Connections: The Way We Wore

Whenever the season changes, I think of a woman who worked at The Star some years back who arrived every day more than impeccably dressed. To be sure, she was fashionable, but every outfit also seemed brand new. She would tell us she had a relative who worked in retail and could pass along nice things, but that didn’t seem to account for it. I couldn’t help wonder if she sent every garment to a thrift shop after wearing it once.

As for me, I hold on to my clothes for a long, long time. Sometimes it’s a good thing, sometimes not. One now-vintage dress I still own and wear occasionally in summer is a sleeveless, full-length Marimekko number in a purple and, yes, turquoise print that I bought way back when Marimekko had a shop in East Hampton, where Domaine Wines and Spirits is today, or thereabouts. It had to have been in the 1970s. It’s gratifying to find a past purchase still holds up in taste and quality. There’s definitely nothing wrong with an old but simple cashmere turtleneck, either. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, the quality of cashmere turtlenecks has dropped precipitously in recent decades, and in this case older is actually better.

Of course, most of us are apt to save clothing worn on ceremonial occasions. For men, that might be an army or navy uniform, or a varsity jacket; for women, the dresses they were married in. I’ve got two of them, although I never wore either a second time and don’t expect I ever will. One — an electric-blue satin shift that you could imagine being worn onstage by a member of the Supremes — is hidden in a closet tucked away in the back of our upstairs storage room; I think the last person to wear it was my daughter, at about the age of 12, when she tried it on and accidentally ripped one of the seams. She kept this youthful accident a secret for 20 years at least — which shows you how often I’ve seen the first wedding dress over the decades. My other wedding dress is kept in the back of my everyday closet, in my bedroom, and when I get a peek at it now and again it does rekindle joy.

Unfortunately, there are many more things crammed in these closets that once looked good, and once fit perfectly, but don’t anymore. Do I really need my high school drum-majorette outfit? How about that ’80s shearling coat with the prizefighter shoulders?

I’ve just had another birthday, and my husband and daughter gave me new clothes as presents. I particularly like a funnel-neck pullover from J. Jill in lavender-gray. It looks modern to my eye. I am aware that my family gave me clothes because, despite the crammed confines of my bulging closet, I am known to frequently bemoan the fact that I have “nothing to wear.” The seasons are changing. It’s time for me to purge my closet. I haven’t done it in years.

If you peruse the racks at the Ladies Village Improvement Society’s Bargain Box, it is clear than many stylish women make it a habit to deposit their not-veryold outfits and accessories as a donation. I imagine this habitual kind of closetfreshening being penciled into datebook calendars, Martha Stewart style, twice-yearly. While I’m not certain if my own discards could be classified as desirably vintage (and I know for certain they don’t fall into the “nearly new” category), I am steeling my courage and letting it all go.

The start of fall, however, was not simply a signal to get our belongings in order. It took a sad turn.

We had expected the small, shaggyhaired black terrier we adopted at the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons at the beginning of summer to be with us for a long, long time. She was young, and we named her Sookie. She was adorable, cheerful, sweet, amusing, even captivating. Outdoors, she had boundless energy. Indoors, she loved to climb up onto laps. We all agreed she would make an outstanding circus dog: She could rise up on her hind legs and dance around in circles to greet newcomers. She charmed everyone.

The only thing we didn’t love about Sookie was the fact that she was so determined to hunt. She loved the chase. She tried really hard to catch a chipmunk under the backdoor steps, and managed to dislodge with her snout a shingle on the outside wall of the sun porch, when attempting to bring a creature to bay.

Before bringing Sookie home, we had made all possible preparations, installing a fence around a large part of the garden, making sure the gates had latches. On the first day she lived with us, Sookie ran into her yard and raced around with a kind of obsessive glee. We all said the yard and house were dog heaven.

She disappeared the night of the eclipse, the so-called blood moon. One minute she was in the kitchen saying hello, the next minute she had trotted outside to do her accustomed rounds. When she didn’t come running back into the house when called, I searched the yard with a flashlight. It took a few minutes to realize that someone had left the gate ajar. She had bolted, chasing a squirrel or chasing moonbeams.

She was found two mornings later in the driveway of a nearby house.

Dark dog, dark night, dark road.

We don’t know what life on the streets of Rincon, Puerto Rico, where she was found before being shipped up to ARF, was like for her, but she had a happy time in East Hampton while summe lasted.