Quarantine Granny Challenge
Friend:
In the wide plethora of styles and colors and tastes and trends that sweep the world there are some things that aren’t questionable. Classic cut jeans, lace, a well-brimmed hat, a tailored blazer, a navy pin-stripe tee, button down, or linen shirts.
Some things are just classic, like navy.
Quarantine Granny is not. Dreamed up by ‘Las Pulgas Rosas,’ a sister-duo in Honduras whose Instagram page is headed as “not a cute page,” the challenge is designed to take people out of their comfort zones.
I met the two sisters a few years ago at a local conference; the grand finale being a formal dinner. For the dinner I choose to wear a dress somewhere between gala and Cinderella, which is to say it was black, with layers and layers of tulle in the skirt. It was swishy and wonderful and just a tad out of the box for what the general attendee was going to be wearing to this dinner. I wore it anyway, probably because my roomie talked me into it and not any bravery of my own, and happened to sit next and near the sisters of ‘Las Pulgas Rosas.’
We ended up in a wonderful conversation about dressing outside the box, and combined colors, textures, prints and styles for unique expressions of personal style. I knew I had found fashion kindred spirits. We didn’t just connect over a shared interest, but the spirit behind the interest.
A while later, they founded their Instagram page to showcase what they sourced from thrift bins. Now it’s not that what they do is exactly fashion, you wouldn’t recognize their creations as something to fit the average street style, but comes under more a heading of sartorial art. Whenever they post, I devour to see what their unexpected creativity has constructed this time (I’m not paid to write this for them).
When they put together #quarantinegrannychallenge it was not to be particularly vintage, unless you wanted to be. It was to challenge oneself to put together an outfit without buying anything new, to make it something you’d wear to an event, and something you wouldn’t normally wear. I wanted to be bright and bold and weird and layered and textured, but I kept coming back to the fact that, for me, this would be a way for me to hide behind a statement. Those things are perfectly valid and fine, and may be someone else’s courage, but for me to really challenge myself, I had to return to something I haven’t really considered in years.
Romance.
When I was about 18-years-old I made a skirt which could’ve been modest enough to please a Victorian granny. It was cut as a circle, and had probably 5 yards of fabric in it. It was heavy, too.
On a whim I took it on a trip to WI to visit friends and our last night there we rolled back the rugs, old-fashioned style, turned polka music up loud, and danced. I had no idea how to dance at that time, but it wasn’t really a big deal. We were having fun. I let go of my inhibitions that night, and just danced.
As we got ready to leave later my friends’ dad shook my hand and said, “you know, you have a romantic soul.”
Mind you, I was a little afraid of this guy. He was of a commanding sort. He was known for pursuing excellence, and he wouldn’t stop until he made the perfect pound cake, brewed wonderful coffee, or made the pizza he envisioned in his head. He was a bit of an anomaly, actually, being an expert witness for OSHA on one hand, and grower of roses and baker of cakes on the other. He loved wind chimes, he loved good sound, he loved good food, but because he was taciturn, a bit stern, and reserved, I was intimidated.
Nevertheless, it was one of the first times in my life I felt truly seen.
I remembered what he said when a friend, and one of my pastors, told me it was ok to let my softer side out. Of course I was strong and stable and capable, but I didn’t have to stifle this other part of me.
I remembered what he said when I learned to dance, and suddenly knew the exquisite pleasure of creating beauty through motion, and the submission two people must have of the other while dancing.
I remembered what he said when I prepared for Quarantine Granny.
I pulled out the tweeds, the blazers, the weighty ideas and colors.
On my door hung a tulle skirt. A few months ago on one of my hunts through thrift stores I had picked it up and almost didn’t buy it. Where would one wear a tulle skirt? It was by Adrianna Papell, a designer I admire, and I finally took it with me because I reckoned on selling it for a pretty penny — but then I just couldn’t sell it.
It hung there, until I took it down last Tuesday. I paired it with a pink satin sleeveless blouse. I found my green heels tied with a green satin ribbon. From a foraged walk along my street came little green leaves and pink and yellow flowers. All weeds; I couldn’t justify picking any of the neighbor’s actual flowers. My one cheat was buying a kind of makeup glue, so that I could arrange a bouquet of flowers on my face.
The final touch was a pink fur coat.
A friend joined me, and my roommate agreed to take photos. What followed felt like a fairytale, if fairytales can miss the prince and be about two friends caught in the magic of creativity and beauty.
At 18, the perception of my friend’s dad was not an expressed reality.; I was not particularly interested in anything too froofy. If someone had told me in ten years I’d be doing makeup for brides I would’ve laughed. The idea of “taking care of myself” in almost any form seemed high-maintenance or vain.
And yet… life has a funny way of bringing us growth and change and opportunity. I began to deal with areas of shame and perceptions about what it really means to be a woman, and with it came the freedom to experiment and sculpt a personal meaning of beauty. I learned who I was would not, and could not, change according to how I looked, but that how I looked would change according to how I understood and viewed my identity. It always works from the inside to outside.
Kerri, my dear friend and comrade-in-challenge, is one of the brides I did makeup for several years ago, and it was a pure pleasure to do the eye makeup for her the other night. It’s not hard. She’s stunning. She had rescued an old 1950s nightgown when a friend was cleaning out a basement, and wore it perfectly. To us, it just looks like a dress, but I’m guessing the good grannies from the 50’s would be a trifle shocked at our liberty.
In this next one I asked her to look as if she had just spurned Mr. Darcy. She nailed it.
In this photo, I didn’t intend for it to come across as a “don’t mess with me look….” But it did, which is a little amusing. It’s been me all my life. Surprisingly forceful. Often, I have deliberately weakened or watered my approach in order not to come across too strong. When people say they just want you to be yourself, they don’t always know what they would be unleashing. <grin>
I’ve always felt the most kinship to water and waterfalls. It’s peaceful and refreshing to sit and watch, until you get in and the current catches you. I’ve unwittingly nabbed many an unsuspecting person that way. The surface looks peaceful, but ‘master the tempest rages!’
Part of this seeming contradiction in myself is I’ve had a particularly hard time coming to terms with obvious femininity, which to me is often presented as weakness. I would avoid the more overt forms girl-style because I wanted to reject that weakness, but as I’ve learned and grown in spirituality and faith I have begun to see how little the world understands the power of weakness. Some of the greatest changes, for good or ill, this world has seen were through the people who were willing to become weak, to be made strong; Jesus being the most notable example.
But it is not lost on me that Jesus was born of a woman - that salvation of the world came through women. There is something apparently really special about “weakness.” Something that converts into power when the world isn’t watching. Something that both men and women are called to partake of — because until we do we risk using our natural powers for something other than truth. Until we do, we misunderstand ourselves and present versions of ourselves which may not be quite true.
The general idea is that we pretend to other people about who we are, but are honest in our understanding of ourselves. I think when we understand that we are first inauthentic to ourselves and God, we can begin to understand why we pretend to other people. I catch myself doing it all the time. I know how I truly feel about something, but I’ll spin endless yarns to myself and God hypothesizing something, anything else that is deemed worthy by me to receive compassion and love.
I’ve pretended to other people for a long time that I’m not a hopeless romantic. In reality, that is a pretty legitimate part of myself. I thought it made me weak, but I’m seeing now that it is my dishonesty which makes me weak. If I can be honest about this, it doesn’t really matter if I wear a tulle skirt and sit somewhere discussing politics and philosophy. It is why I choose to wear this particular outfit. I am choosing to be honest about my weakness as a human and woman, so that strength may come through me. So that the natural “waterfall” strength which God has given me may be used to work for good, and not ill.
We none of us are strong, whether man or woman, until we have learned to place our weakness in a truer light of God.
Kerri said the other night that the idea of doing something stretching for herself had to go beyond color or mixing styles, prints and textures. She said she tends to take refuge behind color, so she choose this dress because of it’s incredible simplicity and monochromatic tones. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone “get” this look better than she did.
Click on the right of the photo set to see more.
Out of several hundred photos you would probably beg for mercy, or give up on this post altogether. I won’t post them all. It was a beautiful evening, we felt beautiful, and when the conditions are just right according to the ways of women many photos ensue — complete with a selfie.
I will always treasure the evening. For Kerri and our friendship which means so much to me — for the creativity of kindred spirits who challenge each other to try new things, and for massively large slices of apple cake with ginger custard we consumed afterward. We are not models, after all, and we enjoy this thing called life with keenness and zest. Whether knee deep in dirt, and three inches high on heels, or three inches deep in cake.
Thank you for tuning in here. If you want to participate, please drop a comment below and tell me what about yourself feels like a contradiction.
Love,
L. Raine
