The A-List

I have closets and drawers stuffed with clothes. Enough things that if I wore a different item every day, I could make it from now until New Years without repeating a one. Why then does it always happen that across the span of a wardrobe's lifetime there's always that one particular piece of clothing, or particular outfit that I love more than all others that if I could, I would wear every day of the week? Everyone has their favorites whether it's a busted up, ripped up, beaten up old pair of jeans being held together by patches of old bandanas, hand-stitched at the crotch; an old t-shirt soft as butter, thread bare at the neck, that never ever gets thrown in with the regular wash; a leather jacket, circa 19--, ripping at the seams, buttons falling off and/or replaced several times.... we all own things like this. It's about how they look on, how they make you feel when you wear them, or better yet, how you felt when wearing them at a particular time in your life. They are the ones we love the most and would cry over longest if anything ever happened to them. They are the A-List.

Those who know me have heard me say that if there was ever a fire in my apartment bulding, god forbid, and I needed to evacuate, the first thing I'd grab and launch out my front window, before myself, is my old pair of flare 7s, blown out at the knee, the ones that fit my butt perfectly. Embedded into the fibers of these jeans is the dust, beer, sweat and peanut shells from dozens of perfect sunny summer saturday afternoons spent at Yankees games with my girlfriends, a couple of years ago. It was perhaps one of the best summer's I've ever spent here in New York. Wrapped up in those jeans are moments of hysterical laughter, cheers, commiseration, support, and bonding. I don't fold them in with the B-list stack of jeans. They hang solitarily on a smooth wooden hanger always at the ready whenever I'm feeling a little nostalgic for the good old days.

Today in Loehmann's, groping my way through the new stacks of JBrand jeans, I overheard a girl say to her friend how she desperately needed to do a Fall closet cleanout -- that it was time to get rid of those old Levi's she had, clogging up valuable closet space. My heart skipped a beat, and I paused, tempted to convince her otherwise, to consider the places and spaces in time those old Levi's had been with her through.

But I didn't. If they're A-list material, they'll make their own case to stay. On my way out I found an Italian wool and mohair cardigan in deep aubergine, with simple little buttons down the front--it'll look adorable with my American Vintage camisole, and 7s. A-list material? Not yet. But with time, experience, and a little seasoning, it just might earn its spot in my closet.