I Want To Be What She’s Wearing

Romance fiction sometimes gets a bad rap because we like to focus on clothes and shoes, and that’s not serious stuff. But I think that ignores a truth about people, and not just female people: we tend to invest meaning in special pieces of wearables, things that we wore at crucial times in our lives. I have a closetful of clothes I bought because I was sure if I wore That Thing, something magical would happen. Sometimes it did, and That Thing was a little bit magic after that; it soaked up the magic in the moment and became more than a dress or a shirt. Sometimes it becomes the Lucky Shirt that you always wear to take the big tests, run the big races. Sometimes it becomes armor against the world, the dress you wear that you know never fails. Cinderella isn’t the only one who’s transformed by a great dress; we walk taller when we know we’re looking good, smile wider; the classic makeover scene transforms more than the way the heroine looks, it changes who she is. Our clothes say so much about who we are and how we navigate the world that it’s not surprising that they figure in our fantasies, too.

I think that’s why so many great female characters come with or come to own great wardrobes. Not expensive wardrobes, not designer wardrobes, they just wear clothes that say, “This is who I am,” and those clothes make us like who they are even more, for the space of the story want to be them. For example:

I want to wear a black shirt and a leather jacket and try to understand what the hell Charlie Crews is talking about.

I want to wear mitered stripes and battle wits with Walter Burns (I think I crave the miters more than Walter, but it’s a close call).

I want to wear a worn leather jacket that fits me like a second skin and explain the 21st century to Ichabod Crane:

I want to wear a hat with a checked brim and tell Sam Tyler to stay. Forever.

I want to wear sharp black separates and fist bump with John Reese:

I want to wear pink sunglasses, a black leather jacket, and a poofy pink skirt on a motorcycle behind the Doctor.

Okay, clearly there’s a leather jacket in my future. What fictional character–book, TV, movie, graphic novel, whatever–made you say, “That. That’s what I want to be for awhile.” And why?