An Outfit Defines the Person

Recall the last time you saw a smartly dressed man or woman gracing down the sidewalk in fabrics so finely made, they caused you a double-take. Chances are good that within your double-take, in that calculation and appreciation for such exceptional threads, you formed an idea about the person behind those clothes. With the outfit as your leaping off point, you arrived at a description of its wearer.

Just as my fellow Philosophy students and I did in ontology class, you briefly pondered what made that person who he or she was and arrived at a rough sketch. I'll argue here that one's style of dress plays a heavy role in determining that. Start with me as an example. Sometimes my idea of dressing up means pulling on a clean baseball hat. If my socks match and my pants don't show visible stains, I'm ready for a night on the town.

This fashion, or noted lack thereof, goes with my personality. I'm the type who focuses on the practical necessities in life, leaving any luxurious pining to be the fluff that I might occasionally daydream about on airplanes while flipping through magazines. I dwell in the realm of simple and basic. It never occurs to me to tailor a T-shirt for a better fit or that a hair barrette might actually MATCH my outfit. Maybe this will change, but for now it's who I am. Meanwhile, I often give lots of thought to why other people dress the way they do.

An outfit I have often pondered is the Western riding outfit. Assuming I would never in my English riding career wear such a thing unless for a Halloween party, I have frequently stared at cowgirls in their fringe-laden, blingy get-ups and wondered how practical any of that could be.

Then, I decided to enter a Western Dressage show and found myself needing to don just such an outfit. That is where the transformation began, where this new outfit began to define a new me.

First off, getting dresses required two helpers. Probably not since Fourth grade had someone else helped me put on pants, but I found the chaps too tricky to master myself. All that dangling fringe kept catching in the zipper. So, finally I let two bystanders help cram me into my clothes. One zipped the chaps on while the other shoved me underneath a cowboy hat. With a long-sleeved sparkly shirt and a pair of jangly spurs, I was ready for the arena... and very hot.

By Sacramento, CA standards it was an average summer day-- nearing 100 degrees. Inside that Western gear felt like an incubator. I peered from under the hat's enormous brim-- no easy task- and walked slowly over to where my horse stood wilting in the heat. Sleeved in glittery Lycra, my arms began to sweat. Meandering to the warm-up pen, I started to understand why Western riders often seem to be moving so slowly compared to us English folks. Normally, I would have launched into an array of high-energy warm-ups moves with my steed. Instead, we slowly limbered up and found our groove. Melting under my big stiff hat, it occurred to me why Western riders never seemed as frenetically paced as us.

Not only do they need to conserve energy lest they suffer heat exhaustion, but after investing so much time shimmying into an outfit that includes both fringe and sparkle, why not enjoy it? At shows, we English riders change back into street clothes as soon as our class finishes. We hurry out of the jackets and collars and tall boots that make most of us look like newspaper boys from the 1800's. Now that I was wearing this Lady Gaga-style Western outfit, I felt no urge to hurry back and take it off, despite sweating at a rate that guaranteed dehydration.

Long puzzling concepts began to make sense, namely the reason that things happen slowly in the Western world, and I'm not not talking about the riding. For one thing, the dialect has always struck me as exaggeratedly unrushed. Western folks use the same time to deliver their mono-syllabic equivalents of our English multi-word phrases. For instance, Western show announcers take the same time to drawl through "pen" as it takes a dressage steward to blurt out "show arena." The same amount of time for one syllable versus four. We English trainers hurry through telling our students to "apply your inside leg" in the same time a Western coach relaxes through suggesting a student "bump" her horse.

Without realizing it, by wiggling into this borrowed costume, I was sampling a world that long intrigued me. My steed and I moved at a markedly slower pace than normal. And maybe because of that, or because of the blissed out costumed feel-good of his rider, my horse offered up more relaxation and submission than he often does. Our movements were quiet and graceful. We went smoothly through our paces with our fringe and bling catching the attention, I hoped, of anyone watching. I pondered the unhurried conversations I've overheard among cowboys, their "we've-got-all-the-time-in-the-world" interactions with their horses. For this brief moment, I got a taste of that. And I'll admit that, in my snug sparkly shirt and eggplant colored chaps, I felt pretty darn cool. For one wonderful hour, I was my own John Wayne style hero-- full of smooth moves, good swagger, and long pauses.

That is what initiated this reflection about a person's fashion defining her to some extent. It might be hyperbolic to say that an outfit can change a person, but it sure helps create a mindset. In my case, it helped me leap across the Great Divide of equestrian sports: English vs. Western. Had I always viewed that other discipline while clad in my tight breeches and polo shirt, I would have continued to see it as, well, a bit funny. By adopting the look and feel of it for a day, though, I experienced it genuinely. Having done so, I experienced that I long suspected: that we each have tons to learn from each other if we can be open-minded.

It's not that I want to close the chasm between us so that we share one world. Rather, I actually like the separation because it allows riders to fit in wherever they feel most comfortable. I would just like us all to be open and accepting of each other in different disciplines. Plus, I want the opportunity to cross-dress my way through each one. Er, I mean cross-train.

Greener Pastures, Part II

I visited my hometown in Vermont last week and was immediately reminded that traveling to the Northeast from California means boarding a plane in flip-flops and shorts and then six hours later trying while deplaning to stuff myself into five sweaters... at once. By the time I left the airport terminal, I was wearing everything I packed in my suitcase. And I was wishing for one more scarf to cover the drafty parts on my neck not yet fully mummified.



My father, meanwhile, pointed out that it was a lovely Autumn day with "balmy" temperatures well into the 40's. I begged him to roll up his window and stop trying to tell me that the biting air outside was "warm" by any one's definition. It has been only six years since I left Vermont for California, but apparently one can soften up quickly. I used to laugh at Californians during January wearing their Ugg boots and woolen scarves as if it were actually 'winter' outside rather than a mid-60 degree day with light breezes. But now I have become one of them. I wrap scarves around myself as soon as the temperature dips below the high 60's, I use the word "storm" to describe a light rain shower, and I talk about winter as if it's actually a season here (which it isn't).



While visiting Vermont, I realized just how soft I've become. Back when I lived in New England, I often taught riding lessons until I was frozen solid. Then I would call it a day, rubbing icicles out of my eyelashes. One year, I got frostbite in all ten toes and instated a policy that from then on, I would teach only in temperatures above 10-degrees Fahrenheit. The following year, though, I got frostbite in all ten fingers, and I raised the temperature minimum to 20-degrees. However, a horse trainer in Vermont cannot survive with such a policy as I soon found out. You see, during the months of January and February, the temperature sometimes sits below 20-degrees for weeks at a time. This meant my prospective income-earning days reduced from 30 per month to zero. Thus, I moved to California.



Last week's visit home coincided with my birthday, and so my friend Sarah took me to her favorite tack and saddle shop. The idea was to buy me a gift. Not being a great shopper, I asked Sarah to help me choose a pair of riding pants. Next thing I know, she's holding up something that looks like a uniform for ski patrol in Alaska.



"What about these?" she asked, obviously pleased with whatever it was that she found.



"Um... well what are those, exactly?" I asked as politely as possible.



Her brow pushed together. She looked at me like a stranger, or someone who had gravely disappointed her.



"What? You don't remember these?" she finally mumbled, looking off into space now. I could sense an odd tension in the room, as if she'd asked me if I remembered my own father's name. I tried to ease the growing alienation I sensed between us. Clearly, I should have recognized whatever she held in her hands. And honestly, to me, it looked like a cross between a bathrobe and a sleeping bag.



"Fleece riding pants? Don't you remember? Do people in California not wear these?" asked Sarah, trying to fathom how anyone could survive in winter without insulating herself in four inches of unflattering fabrics.

Upon closer inspection, and a very chilly recollection of my former life, I did remember the fleece riding pants. I remember owning an entire drawer of them. They were thick and fuzzy and added at least three inches of bulk to each thigh. Well, I should say they would have added three inches of bulk...if worn alone. But a rider would perish in Vermont's winter trying to wear only fleece pants. One also needed 1.) silk long underwear 2.) thermal undergarments 3.) heated socks and 4.) an external waterproof shell of some sort. In that order. All told, when I got dressed to ride in Vermont, I inflated from a size four to a size 10.

With so many layers of clothes, it's almost impossible to ride a horse. I mean, you are so padded and insulated that you can barely move, let alone feel anything like a horse moving under you. Giving lessons always highlighted this challenge. Riders would ask me about their form, their position in the saddle, etc. "Is my leg in the right place?" they would ask. "Is my back straight?" And I would stand in the middle of the arena staring at them, trying to see them through all those layers. Sometimes, I had to admit, "You know, I can't even see your back." A person could be entirely slouched over or slumped down in the saddle, and I would never be able to tell under all the jackets and flannel.

But the beauty of life in the Northeast is that riders there assume that equestrians across the country suffer through the same winter experiences. They think the sunny portrayals of California are just a fabrication of Hollywood. Shivering with their frostbitten fingers frozen around a pair of reins, they believe we Californians are donning fleece riding pants and sniffling through riding lessons, too. Not so, dear New Englanders! I will always remain a Vermont native at heart and I do harbor a fierce pride in that frigid northeastern United States. But I have to admit that I don't miss fleece riding pants, no matter how sexy this year's color selection might be. I'll stick to riding in shirt sleeves and everyday breeches.

For now, I need to get going. Tomorrow is forecast for light rain showers and I need to go prepare the barn for a "storm."

Does this Spandex Make me Look Fat?

Unfortunately, I've become an avid mountain biker in the past year. I say unfortunately because it's yet another activity that requires wearing a skin tight outfit.

It was already bad enough coming home from the barn every day in my riding clothes and mustering up the courage to stop at the supermarket where invariably, some mid-30 year old male asks "have you been out riding?" which he asks as a way of excusing himself from staring at my backside in ultra-tight breeches. What Mr. Supermarket fails to realize is that NOBODY wants attention drawn to them in their riding clothes. Terribly outdated in style, uncomfortable, and awkward, riding clothes definitely rank at the bottom of the fashion ladder within the sporting world.

I used to think dismal fashions applied only to my discipline of dressage. But after closer inspection, I concluded that, no, the horse world in general looks straight out of Vaudeville.

Whenever I start to really lament the necessity of tight breeches for English riding, I go and watch a Western class at a show. Now, those riders have some funny outfits. Shiny belt buckles the size of dinner plates, enormous hats, gaudy shirts, flapping fringes dangling off nearly every surface from saddle to pants to gloves. To me, they look like they belong more in a parade-- or circus-- than in an equestrian competition. And this does my heart good because my outfit seems a lot less strange.

Of course, Western apparel pales in comparison to the cabaret styles on display in a Saddle Seat class. Probably not since the 1940s have so many people under one roof donned derbies and tailcoats. Neon-colored tailcoats, I might add. However, those styles might seem positively modern compared to what carriage driving folks pull out of their closets. I grew up on the back of my father's carriage and I probably never stopped asking him the purpose of his lap robe or "apron" as drivers call them. Weren't aprons for kitchens? How did they contribute to one's driving skills? It's just part of the outfit, my Dad always replied. Also part of the outfit was a funny looking straw hat, a blazer, and thick leather gloves. Whoever introduced carriage driving to this country was obviously a huge fan of The Great Gatsby.

Equestrian apparel remains far beyond my mountain biking outfits in terms of absurdity. But it also has something really good going for it, in my opinion. Once you get past the discomfort of artificial fabric materials and the fact that they cling to you in all the wrong places, riding apparel forces us to give up being so self-conscious. You get past any shyness about wearing tight clothes or looking silly, because after all, you're wearing the threads necessary to do what you love.

So, when Mr. Supermarket asks me his ridiculous question "Have you been out riding?," I look him square in the eye with my best sarcastic tone and answer "Well, I sure didn't put on this outfit just to come to the store..."