Dress-up

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was to dress up in my mom's old clothes/shoes or other things in our dress-up pile, and imagine myself a fairy, a princess, a superhero, a Fawncy Lady in a floppy green felt hat, somewhere else and someone else.

One of the pieces in my dress-up wardrobe was an old bone-colored slip of my mom's, half lace, that was held up by tying the straps into knots. I imagined that one day I'd have boobs that would fill it out, and I regularly paired with with any number of other pieces to become something I was not.


With my best preschool friend Megan, who is wearing a clown costume my mom made. I think in this photo I'm 4 or 5. We are in the chicken coop, as you can see from the small chicken behind me. I still remember choosing that particular strand of yarn to belt my "dress". And I'm still a fan of braids.



Taken at the same time as the first photo here. Lissa is wearing my old swan costume from my first ballet recital. I've got the slip tucked into a sparkly blue skirt, and I'm holding a fairy princess wand. It looks like June from the flowers, so I'm probably seven and Lissa not yet four.

Somehow, I ended up with that slip as an adult - I'm not sure if I borrowed it from my mom for some occasion and never gave it back, or what, but the realization I had when I was big enough to untie the straps and fill out the lace bit on the top was pretty mind-blowing. I don't think I still have it - if memory serves, it finally disintegrated sometime during my college years. But I've got the photographic evidence, and the memories of feeling like a Fawncy Lady in the chicken coop.