over breakfast, my mom tells me I am her sweetest concoction.
Like mother, like daughter: we do the New York Times Crossword Puzzle together every evening and know the answers to all the same clues and we zone out at the same time during TV shows and can’t remember how far to rewind. We laugh so hard we pee, and we pee so much our hands are often dry from having washed them too many times.
Her doe-eyes and her perfect lips are striking but soft. And her demeanor is quite the opposite. With a sharp brain and a raunchy spirit, she banters and charms without even trying. And whenever someone meets the two of us together, my nickname instantly becomes Mini-Jill. We are the same, except for our style.
My mom grew up in Florida, so drop-off and pick-up at my progressive private school in downtown Manhattan was akin to school on Mars. Rather than rocking stilettos at 8am, my mom dripped herself in, not pearls, but sweatsuits. We had to write a sentence about our parents in kindergarten, mine, infused with shame, read, “sme moms war fanse clos but my mom wars swetpahnts.”
Despite her casual signature look, I’ve always been her American Girl Doll. From the Burberry bikini she tied onto me as a toddler to the hot pink cowboy boots she’d slip on my feet as though they were Cinderella’s slippers, she’d help me channel my funky, my fabulous and my fearless.
I’ve spent compulsively wearing tutus and years in blazers over Grateful Dead tees. Because, though my mom doesn’t dress up every day, her taste is impeccable. When she doesn’t dress up everyday, her taste is impeccable. When she puts an outfit together, it is effortless, interesting and original in a timeless way. And as a Jewish mother, her love language is caring for others. With me, that has manifested as indulging my shopping addiction.
At the beginning of high school, I began pulling away from the bold garb I had so confidently sported my whole life. I stopped expressing myself and began trying to impress other people. I began to emulate the girls with boyfriends who wore Brandy Melville tees and Lululemon leggings; the girls I thought were magnetic who wore Pretties tank tops and baggy jeans. When I started drifting away from the polka dot collared shirts my mom would buy me, she never expressed disdain. Instead, I came home from school one day to a pile of Brandy Melville clothing she bought me, giving me permission to try assimilating.
She let me buy slip-style dresses I had seen on Pinterest and although she said they looked like nightgowns, she supported me. She stood by me through my too-much-eyeliner 10th grade phase, and my dabbling in the Y2k craze. And when I was 12, we were in Paris and she saw a Maje bomber jacket. She was years ahead of the trend and bought it, so I could wear it when I was in college. In high school, I didn’t wear it to school a single time. I was nervous that it was too bold, too crazy.
Before high school, fashion was something fun that my mom and I would play with together. I would explore and experiment and always come back to her effortless style: sweatpants or jeans and a white tee shirt (to her, the ultimate rizzing outfit).
My mom has always given me all the tools to help me succeed. And I’m disappointed in myself that together we came to the conclusion that if she could help me look good, it would make me feel better too. That isn’t the type of person I want to be.
But, I haven’t been able to change overnight. In college now, I wear the Maje bomber jacket whenever the weather permits. I have adopted more of her effortless vibe, in what I’ve coined as my personal aesthetic for now: Snowboarder’s Girlfriend. And if a week is especially hard or I’m feeling extra down, I get a Pitney notification. Sometimes it’s her mouth-watering sweets, but most of the time it’s a red sheer sweater she dug out of her closet or a cheetah print slip she found on the internet.
My mom’s style is my pinnacle, she is my definition of beauty. And as we both grow up together, I hear her talking more and more about clothing not fitting right, or not feeling confident wearing her favorite tee shirts anymore because of how they hang. And to her, I say: I’ll always give you a bandaid, I’ll always find you a new white tee if it’ll help you get through the day with some extra pep in your step. But the way a tee shirt fits or your choice of tee shirt isn’t why you’re beautiful or why you’re special — you’re so much more than your clothes.