Why did shoulder pads go out of fashion?
There’s such power-as a person living in a woman’s body- in putting on an article of clothing that expands my shoulders, my chest, my heart-center, the place where the energy pours out of me
I put on my oversized well-worn shoulder-padded blazer and I become Patti Smith making a pilgrimage to her sacred cafe or a sea captain about to voyage on turbulent waters into the unknown
And I put on my 6-dollar back shelf black hat and it widens the place where my thoughts and intentions enter and exit and I become a troubadour, some Bob Dylan or a Shakespearean fool wiser than the men he’s destined to play servant to
With these large dark objects I hide more of myself so I can reveal myself as I’d like to be seen
To crack out of the place slim shoulders or long blonde hair would otherwise trap me in
And into the world of my chosen costume
The world I weave with woven garments
At once both outside and within the masculine and feminine and that delicious infinite in-between
Transforming and evolving and becoming
I remember masks from school, how the act of studying the creases and expressions in the molded plaster was as intimate as studying one’s own image in a mirror
How their shapes changed the shape of the person wearing them
Then with that the creation of a whole new person, the shared hallucinations within the studio walls, then the daze of re-emerging from the room with one’s own face still very much attached but somehow very much shifted
Masks, clothes, reflections, refractions, it’s all kind of the same right?
If I’m fully honest with myself, my origins of becoming an actor are simple: I wanted to dress up.
On its surface that answer sucks, especially in an interview. Can you imagine a Very Serious Actor on Inside The Actor’s Studio responding to the “why did you become an actor?” question with “I wanted to play dress up?”
Ridiculous.
But is it, really? Who can deny the magic of wearing a particular something and feeling viscerally changed on the inside? Surely everyone has felt that. Surely that is a universal feeling. And isn’t art at its core all about Universal Feelings?
I don’t know.
I do know I’m going to keep wearing this old blazer and this arguably ugly hat
Until they are faded and threadbare
And then maybe I’ll mount them on my wall as trophies
A monument to this particular era of selfhood, having boldly served their purpose as conduits of something true, something transcendent
But to be frank
I’ll probably lose the hat on accident somewhere or other. But I hope the future wearer will find some whisper of me there and with it some holy secret
That will remain between me and that future stranger
And the hat of course