Grave Apparel (6 page)

Your
craziest
Christmas
sweater
may
make
people
smile, or laugh, or question your taste or your
sanity,
but the bottom line is that it is your choice, your decision, and you are free to make it.
It’s
time to lighten up, people! After all, it is the Season of Light.

Christmas
sweaters
are as
welcome
on
my
holiday
landscape as Björk wearing a stuffed swan to the Acad emy
Awards.
Comedy on the hoof is always welcome, and that Icelandic songstress in a swan can lighten up my Oscars any time she wants. After all, do we want our stars to always be tastefully attired? No.
W
e
want them to spurn common sense, to wear what strikes their
fancy,
to
be
brave,
to
be
festive,
even
foolish.
So
let’s
think
about
those
Christmas
sweaters.

Are they festive? Of course. Are they foolish? I plead
eyeofthebeholder
here.

Are they stylish? Almost certainly not. But who cares? Most Christmas apparel in
W
ashington,
D.C., is merely
more
of
the
same
old
same
old:
gray,
beige,
black,
navy

blue, and more
gray.
A little taupe, for the daring.
Don
we
now
our
grave
apparel!

You’re
almost ready to give up hope that
there’s
even one person out there willing to celebrate the season. And then,
suddenly,
there
she
is.
She walks into the restaurant
on
Connecticut
Avenue.
A
woman
who
makes
you
stop
and stare. She is wearing a white turtleneck, a red cor duroy
jumper,
kneehigh red leather boots, and a sweater that simply makes the outfit. It might make it outrageous, but it also might make it sublime.

The sweater is a black cardigan trimmed in white faux
fur
,
and circling the gar
ment
are
puffy
grinning Santa Claus faces, made from felt and cotton balls. This woman
is in
her
element.
She
may
not
even
be
wearing
this
sweater
as an ironic statement. But
that’s
okay,
because Christmas is not about
irony.
At least
she’s
making a statement.

And
then you
notice other
diners
sneaking a
look,
smiling, chuckling, because, well, someone had the
nerve
to
wear
it.
It’s
not
even
an
expression
of
neoretro
pseudofauxsatiricalironicpostmoder
n
anything.
It’s
Christmas! If someone wants to wear a holiday sweater or a stuffed swan, why not? Or a stuffed
turkey
,
just to
keep
it
seasonal.

So
celebrate
your
season,
whatever
the
season.
Do
it
in
style,
whatever
style
that
may be. And maybe,
just
maybe, we in
Washington
should learn not to take our selves so
seriously.
If you feel compelled to wear an out
ward
expression
of
your
inner
feelings,
now
is
the
time.
Don’
t
let the fashion curmudgeons tell you not to listen to
your
hear
t,
even
if
your
heart
yearns
for
a
sweater
encir
cled with a chorus line of highkicking Rockettes who light
up
and
sing.
Get
your
kicks
this
Christmas!
Don’
t
be
afraid to march to the beat of that distant
drummer
.
Or maybe just the beat of the Little Drummer
Boy.

Pa rum pa pum pum!

The
following
afternoon
everything
seemed to be going so well.
Lacey
was
rushing,
like
her
fellow
reporters and editors at
The
Eye
,
to
make
an early deadline. Publisher Claudia
Darnell’s
an
nual
Christmasslashholiday
party
would
fill
the
National
Press Club that night, the
first
Friday
evening
in
December.

There
was
no
apparent
fallout
from
Lacey’s
Christmas
sweater “Fashion
Bite,”
either positive or negative. It was
ac
companied
by
an
Editor’s
Note
that
it
was
in
fact
editorial
page writer Cassandra
Wentworth
who had written
The
Eye
’s
previous
editorial
on
this
subject,
and
not
fashion
writer
Lacey Smithsonian, as many readers had assumed. “
The
Eye
Street
Observer
regrets
any
confusion
in
the
minds
of
our
readers,”
etc.

Christmas
has
been
saved,
Lacey
thought.
And
my
hide
along with
it.
Just
in time
for
the
party.

Then she glanced up from her midafternoon decaf.

Like
a small dark specter of doom, Cassandra appeared on the horizon. She
looked
like
a
bony
knobbykneed insect in her black tights and
yellow
windbreaker.
She
was
striding purpose fully
toward
Lacey,
her streamlined
yellow
helmet
tucked
under her left arm, a grim look on her
face.

No matter
how
cold it
was,
unless there
was
a foot of ice and
snow
on the ground, Cassandra rode her
bike
to the
office.
She
saved
fuel. She
saved
the planet. She
was
“carbon
neutral.”
She
was
a shining
example
for the rest of the slobs who
worked
at
The
Eye
. No rest for the ecologically correct. But
first
there
was
a
fashion
reporter to torment. Cassandra had a mad gleam in her eye.
She
gestured
at
Lacey
with
a
waddedup
page
of
their
newspaper.

“Just what do you call this?” She
threw
the thing at
Lacey.

She missed.

“Bad
aim?
It
works
better
if
you
make
it
into
an
airplane.
Like
this.”
Cassandra
stood
and
fumed
as
Lacey
deftly
folded
the
page
into
a
paper
airplane
with
part
of
the
headline
visible: it’s
just
a
christmas
sweater
!
She
launched
it
back
at
Cas
sandra.
“My
Fashion
Bites
column.
Via
airmail.”

The spirit
was
willing,
but
the
newsprint
was
flimsy,
and the plane fell to the ground. Cassandra stomped her
yellow
running shoe on
Lacey’s
column.

“Everything’s
a
joke
to you!
You
contradicted
everything
I
said!”

“Really?
Everything?”
Lacey
said. “I
wasn’t
keeping
a tally of
everything
you
ever
said. I mean, who has the time?” She stretched. “Lighten up, Cassandra,
it’s
just an opinion, a little fun.
It’s
Christmas.”

“You’re
defending Felicity Pickles!”

“I’m not defending
Felicity.”
That
would
be the last thing she
would
do.
Lacey
looked
around to see who might be listen ing. Luckily Felicity
wasn’t
around. “I just
don’t
advocate
rip ping Christmas sweaters
off
little old ladies and shipping them
off
to
thirdworld
countries. Um, the sweaters, not the little old
ladies.”

“That’s
not
exactly
what I
said.”
Cassandra
puffed
out her chest in indignation.

“I
paraphrased.”

“You
made fun of me!”

“I
have
not yet
begun
to
make
fun,”
Lacey
retorted.
“And
don’t
you think
there’s
room for more than one opinion on
any
given
issue? And a little fun too?”

“Opinion? Is that what you call it? This
drivel?”

Lacey
felt her cheeks blush red,
but
she decided it
was
more interesting to
watch
Cassandra
quiver
in indignation than to get indignant herself.

“Opinion.
Yes,
that’s
what I call
it.”
She decided to change the subject. “But speaking of Christmas and not its sweaters,
aren’t
you going to change into something
festive
for the
office
Christmas party tonight?” She
surveyed
the
woman’s
bike
togs.
“Okay,
maybe
festive
is the wrong
word.
Something more suit able.
Gravely
and somberly
celebratory.
You
know:
‘Don we
now
our
grave
apparel’?
Fa
la la la la?”

“It’s
a
holiday
party,
not a Christmas party!” Cassandra cor rected
her.
“And
I
don’t
think I could be
happy
eating
like
a pig and swilling booze
like
a camel when there are oppressed peo ple in the
world
who will
never
be able to
enjoy
a nice holiday
party.”