What She Wore

A writer's clothes tell the story of her life.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A WARDROBE

By the Wardrobe of Elizabeth Kendall

Pantheon. 223 pp. $20

A wardrobe assembled over the course of a lifetime is more than just a musty collection of out-of-date dresses, worn-out trousers and shoes that have been resoled more times than one can remember. A tormenting old bathing suit conveys the emotional truth about a coming-of-age summer when puberty struck and the body rebelled. A leotard and a slip of chiffon may instantly recount that triumphant moment when the body -- with its wide hips and narrow shoulders -- ceased to be the enemy, and its strength and flexibility became a source of pride. And a beloved Marimekko dress can speak eloquently about making one's way as a young adult, about burying a parent and realizing that adult responsibility is unavoidable.

Elizabeth Kendall, author of previous books on American dance and Hollywood romantic comedy, explores the emotional connection we have to our clothes in Autobiography of a Wardrobe. But instead of allowing the wearer to share how sophisticated she felt in her first pair of Italian shoes, it's the shoes that speak. The narrator in this tale is the wardrobe itself.

Kendall lets the clothes describe for themselves how they tried to reassure the body -- B., for short -- and give it confidence. But the wardrobe has its own insecurities. Will it, for instance, be able to pass muster at a job interview at a fancy New York fashion magazine? "Here began a strange time when B. served almost as a fashion arbiter herself, just when I, her wardrobe, was in My sorriest state."

The wardrobe speaks in simple, brisk sentences. It is not prone to flowery or emotional language. It does not indulge in prolonged self-analysis. Here, it writes of its own inception:

"Five-year-old B. in a daffodil-yellow pinafore and a white blouse with puffed sleeves stands at the end of a chintz couch, in the midst of grandparents, aunts, and parents. The pinafore has embroidery on the skirt and a wide yellow sash tied at the back of the waist. B. is leaning into the mother, who is sitting on the couch holding a baby brother. On B.'s feet are red 'party shoes' with ankle straps and white socks. At her right temple, a white barrette holds back straight, fine dishwater-blond hair. This dress can stand as well as any for My birth. Wardrobes start out like children, without conscious identity."

The details of the wardrobe -- its hopes for B., its concern about the way B. is developing into a pear shape -- trickle out. While it would be an exaggeration to say that the wardrobe is an unreliable narrator, it is not an especially forthcoming one.

It's hard to fault Kendall for being drawn to such a tantalizing device for examining the connection of fashion to cultural and personal history. As her story moves from the buttoned-up 1950s, through the mod 1960s and on into the 1970s and '80s, styles shift dramatically and, for women, ultimately settle into what seems to be an eternal debate focusing on sex, power and status. When typical fashion histories try to investigate those topics, they tend to fall into one of two categories: academic pontificating and self-indulgent navel-gazing. Scholars have taken readers step by excruciating step through rising hemlines and widening shoulders, pondering it all through the lens of Freudian analysis, Marxist theory and the ever versatile debate about gender politics. It can be provocative stuff but most often, it's merely tiresome. And then there are the personal histories that take readers on a tour through what seems like an endless photo album: And here's what I wore for my Sweet Sixteen! Oh look, there I am at my prom! Shall we deconstruct the meaning of this sweetheart neckline?

Kendall wisely realizes that while each of those approaches has its advantages, it is the tension between group-think and personal expression that explains the irresistible appeal of fashion: We dress for ourselves and for the times in which we live. Autobiography of a Wardrobe ambitiously attempts to explore fashion in both contexts.

But Kendall has left the telling of that tale in the hands of an inarticulate storyteller. The wardrobe-as-narrator is awkward and unfulfilling. It begins as a cute conceit and quickly becomes an aggravation. There are hints of an eating disorder, but the wardrobe never explores the way in which clothing is complicit in both hiding a starving body and prodding a healthy one into becoming thinner and thinner.

The death of B.'s mother requires a black dress. She is advised to buy something that she likes. But what does that mean? What sort of dress would a woman like to wear to bury her mother? How do you choose that dress? Ultimately, would you be dressing to please your mother one last time or to soothe yourself?

The wardrobe is neither eloquent nor insightful. It isn't particularly funny or wry. Instead, it muddles along, offering up glib comments that one wishes were more fully fleshed out, colored in with greater detail and endowed with more from-the-gut truthfulness. We are left not knowing much about B. -- other than that she managed to accumulate a closet full of rather unremarkable clothes. ·

Robin Givhan is the fashion editor for The Washington Post.