The White T-Shirt Theory

There I am, trapped in a Bergdorf fitting room under the fluorescent lights. My complexion is now green. If we were on Broadway, I could be the witch from Wicked. But I’m in Bergdorf. Different drama. I’m drowning in a sea of T-shirts, fighting for dear life with price tags, hangers, and my sanity. They all look exactly the same. Every single one is wrong. It is a gloomy day in New York. Maybe my last.

Having just moved from London, I was living out of a carry on while my wardrobe was somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. I had forgotten to put AirTags in the container, which was enough to put me on edge. My last resort was to go shopping. With my inspiration somewhere in the Atlantic alongside my clothes, I started with the white T-shirt. Basic and riveting.

Fate had chosen Jen as my salesgirl that day. Fate had a sense of humor. Jen had no idea what she was in for. Together, we walked through the store as I picked white T-shirts from every single rack we passed. One became five, five became fifteen, and by the time we reached the fitting room, she was carrying enough white cotton to dress a small country. I could see Jen already calculating her commission, but I ignored it. I was solving my wardrobe crisis. Today was going to be a good day for both of us. Until it wasn’t. Thirty T-shirts later, neither of us felt the same.

There they were, an army of T-shirt prospects, innocent, lined up and eager to come home with me. I tried the first one on. Wrong. The second. Worse. By number ten, they were no longer T-shirts. They were mocking me. By fifteen, I hated them all. I hated myself. I even hated Jen. The first one was so transparent that it revealed not only my bra but aspirations no respectable woman shopping at Bergdorf would ever admit to having. I stared at myself in the mirror, greenish and offended. This was not a T-shirt. This was the road to social suicide.

The second one practically deprived my arms of any circulation while somehow hanging loose everywhere else. I didn’t even know that was technically possible. I turned to Jen. She looked away. The third looked effortlessly chic on the hanger. On me, it looked like I had given up on life altogether. Catastrophic. I sucked in my stomach, pulled at the sleeves, tucked it in, untucked it, and wiped the sweat from my face. How could a piece of fabric have this much power over me? Jen was useless. I looked around for her. Too late. She had moved on to greener pastures. I didn’t blame her. I was unbearable.

I was defeated, depressed, and one T-shirt away from being done with Bergdorf Goodman forever. Jen had left me to my misery. I deserved it. I started gathering the casualties when, buried underneath the pile of rejects, I spotted one last T-shirt. I almost left it there. I almost didn’t try it on. But I did. Perfect. The cotton was soft. The sleeves hit exactly where they should. It tucked without bunching and made the baggy jeans I was wearing look chic. I moved. Good. I danced a little. Still good. I wasn’t even that green anymore. I had found my white knight. I was saved.

It was The Row. It was $650. My white knight was a gold digger. We were no longer shopping for a basic. I was making financial decisions. I briefly considered a payment plan, Klarna-ing my way through it. Then whatever remained of my dignity kicked in. More importantly, I remembered where I was. You can’t Klarna at Bergdorf. You just can’t.

I said goodbye to my white knight and left him in his castle. He would find another damsel to save. Thirty T-shirts, one traumatized salesgirl, and a forbidden affair that could have cost me $650 later, I walked out of Bergdorf alone and empty-handed. All I had wanted was a white T-shirt.

On the way home, I kept thinking about those thirty T-shirts. How had something as simple as a white T-shirt turned into such a nightmare? Then it hit me. The problem was never the clothes. It was me. Me and everything I expected from them. There was never going to be one perfect white T-shirt.

First, the fitted one. Fitted, not clingy. His duty is to sit perfectly under a blazer without riding up or making me look fat. Tight enough to behave, loose enough to let me breathe. Then there is the T-shirt for my laid-back days. Completely different story. Oversized, but not borrowed. Relaxed, but not sloppy. His purpose is to make me look like I didn’t try. Have you met me? I always try. Moving on to the thick one. He is the responsible one of the bunch. His assignment sounds simple: keep my bra under control, structure my silhouette, and keep my private life private. On the skin, though, he has the texture of a moving box. Nobody has it all. And then, the old favorite. My actual favorite. Soft, stretched, and no longer entirely white. He has lost his shape and the right to leave the house, but not his raison d’être. I could never even think of throwing him away. He is no longer a T-shirt. He is a partner. He has earned his forever status.

Expecting one T-shirt to do it all was my mistake. Back home, as I emptied my carry on, I came across a T-shirt. My old favorite. He ignores every requirement and somehow wins every time.

So much for perfection.

Bisous,

Olympia