Dressed for success 3/4: The trench coat incident

With dress shoes tucked in my shoulder bag, I wandered home on sneakered feet, making my way noiselessly from one streetlamp’s circle of light to the next in my West Philadelphia neighborhood. I had stayed late at work that night and longed for bed, but laundry would have to come first. Why? That morning my department head had scolded me for having a stain on the lapel of my trench coat.

As I passed one of the row houses on my block, I looked up to see two silhouettes in the top window. It was a guy I’d had a crush on the previous year; he was visiting his girlfriend. Of all the places in Philadelphia she could have lived, it had to be on my block, and they had to be dancing right in front of the window. How very inconsiderate. She was probably a fine person, but in that moment of exhaustion and dishevelment, I wasn’t evolved enough to not resent a perfect stranger for seeming to be the tall, casually and effortlessly elegant woman I was trying (and failing) to be. I pulled my coat closer against the autumn chill.

That morning’s confrontation over my trench coat had hardly been my first fashion run-in with my department head. She had strict notions about how her people should dress, and not without reason. She ran the communications department, and any of the managers—even me, the staff writer—might need to speak for the organization on radio or TV, perhaps on short notice or off hours (we took turns being on call with a beeper). The organization may have been a nonpartisan health & human services nonprofit, but it was culturally quite conservative. As one of the youngest members of the staff, I was having a hard time mastering the unspoken rules, many of which were grounded in older generations‘ norms. Fashion expectations were just the most visible example.

On an earth-like planet in a parallel universe somewhere, I met those expectations. That version of me was tall, about 32 years old, attractive yet formidable, and clad in simple but elegant shoes and suits that never chafed.

But the situation on my home planet was another matter. I was not and never would be tall. I was not 32, I was in my early twenties but could pass for a mature 14. As for the suits I admired, there were obstacles: The nice ones were expensive and made of wool, a material that I can‘t stand next to my skin. The jackets were always too long for my petite, short-waisted build. Plus I’m stubborn and I hate shopping. Also, I’d spent my formative years among Quakers, and had assimilated their notions about simplicity a little too well—I had developed a tendency to justify, on moral grounds, my aversion to the buying and wearing of expensive fashion. (Decades later I’d come to understand that attitude as a function of class and racial privilege, but I digress.)

So what did I wear to work? I had at least two pairs of low heels, three decent blazers, and a few pencil skirts. Some days I branched into fashion that might be termed “Friday casual”—if “Friday casual” had been a practice at my culturally conservative workplace. Which it wasn‘t.

One day I was in a black pencil skirt and my nicest sweater, when my department head and one of her regular consultants staged a spontaneous fashion intervention. Their advice? I would look thinner if I didn’t wear sweaters. I suppose they meant well.

With bitter determination, I resolved to go shopping again, and it went better than I expected. I found a simple, affordable gray pantsuit that actually fit me (a small miracle), and was appropriately conservative—or so I thought. The next morning, clad in my new outfit, I encountered my department head in the hallway. She scanned my outfit with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, a pant suit,” she observed bluntly. Then added, with an expertly calibrated touch of sarcasm, “How . . . European of you.”

Once again I couldn‘t decide if I should direct my energy toward deconstructing my latest fashion faux pas or just feeling humiliated. Could wearing a gray pantsuit really be edgy, even unprofessional? In 1989? And if she had such clear notions of what was unacceptable, why didn’t she just write me a list of what I was allowed to wear? I fantasized about showing up to work in jeans, a t-shirt, and maybe a sweater, too—so I could be comfortable and look chubby.

More specific advice came from a trusted coworker, Susan, who was smart, unpretentious, and experienced. She and I found ourselves in the women’s bathroom making polite small talk with the CEO (an older woman) while washing our hands. When the CEO left, Susan leaned toward me, gestured in the direction of the CEO, and dispensed the following wisdom without a trace of irony: “If you want to get ahead in this place, buy a turquoise suit. It’s her favorite color.” I was horrified. Petite women who can pass as middle schoolers have no business wearing turquoise suits. That much I was sure of.

And that brings us back to the day of the trench coat incident, which started with my department head pointing at my lapel and stating coldly, “That coat may have been good enough for fundraising. It’s not good enough here. Get it cleaned.”

I finally crawled into bed around 11:00 that night after sticking the trench coat and a load of whites into the coin-operated dryer in the basement. I was worried my clothes would be wrinkled in the morning, but not worried enough to stay up another hour. I’d risk a lecture on wrinkles the next day.

But there would be no lecture on wrinkles or, in fact, any lecture on my trench coat ever again. Because crouching in the basement at 7:00 a.m., I found my entire load—coat, underwear, socks, and a few t-shirts—splattered liberally with something very, very black, and very, very baked-in. I went numb with shock and confusion. It looked like someone had thrown tar into the dryer. Did I have a secret enemy in the building?

I found the culprit in my trench coat pocket: a black ball-point pen that had not survived the dryer cycle. Apparently the only enemy I had in the building was myself.

As of that moment I had no winter coat—at least not one I could be seen wearing at my place of employment. So, for the next couple of months, I shivered my way to and from work in just a blazer, even in the snow.

But there’s one part of the trench coat incident that I remember with great fondness. For several weeks after the disaster, I got to enjoy the private, subversive thrill of knowing that regardless of what outfit I wore—no matter how professional I managed to look—my ink-splattered undergarments were in glorious, unrepentant violation of my department’s unofficial dress code.