The sisterhood of the traveling shirt

Jean Marie Designz

Once there was a shirt. Not just an ordinary shirt. This shirt, the Traveling Shirt, went on to do great things and witness some crazy debauchery.

This is the story of that shirt, and four friends who stole this shirt from each other, clawing and scraping and willing to take each other out for the chance to wear the Traveling Shirt.

Until the Traveling Shirt had babies.

But wait. We're getting ahead of ourselves. First, meet Kirstin Landers. Kirstin, 26, was getting ready to go to a barbecue, and she wanted to wear something unique. She loved punk clothes. And rockabilly. And '50s pin-up. She called it punkabilly.

Although she had never studied fashion, the Denver woman had always dreamed of being a designer. So on this day, she designed. She measured and snipped and sewed. She created a low-scooping halter out of a fabric of black and white skulls and red roses. Then, below the empire waist, she affixed a sheer black and white polka-dot scarf, in a "v" shape. A tie around the neck and a tie around the waist made it nearly backless. She had her unique top.

The Traveling Shirt was born.

She wore the Shirt to the barbecue, and even the hot dogs on the burning coals seems to turn and stare as she walked by. Kirstin paired the Shirt with black short-shorts and fishnet stockings. She totally rocked, er rockabillied, the picnic.

Lisa was getting ready for the Mike Ness concert at the Gothic Theatre in Denver. Lisa, 22, of Boulder, arrived at her friend's house first wearing a shredded T-shirt and skinny jeans. It was Kirstin's birthday, and the concert was her gift.

Then, Lisa saw it: Draped over a chair in Kirstin's bedroom was an edgy skull-print Shirt, perfect for the show. She asked if she could borrow it.

Jean Marie Designz

All night at the concert, people asked Lisa about her edgy Shirt. There were so many inquiries, in fact, that Kirstin decided right there, amid the hootenanny, that she was going to become a fashion designer. Jean Marie Designz, she would call her line. Yes, with a "z."

As for Lisa, she wore the Shirt home, and coincidentally "didn't have the chance" to meet up with Kirstin again. Ever.

Or so it seemed.

I hadn't worn regular clothes for weeks, not since I decided to get a full-back tattoo. My shirts all stuck to the tattoo goo, which had stained my a corset and a vintage blouse. I had nearly sworn off shirts altogether when I decided to venture to the Westminster Mall, known for its plethora of stripper-esque clothes. Surely somewhere here would have a backless shirt.

I was right. Except all of the shirts I found were pretty much frontless, too. Why couldn't I find something backless -- and classy?

A few days later, I was wincing again under the needle at the tattoo shop when my friend Lisa dropped by. I nearly screamed; a combo of the needle hitting my kidney region and Lisa's outfit. Her Shirt was what I had been looking for. It was backless, but instead of being covered in Playboy symbols and sequins, it had polka-dots and roses. Totally adorable. I all but tore the Shirt off Lisa so I could wear it home.

I wore it the next day, too. And the next. I paired it with a red pencil skirt. And jeans. And a black skirt. And a few more times (read: 40 times) after the tattoo healed.

I couldn't help it. I had been possessed by the Traveling Shirt.

Tara arrived to our girls' night with a bottle of wine and red and white knee-length skirt. But before we could crack the cork, we were invited to go dancing and our low-key night turned on high.

Tara needed a new outfit. I held up a black skirt, a red dress, a purple shirt. But her eyes kept diverting to a certain Shirt that I had tried to hide in the corner of my closet.

"That," she said, with a definitive point. "It's sexy. It's perfect."

Tara wore the Shirt to Round Midnight on Pearl Street, and was flooded with so many free drinks and phone numbers that she felt overwhelmed. One guy offered to buy her pancakes. Another wrote a song for her and gave her a ring -- literally. He asked her if she was a witch, because there was no other explanation for the lovey-dovey pile of drool he had become.

But Tara and I exchanged nods, knowing it was the Shirt.

Likewise, I knew I would never see it again.

Me and Lisa, in standard facial attire.

Until Monday. I was having Shirt withdrawal, so I asked Lisa where it came from. She gave me Kirstin's number -- and Web sites: www.jeanmariedesignz.etsy.com and www.myspace.com/jeanmariedesignz.
There it was: a replica of the Traveling Shirt. Kirstin had missed it so much herself -- and had such a wild demand for more of its caliber -- that she was now selling it for $40.

I plan on placing two orders. The first, for Lisa, a sort of karmic rebalancing act for my original act of thievery. And the second for Tara. Hey, I want the original back.

"The Tie Top," it's called on Etsy.com.

But it should be called the Magical Traveling Top, unique, edgy, classy and sexy. Whatever you need it to be. And, most importantly, soon to be once again mine.

The only picture I can find of this wonderful shirt, on none other than Kristin.

Goldyn Girl

http://shopgoldyn.com/

Only a few rare people can do this. And I am making it my life's mission to befriend all of them.

Saturday afternoon, fully caffeinated and therefore irrationally euphoric, my friend Devon and I found ourselves in downtown Longmont with nothing to do.

It was the first Saturday afternoon in 15 years that I hadn't overbooked with some sort of chaos. We literally had nothing to do. And being in Longmont and all, we really had nothing to do.

So we did just that: nothing. We spent hours walking through every store in downtown Longmont with no goal, no timeline and (get this) no purchases.

It was challenging. There were about 3,000 items at Rose Buds (418 Main St.) I would have liked to buy, from vintage hats with that sexy half-face fishnet for $8; old aprons with funky patterns for less than $20; and a rack of '50s A-line skirts.

Even a lace-and-ribbon shirt from the 1800s for only $20-ish. I think the Puritan woman who originally sewed that top wore it under a pinafore, apron, bonnet, jacket and some sort of conservative suspenders contraption. But simply paired with a pair of jeans or a black pencil skirt, the neo-1800s looked smokin' hot. Still, I didn't pull out the credit card; that would have transformed our afternoon of nothing into something.

After floating through a half a dozen other thrift stores -- Longmont has more per square block than anywhere else on Earth, I swear -- we stopped to refuel on coffee. (Our hyperactive seizuring had waned to a dull twitching.)

That is where nothing was destroyed by the Impossible to Ignore.

I pulled my laptop out of my car and "accidentally" visited Shopgoldyn.com, a Web site run by Boulder High School grad Vanessa Barcus. The site features about 60 hip, hard-to-find designers -- the kind of stuff you'd have to travel to Brooklyn or West Hollywood to find.

Devon and I being ridiculous.
Photo by Hollywood Calling.

Devon and I -- and our wallets -- became suddenly very, uh, active.

Barcus lived in Los Angeles for a while after graduating Boulder High in 2001. She got her MBA and worked at a contemporary label. Then she returned to Colorado, the land of the Crocs with socks, too-short khakis and ill-fitting T-shirts. My words, not hers.

But, in her words: "My whole goal was to bring those cutting-edge brands to places like Colorado."

She launched her fashion biz one year ago, which includes trunk shows and the Web site, which includes her own fashion finds, Goldyn Vintage. Prices range from a pair of orange Lucite clip-on earrings for $24.50 (gotta love clip-on earrings, well, until they cut off circulation to your lobes) to a vintage pocket-watch necklace, originally $450, marked down to $360.

Overall, products range from $30 for T-shirts to $900 for a leather coat.

Obviously, Shopgoldyn.com is more pricey than the Ares Thrift store, which was literally giving away handbags. (At one point, I thought they were going to pay me to take one.) But Barcus lauds her site's unique designers, the high quality and her personal touch. Every purchase comes with a hand-written thank-you. That was enough to push Devon and me over the edge (of debt).

Sorry, downtown Longmont. But that fishnet hat is going to have to wait until next payday.

Unless you're doing a hat give-away, that is.

Big-town trends
Shopgoldyn.com features cutting-edge designers from the coasts. Here's what to look out for:

The minimalist look is big, focusing more on the quality of the fabrics and construction, rather than tons of embellishment. This is a great trend for the current economy, because you can wear the clothes longer.

Bold accessories spice up basic outfits. Try crazy platform shoes, colorful boots and art-inspired jewelry.

Rebecca Mincoff handbags. These bags are sleek, with beautiful detail -- sturdy, gold-tone hardware and lined with a fun fabric. They're perfect for Boulder: downtown chic, but not over-the-top. The bags don't scream with logos; they are luxurious in their own right.

Jewelry from The Woods, a Denver-based company founded by sisters Shawn Hecox and Samantha Hitchcock, who both also attended Boulder High. Their pieces are inspired out of a love for contrasts: mod and vintage, edgy and girly, sophisticated and innocent. The material combos are interesting, such as wood and bone with rough-cut diamonds and yellow gold. In Hecox's words, "We love seeing diamonds, the epitome of luxury, in an organic, unfussy setting."

Read more at http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_13124488.

Can a doctor be made out of rayon … and light blue and strappy?

I’m about to get personal here. Time for fashion and mental health.

I have been inexplicably mopey for a few days. Completely indecisive. Like one day, I couldn’t choose which shirt I wanted to wear, so I wore all of them, layered on top of each other. My roomie told me I looked like a second-grader. I couldn’t decide whether that was a compliment.

Then on my way to work, I felt thirsty but couldn’t decide what I wanted. So I stopped at the gas station and bought a coffee, Diet Coke, water and cranberry juice. I immediately spilled the coffee on my shirt. Luckily, I had three others underneath.

My affliction was getting out of control; it was time to make an appointment with Dr. Urban Outfitters.

Yes, it’s dangerous, expensive and probably masking a serious iron deficiency or something, but I stand behind shopping therapy. I’m proof it works. Because as I walked out of the store with a bulging bag of stripes and oversized gold hoops, I felt a wave of peace and control. Maybe I can’t control the Cingular demons who sporadically drop my most crucial phone calls or my neighbor’s dog that begins his bark-a-thon at 5 a.m. every day, but I can control the size of the hoops dangling off my earlobes.

Flipping through the racks gets your hands off the office keyboard and surrounds them with comforting cottons and satins.

A new shirt temporarily makes you feel good about yourself.

And shopping is a reminder that no matter how twisted and complex life becomes, you can always fall back on That Which Is Shallow But Simple And Pretty.

Photo by Flickr user David Blackwell.

Ut oh, I crashed prom again

I went to prom for my 27th birthday.

This story might sound familiar if you are one of the three readers who’ve been following my column for the past year or so (hi mom, dad and that sassy middle-age man who e-mails me daily about argyle socks).

That’s because I crashed prom last year, too. In the World of Heckel, once is a joke; twice is a tradition. And I take tradition seriously.

That means I’ll be crashing prom until I’m so old I have to sneak in pretending to be a teacher chaperone instead of a curiously old-school junior who “totally just transferred from the Bay Area, and no, that’s not a wedding band, that’s my great-grandma’s ring that she left when she died, hecka sad, I don’t wanna talk about it. (Sniffle.)”

When I dug my senior prom dress out of my parent’s attic this year, I noticed two things. First, the gown smelled nauseatingly similar to the stray cat that recently moved in to my old box of clothes. And second, it looked nauseatingly similar to a lace-and-sequin-studded curtain.

Obviously, I wore it. Paraded it around the house to the nostalgic bump of “Return of the Mack.” When my husband saw, his eyes widened, and so did his smile. I winced for the bullet. Instead, he pulled me close and proclaimed how stunning I looked.

That meant a lot coming from a man wearing a wrinkly, untucked button-down, gray slacks and muddy flip-flops. Just like the old days. We were ready to roll out.

But not alone. Co-conspirators were my girlfriend Crazy Christine, 28, and her hubby. Christine showed up in a short black three-tiered ruffle dress with so many sparkles she looked like she was on fire. I told her there was no way she’d get in wearing something so hideous. They’d sniff our game out a football field away.

Then came the touchdown: She’d bought that dress at Ross. On Thursday. In 2006. It was a real dress that real people were buying for real occasions.

The dance itself was pretty lame, not half as exciting as the fact that I could still fit into my high-school clothes.

We simply walked through the doors, wearing oversized sunnies, but no corsages (my flip-flop-wearing date was too cheap, the jerk). We got our pictures taken with the cheesy “Secret Garden” backdrop. Did the Macarena when everyone else was grinding to Beyonce. Spotted several other girls sporting Christine’s dress. I felt pretty cool that no one else was wearing my curtain.

When things winded down, we hit the bars. The bartender complimented my dress. I told her she could have it – no, seriously, take it. She politely declined and never returned to my table.
It was the best prom I’ve been to in like eight years.

Study up

When I was in fifth grade, I played "school" with my poodle. I dressed up like a teacher (in glasses, of course. Duh, all teachers wear glasses) - and taught him what little math I knew.

Master Rude Dude, the poodle, didn't learn anything. But I did: that teaching is not my thang.

That's the disclaimer.

Against better judgment, I've decided to steal this moment to teach some new fashion-related terminology. Some is original Heckel vernacular, likely conjured after a few (eight) glasses of Riesling. Other expressions have seeped out of fellow fashionistas.

Let the lesson begin:

Prippie - My friend, who looks identical to Reese Witherspoon, calls herself a "Prippie." That is, a preppy hippie. As she describes it, "I'm an Anne Taylor Loft-wearing, yoga-doing, toe-ring-wearing, hair-dying Boulderite."

Her celly ring tone: "Love Train," by the O'Jays. What is more hippie than urging people around the world to join hands and start a love train, a love train? Yet the simple act of having a personalized ring tone thrusts said person into the preppy circle.

The Prippie character is epitomized by my friend's necklace: a heart chakra charm necklace. Sterling silver and trendy, while evoking the center of one's being from which feelings of love emanate.

Yippie - This species, the confounding cross between a yuppie and hippie, is prevalent in Boulder. Rich, upwardly mobile - and socially and environmentally conscious? It can't be. But, alas, it is. You will recognize the Yippie by the mode of transportation: a Saab with Grateful Dead stickers.

Yippies tend to be older than Prippies. They live in zillion-dollar houses, but wear clothes from consignment stores. Flowy, rayon pant suits and carved wooden jewelry bought during their recent African safari - to support the native handiwork, of course. Even though that sparkling Pellegrino they chug after spinning class costs more than those natives make in four months.

Gippie - I refute this term, but mostly because it pegs me: the gangster hippie. Generally a younger breed, college-age or quarter-life-crisis types who listen to hip-hop, recycle everything and confusingly pair massive J-Lo-style hoop earrings with coconut-wood bracelets from the consignment store.

These creatures feast at independent coffee shops, cry about the injustice in the world and deal with their plaguing woes by downing a few glasses of Hennessey and shaking their money makers on the bar counter in LoDo. They spend their free time volunteering with Habitat for Humanity and posting rumors about their so-called friends on MySpace.com, where their profile song is by Diddy.

Beturning - Buy + return = beturn. Not that I have ever done this, and I certainly don't condone it, but hypothetically speaking, if one were to, say, buy an object with the sole intention of using it one time and returning it, one would be practicing the act of beturning.

Hanger appeal - When an object looks fantastic on the hanger, although not necessarily on the body. A nicely designed window - reeking of hanger appeal - at the mall might cause someone to look twice. Unlike the windows at American Apparel on Pearl Street, where headless mannequins have been seen dressed like aliens wearing metallic gold underwear, T-shirts and leg warmers. This is an example of hanger repellent.

The following are courtesy of www.urbandictionary.com, where I do most of my studying:

Mullet ratio - In the words of Urban Dictionary: "A mathematical term used to describe how extreme a mullet hairstyle is. It is found by comparing how long the hair on top of the head is compared with how long the hair hangs at the back of the neck." The larger the metric discrepancy, the more awesome the mullet ratio.

Thrifting - Comparable to bar-hopping, but with shopping. One hits up various thrift shops in search of the cheapest and most interesting clothing.

Tag hag - I had a roommate who intentionally hung her clothes in the closet with the tags sticking out so I could see how much she paid for her camis and cardigans. A tag hag is a person who asserts her (or his) self-worth by donning - and flaunting - overpriced clothes.

A Tag Hag would never partake in thrifting, but is a frequent offender in the beturning realm.

Originally published 11/16/06 at dailycamera.com. 

Whoever says Colorado has great weather doesn’t wear stilettos

Not to sound trite or elderly, but how ’bout this weather?

I shave my legs for spring, but the hair rushes back to the follicles before I make it outside, a form of self-preserving padding in anticipation of the impending blizzard. My dark winter wools are forced to co-mingle with my white cottons. And my skin, following Colorado’s schizophrenic lead, is simultaneously dry, chapped, oily and broken out, but only in one quarter-sized patch.

Then there is the man. Oh, the man.

As if putting together a quasi-matching outfit is not challenging enough for the retrosexual male, my boyfriend has become straight-up neurotic.

The first thing he does in the morning is text Google to check the weather. Then he argues with it. After his fight with his cell-phone screen, he must walk around the block with his finger in the air, checking the wind. On mid-April blizzard days, he checks with his middle finger before settling on his one of two outfit possibilities: jeans or shorts. Then he has to ask my permission:

“Can I wear this?” This is man-speak for, “Help. Me. I am scared.”

This week, Colorado has graced us with summer. So far. And this unexpected sun has transformed my boyfriend into the Phantom of the Opera. The right side of his face is white. The left side — the driver’s-side-window side — is lobster red, topped off with a one-armed farmer’s glow and a literal red neck.

So now he is pained between wearing a T-shirt and compounding his fry lines or wearing a sleeveless shirt and looking, in his earnestly distressed words, “like a total d-bag for a few days.”

My advice: Wear sunscreen, dude. There isn’t a cream, powder or plasma that I smear on my skin that doesn’t contain SPF. But still, I’m more of a Corpse Bride than a Malibu Barbie, and my transparent skin has been known to frighten small children.

Photo by Flickr user cindy47452.

Easter basketcase

I volunteered to watch the 3-year-olds at church on Easter, not because I know squat about kids, but because I was all about the unofficial fashion show.

Kids on any normal day? Shrug. I could take ‘em or leave ‘em (the latter usually occurs alongside a shrill scream – mine or theirs). But Easter is the one day still preserved for frilly dresses, parades of pink, patent leather and floppy hats. The church halls are a runway, and if you’ve got a good seat, you might even spot a lacy bonnet or a satin bow.

On kids, of course. Even sporting a fully primped toddler, most parents I saw dragged through Easter wearing jeans, sneakers and a disheveled look that expressed exactly how delightful it was to get little Karli in those white tights.

My class was flowering with girly girls, including one named Dakota or Takoma or Toyota or something like that, who carried an antique beaded clasp clutch (destroyed in the Play-Doh after 12 seconds).

The kids were supposed to wear name tags. But it felt criminal disrupting those precious ensembles with a sticky “Hi, my name is” written in dull crayon.

And anyway, I’m fundamentally opposed to name tags. I never know where to stick them.

Above the breast? My shirts are often too low-cut. Below the breast is basically my waist. And on the bull’s eye itself, the tag peels up at the edges if I don’t constantly re-smash it, which requires an awkward amount of public self-groping.

Oh, and don’t you dare give me a name tag with a pin. You’ve got a better chance of me sticking it through my eye than my chenille.

Speaking of name tags, my friend recently met a guy wearing a Sean Jean shirt and asked if that was his name. Later, she met a guy wearing G-Unit polo, and she asked if his shirt meant “gun it,” like when you hit the gas pedal, or if it was something French. You know “Gunet,” sort of like “Monet.”

Photo by Flickr user cory.cousins.