Depression Uniform

Sleep is an escape and waking is a requirement I can’t deny. What I thought would only last for a few weeks has consumed me for several months now. Living with bipolar has been a curse but if you can believe it, also a blessing. Yet here we are, another morning that’s just like all the others except I can’t hide beneath feather duvets or my sweatshirt and Calvin Klein men’s briefs. Today I have an engagement and I plan on showing up. However, as I look at my closet it feels like it requires something from me. Crisp white button downs, silk strappy slips and brutalist denim hang beckoning me to get up and get ready. It all feels so aggressive. The light is loud and as I look in my mirror I can’t seem to find my reflection. So, just like times before I reach for the same pieces that I know won’t fail me as my meds have. I reach for my depression uniform. 

There’s a weight inside me that’s replaced my ability to show empathy. I am silent and sullen and it’s all very macabre. The media isn’t amusing and my favorite music makes me agitated. So my uniform needs to be able to carry this load. Scratchy wool is a hard pass and waistbands that pinch only attack. I’m not dressing for my reflection, I’m dressing for my nervous system. I need shirts that cover manicures, clothes the color of wet pavement and coats that hide a hunchback posture. Despite these requirements, I need to still be ready for a possible photo op. With my experience in fashion, if anyone can do it, it’s me. As always, I’m honest. I’ve been to some dark places that I did not want to return from. At this point, as I’m speaking to you, I do not leave my house, food is my enemy and experiments and treatments take up most of my days. Yet, my best friend showing me his new Alexander McQueen blazer or watching Jonathan Anderson’s Dior show or Loïc Prigent swiping up on my Instagram stories have brought me a semblance of a smile. Maybe my uniform can do the same for me today. 

My uniform has to be “me” but it is also meant for survival. When we dress, it’s supposed to show our stability, our discipline, our femininity but above all our worth. Worth. As of right now, I have none. My life has no rhyme or reason and I’m a hollow shell of the girl who I was over the summer. Today I will persevere. I’m thinking of silhouettes. Cocoon shapes, sweaters and pants that don’t cling and wide perimeters all around. Then I’m concerned with fabrics. Brushed cotton and perhaps some cashmere if you’re lucky. When it comes to color, I mentioned before shades that resemble wet pavement, neutrals and of course black never shouts and never betrays. It’s crucial for me to not have to think about searching through my closet for what I’m going to wear. Today I woke up and choosing my outfit wasn’t my biggest hurdle. It was washing my face, taking a shower and brushing my teeth. Immediately after I reached for my dark gray cashmere Eileen Fisher lounge pants, my cream cashmere Prada sweater, and my father's black oversized coat complete with my oversized safety pin. Today I allow myself to throw on my Ugg’s for the sake of just calling it a day. I look again in the mirror and makeup is forbidden but I’ll throw my hair into a sleek ponytail. Accessories? My AirPods to tune out the world and my Prada sunglasses to try and reach invisibility. But it’s not just about being invisible is it? The coat, the glasses and the headphones, they provide me with protection, with a buffer from moving through the world without being bruised by it. 

In fashion, on the runway or even in print we see the industry flirting with melancholy. I see this in the faraway stares, the sauntering struts, and sometimes in the bleak pale makeup. Right now minimalism, undone hair and stylistic sorrow is presenting itself more often than not and it’s not the same as depression but it’s trying to curate it and profit from it. Am I offended? No because I’m in that industry and as I watch les mannequins walk one after the other, it does speak to some part of me. But my depression uniform isn’t meant to be a mood board but it’s a sort of conservation and protection for me. So, am I wearing this outfit for three days? Seven? Perhaps. I don’t know when this will end. Right now I see no end in sight. How will my depression uniform evolve? A brush of mascara and a sharp lip liner and gloss. A new blowout or maybe a change of shoes. Maybe the sweater will stay. It absorbed my tears spilled on the couch and caught the light from the ten minute walk I’ll eventually take one day. My depression uniform survival but not necessarily reinvention. And that’s okay. I need it to protect me, to serve me and right now to get up, go to the pharmacy and get my meds.