It took me almost two decades to get my hands on this piece. A 2009 Balmain military denim jacket, the epitome of everything I worshipped about fashion. After a day of relentless bidding on eBay, it was mine. At last. The wait was over. Or so I thought. My beloved Balmain has been sitting quietly in the depths of my closet since its homecoming. Sleeping Beauty. Unworn. I’ll leave you to do the math.
I was 19 when I landed a very important job as an assistant to an editor at Madame Figaro in Paris. Every day, I scrolled through Style.com, pulled runway looks and called fashion houses. In my mind, I was doing the Lord’s work. You would have thought I worked at the White House. Back then, my devotion to fashion was very different. I never owned runway pieces, though being close enough to them was a thrill in its own right. I bought magazines, studied the runways and searched the high street for anything that came remotely close. Judging by the photographs, my sense of style was questionable. My obsession was not.
The fixation had a name. Balmain. To be precise, Look No. 16 from the Spring 2009 runway. It was all I could think about. The shoulders, the military buttons, the denim. Rihanna had it. I wanted it. I spent every second of my free time looking for dupes on the high street. I was not working much.
Years later, a trip down fashion memory lane brought me right back. I was curious to see what had happened to it, similar to looking up an old boyfriend on Instagram to see if he is married with kids or, even better, divorced and miserable. I checked 1stDibs, Vestiaire, The RealReal. Nowhere to be found. The obsession came roaring back. And then, there it was. On eBay. At auction. Mine.
After all that, I finally had it in my possession. It fit. I remembered exactly why I had fallen in love with it all those years ago. And then, as if returning a piece to the archives, I put it in the closet. If only I could tell you I was waiting for the right occasion. Clueless as to what I was waiting for, wearing it just to walk from one end of the apartment to the other was certainly not an option. Though why not? After all that fantasizing, my actual life did not seem to warrant it.
I hunted it for years. Now I was hunting for somewhere to wear it. I waited. Waited for a dinner, a party, a trip, anything that warranted the glamour and eccentricity. Invitations came. Plans were made. But somehow, it never made the final edit. There was always a reason. Too much for the day. Too precious for dinner. Too Balmain for a Tuesday.
At some point, I had to question the logic behind it. How special did life need to get before I could actually wear my clothes? If not now, when? At 50? 60? Pass them on to my daughter? Meanwhile, Tuesday kept showing up. Every single week. What if the occasion did not need to come first? What if I had it all wrong? Maybe I did not need a reason. Maybe wearing them was the reason.
Tuesday could be it. No special occasion. No perfect plan. No waiting for my social calendar to suddenly become more exciting. Which brings me back to my Balmain jacket. The exile lasted long enough. Almost 16 years to find it. Eighteen months to do absolutely nothing with it. It was time. This Tuesday, we are going out. Out of my closet. Out of my house. Where are we going? I have no idea. For once, it does not matter.
Bisous,