Search and Rescue
End page, David Bellingham, Art & Research, Volume 1. No 2. Summer 2007 (find image online here)
Content warning: brief mention of suicide, eating disorders
On the screen, the lecturer of my graduate school seminar was sharing a piece of art. White letters on a cobalt-blue background read “I don’t know about research. I’m just searchin’.” I found myself thinking about the artwork post-lecture, and I emailed the professor to ask about the artist, David Bellingham. Years later and I don’t remember anything about that lecture, or the context for the piece, but the .jpg still lives on my desktop.
In hindsight, it’s a tidy summation of my graduate school experience and the years after. I graduated with a Master’s degree in Dress and Textile Histories in the fall of 2016. Five years later, I often wonder if all I needed was more therapy. I went to graduate school because I was interested in the relationship between fashion and the body. I’ve always liked “old clothes,” and I’m in recovery from an eating disorder, so it wasn’t surprising that I wanted to investigate the connection.
“Five years after grad school, I often wonder if all I needed was more therapy.”
It really does sound so cool: fashion history. I’m studying to be a fashion historian. “What are you doing after you graduate?” “I’m moving abroad for my Master’s in fashion history.” My undergraduate institution profiled me ahead of graduation. My senior thesis about the paper clothing fad of the 1960s won the prize for the best thesis in the History Department. There seemed to be reassurance from every corner that this was my unique path, that I was going to do something interesting (and perhaps even useful) with all this baggage I carried around.
I have fond memories of my time in graduate school, to be sure. But what I mainly remember is food, or rather the lack of food I was eating and the food I was obsessing over, simultaneously. I remember, specifically, Ben and Jerry’s: I often bought pints of Phish Food when it was on clearance at the Sainsbury's at the end of my street. I remember being deeply concerned that I was eating too much Phish Food.
The food “stuff” was not surprising—I was well aware I was bringing my eating disorder with me to grad school—but the rest of my mental health was quickly going to hell in a handbasket. I was racked with anxiety and panic attacks, often hiding under my metal twin bed frame because it was a comforting and cramped space. I told my therapist I was thinking about suicide, and she handed me some printouts from the NHS that talked about what to do when you’re in a “blue period.” I didn’t know how to express that I felt we were way beyond a blue period.
Sometimes I’ll be doing the dishes or some other innocuous activity when I remember that I once emailed my thesis advisor—a senior faculty member at one of the most prestigious museums in the field—telling her that there was a chance I’d be dropping out of the program because of my declining mental health. I don’t feel shame: if anything I think I should be proud of myself for acknowledging that finishing out the year may not have been in my best interest. But still, that’s not exactly what you want to be remembered for.
Post-graduate (I somehow made it through), I crash-landed at my parents’ house and began to job hunt. I applied for as many jobs as I could, and I worked part time at a JOANN Fabrics and Crafts. Considering I worked at the cutting counter with fabric all day, it was technically a job in my field. Eventually, I moved back to my college town. I didn’t have a “fashion” job lined up, and there weren’t really any to be found, but I knew that going in. My logic was, I’d rather be a big fish in a virtually nonexistent pond than compete with everyone in my field for the few-and-far-between open curatorial positions.
I spent some time working for a high-end designer vintage seller in their office in rural North Carolina. I opened my own online vintage store, focusing on early 20th century fashion. I got business cards. I wrote an article for Racked, all about being a “dress historian that can’t get dressed.” I worked with a consultant to build a program of styling services for clients who were struggling with personal style and body image. My headshots show me, dressed in vintage clothing, smiling at the camera. I was the dress historian who could help other people get dressed!
“All those days in a classroom, I wanted something from a fashion history textbook to unlock a secret to dealing with my body and getting dressed. I didn’t realize that just by putting on another old piece of clothing I patched up and going out into the world, I was doing that very repair work I so needed. One repair at a time, I stitch my way toward a finished product that looks something like healing.”
That was the closing of my Racked article, in 2018. I meant it when I wrote it, but I don’t feel anywhere near that healing now.
“My closet is 90% empty hangers.”
At the time of this writing, I work full-time for a pottery company. When I applied I did make some big deal about material culture, and the tactile parallels between ceramics and clothing. But I don’t even work hands-on with the pottery, and there is nothing to remind me of clothing in my day-to-day job responsibilities.
The aesthetic trappings of my fashion historian days are long gone. I kept some sentimental pieces, but I sold off the majority of my extensive vintage clothing wardrobe. Not because I didn’t like the clothes, but because I didn’t fit in them anymore. My website currently displays a “coming soon” page. I just recently disabled the pages that talk about the styling services I once offered. My Instagram account, where I once marketed my business and shared graphics I produced on free editing software, lies mostly dormant. My closet is 90% empty hangers.
Aside from the prevalence of fashion history books on the bookshelves in my living room, nothing about me or my current life would suggest I was once crafting a career around an idea of using my personal mental health issues to understand my field and help other people.
To be clear, you don’t have to do any of these things to be a fashion historian. You don’t have to wear vintage clothing, or “brand” yourself, or dress like you’re going to a funeral in 1926 just to go to the grocery store. That’s just how I approached it all, consciously or not. And so it makes sense that when what I wanted from a job shifted and my life shifted and we all went inside, all of those trappings that held up this life where my work and my pain were interchangeable fell away.
“Somewhere along the way, deep in the seam where it couldn’t be seen, I stitched parameters: as long as I was all of these things, as long as I was doing something “useful” with all my pain, as long as I still fit into my vintage clothes, I was worthy of acceptance. ”
By the time COVID-19 sent me home from work in March of 2020, I had already been “out of my field” for some time. I was working for the company I am now, and I spent most of 2020 answering emails in a pair of ratty PJs I had owned since 2010. The dress historian had indeed circumvented the issue of getting dressed: you don’t have to get dressed if you stay in your PJs all day.
It was a little funny to observe from inside my house that there was a moment when the fashion historians were in the spotlight. Suddenly, everyone I knew was writing a pitch for some outlet about masks and style during the influenza pandemic of 1918. I kept seeing articles talking about how fashion was going to change, how we could rejoice in the break from bras and workplace dress codes, and what tie-dye sweat co-ord set to buy. I wondered if I should get in on the action. It seemed to be an easy moment to “return,” to pitch articles and wield that hard-earned degree. I was a fashion historian too, after all.
I’m not sure about research. I’m just searchin’.
I try not to think about it all in terms of what I did “wrong.” Things just change. I had a moment of clarity, some months ago, where I realized I did build a business and personal brand around the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Plenty of people do this successfully: people overcome obstacles and in turn help others because they know just how hard it is. That’s what I thought I was going to do. But most days it takes 99% of what I have just to help myself, and I am working for more of those brief moments while eating with friends or watching a good movie or dancing around my house when I stop thinking about my body. That was hard to do when fashion and bodies were my job.
Truthfully, my self-built career and my personal style and my “brand” were, in many ways, the conditions of my worth. Somewhere along the way, deep in the seam where it couldn’t be seen, I stitched parameters: as long as I was all of these things, as long as I was doing something “useful” with all my pain, as long as I still fit into my vintage clothes, I was worthy of acceptance. The problem is, if there are conditions to your worth, there is a good chance you’ll one day come up against those conditions. And when you are alone in your house, in the space beyond where you said you’d like yourself, you’ll have to start over again from there, in your ratty PJs.
I’m moderately intrigued to see what I’ll do, if anything, with “fashion” in the future. As long as we’re all wearing clothes, I’ll continue to occupy the spot at the convergence of my personal and academic lives. I’m sure there will be good insights from that vantage point, and I’ll try to resist the urge to “do” something with them. Less in my head about it all, more in my body. After all, my body doesn’t care if I’m wearing vintage or the same shapeless linen dress day after day. Being comfortable is not a sin. The people who love you love you for more than your clothes or your style. Your body does not have to be an endless project you apply all of your book-learning to.
Maybe I learned everything I learned just to learn that.
