015: That Time of the Month (Summer Edition)
Dressing for when you're sweaty AND swollen
I write to you from the tail end of yet another grueling period during the first official subtropical week of summer in the city. Over the years and with no resolve in sight, I’ve learned to manage physical symptoms with the usual suspects, such as heat, magnesium supplements, summoning demons, a pharmacy’s worth of Ibuprofen, and the Husband Massage, a lower back massage your husband is legally bound to give you from here to eternity the very second you are wed. Two decades of mind-numbing periods have also honed my skills on dressing for the changes that manifest in my body for about a week each month, from bloating and swelling to feeling total and utter misery.
As I am the sort of character prone to turning on myself, the brief but difficult shifts that take place in my body leading up to and during my period can lead me down a slippery path of exacting an emotional cruelty I reserve expressly for myself. For nearly twenty years I’d been frustrated and upset that clothes which fit yesterday did not today, unhappy that pieces I loved and brought me joy suddenly had the opposite affect. Most clothing designed expressly for comfort made me feel quite unlike myself and designed pieces brought me great discomfort. I wanted to wear silly lovely things that had a little extra room for my exhausted and agonizing body.
Last year during a trip to Milan, I met the Perguia-based designer Sara Lanzi, whose garments gracefully reconcile the conflicts and chaos of a woman’s mind and her relationship with her body. Like her mentor Rei Kawakubo (but of a very different style and approach), Sara and her team craft clothes that are informed to delight and uplift its wearer. Few womenswear designers design with the realities of a woman’s life in mind, the external and internal tribulations she endures daily; the woman must adapt to the garment, rarely is it the opposite. When I tried on Sara’s clothes, I felt instantly relaxed and relieved. It was sweltering in Milan, and not a lot of my summer clothes were pure cotton or linen (what’s that all about!?). Sara gifted me black cotton dress with a voluminous skirt and a top that expands and contrasts with the use of ties in the back that has become my summertime mainstay, regardless of what time of the month it is.
A few months later, while on a quest to find a white cotton mid-length skirt that was just right, I knew that Sara Lanzi would have the perfect one for me: elastic waistband, deep pockets, generous pleats. The skirt, however, was from a previous season and thus sold out, but I sent the designer a pleading message, and lo and behold, there was one skirt in her inventory in my size. While some may articulate that wearing all white on the second day of one’s flow could be perceived as chaotic, I would counter that worn with unflappable cotton underwear from Marks & Spencer – tried and tested, I’ve been wearing their underpinnings since I was a child – and minty-fresh pads (quite literally infused with essential oils including mint) from The Honey Pot, helmed by Beatrice Dixon, the sky is the limit!
My recipe for summertime period-dressing, as in dressing for my period and not panniers and corsets, is as follows: garments that float away from the body but retain structure through masterful cutting of the cloth or the use of exaggerated pleating along the neckline or waist. Capacious sleeves, and cavernous pockets for comfort. After wearing trousers nearly the entirety of winter, this is the season I will circumvent the wearing of pants as best as I can, particularly during the most odious time of the month. Even the shoes I wear have to be carefully considered as my feet swell, ergo blisters.
Whenever I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to another country and my feet are at peak balloon from hours and miles of walking, I hobble over to local shoe stores that sell shoes which are crafted better to suit their environments and the daily demands of their wearers, and these are some of the only shoes that can house my feet in my physically vulnerable state. Espadrilles from Barcelona, Friulanes from Milan and so on. And with that reasoning in mind, Crocs and Birkenstock-adjacent shoes make most sense, for they are the most comfortable and designed for living in (I absolutely CANNOT wear socks and sneakers in the heat). But having been raised by a mother who would recoil at the very notion of humdrum footwear, my comfortable soles are bastardized versions of the originals: the preferred shoes of healthcare professions but make them Simone Rocha; Woodstock but slap on a blinding buckle or snazzy blue raffia.
Before I sign off, I wanted to note that all these photos were taken on the first and second days of my last two periods. I am nothing if not committed to the cause, suffering for my art, realer than real and so forth. Until next time!