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Walking out of Vivant Vintage in Allston, I never expected this day to come: the day I left a store with a skirt instead of a pair of jeans.
For as long as I can remember, Iโve struggled with my femininity.
When I was a toddler, my mom and grandmother put a lot of effort into making me look as feminine as possible. But no matter how many pink things I owned, their efforts never seemed to work. The more feminine I looked, the less feminine I felt.
I grew to resent anything that screamed โgirly.โ I didnโt like the color pink, had no interest in sparkly hair clips or fancy dolls, and refused to let anyone touch my hair โ ever. But most of all, I hated dresses.
Dresses never appealed to me the way that pants did. Perhaps it was because I was raised around boys, and showing up to a neighborhood soccer game in a skirt meant I could only sit and watch. Maybe it was my thick calves that always made me feel more boyish than girly. Or perhaps it was the idea that wearing a skirt would expose me as a fraud of a girl.
In ninth grade, my friends decided to make it a tradition to wear skirts every first day of school. I had just moved to the United States from Vietnam, and so, to fit in, I reluctantly agreed. That night, I went home and dug up a dusty old skirt from the deepest corner of my closet. For the next three years, I would show up on the first day of school in a skirt, always feeling exposed.
Although I didnโt obsess over my appearance like most girls my age, I was determined to fit in. So when everyone started coming to school in thrifted fits, I begged my mom to drive me to the thrift store, too. It took more than a dozen trips to the local Goodwill before I became a pro at secondhand shopping. I learned how vintage Leviโs felt, what I liked and didnโt like, and how mixing different textures made for more interesting outfits.
I occasionally dabbled in the more feminine side of secondhand shopping, picking up a skirt or a sparkly tank here and there, but, I always felt more comfortable when they were paired with a trusty pair of jeans.
To me, thrifting has always been about jeans.
So, when I heard about Vivant Vintage, a local shop known for its walls of vintage Leviโs and Wranglers, I had to check it out. Located just across the footbridge in Lower Allston, the mulberry wine-colored building was hard to miss. The graffiti-covered exterior and quirky decorations, including eyeballs and rubber ducks, made it stand out among the surrounding homes behind it.
Inside, I was in vintage heaven. The store was filled with denim jackets, fur coats, ties, pins, and sterling silver jewelry. I couldnโt wait to dive into the wall-to-ceiling cubbies filled with denim jeans.
After grabbing a stack of jeans, I wandered with my friend through the rest of the store, browsing through the plaid button-ups, floral Hawaiian shirts, and sparkly Y2K tops. Eventually, we ended up in the skirt section. My friend was looking for skirts to update her wardrobe for spring, and although I had no interest in finding a skirt myself, I helped her search.
As I flipped through each hanger, I found a jet black skirt that caught my attention. It had a wrinkly, stiff texture and perfectly flared pleats. It was different from anything I had ever seen before. I showed it to my friend, who said she couldnโt tell if it was cute or ugly. I turned to hang it back on the rack โ but it got caught on the clip of a pant hanger behind me, so I chose to take it as a sign from the universe.
I put the pile of jeans aside and headed to the fitting room with the skirt. It was slightly loose around the waist, but it didnโt matter. For the first time, I didn't think about how my legs looked, or how exposed I might feel. For the first time, I actually liked how I looked in a skirt. And that felt good.
The skirt hit just to my calves and swayed with every step I took. I twirled around for a few minutes in front of the mirror, not wanting to take my eyes off the person staring back. I liked the skirt, but more than that, I liked this new version of myself.
As I checked out, I thought about the skirts that sat untouched at the back of my closet for years. But this skirt felt different. The stiff pleated texture reminded me of a good pair of Leviโs, but with a touch of femininity.
As the sound of the storeโs bell chimed on my way out, I left with a new skirt and a mission: I was on my way to revive my dying skirt collection.
