Real Life Glamour

Uniqlo coat (similar)
Sezane blouse (similar)
& Other Stories skirt (similar)
Mango heels
ASOS beret
APC handbag
RayBan sunglasses
Location: Palais Galliera – Paris, France

Dear friends,

I admit it – as I swap my skinny jeans for this skirt in the very chic toilettes at the Cafe du Trocadero, I am questioning my life choices. After all, what sane person walks around Paris carrying enough clothes for three separate outfits in their handbag, just for the sake of photos?

The jury is still out on my sanity, but the short answer to that question is: I do.

It isn’t glamorous. But I am a regular person who happens to run a fashion blog. And so I have to make sacrifices. I actively choose to do things I otherwise wouldn’t for the sake of photos, like carrying a change of clothes (or sometimes two) in my Longchamp tote bag while I’m out enjoying a city on vacation. I change in cafe bathrooms and clothing store fitting rooms. And, on rare occasions, on a quiet side street where I know there will be no passersby. (Yes, mom, it’s true.) This is my real life. And I’ve done it for so long that I can’t imagine doing anything else.

But when I think about it seriously, like I am right now in the beautiful but cramped toilette, bumping my elbows on the walls of the stall as I attempt to remove my slightly-too-tight jeans, it seems a bit ridiculous.

My real life was just like anyone else’s, at one time. But that was years ago. When we were in the early years of our marriage, we worked the same traditional kind of office jobs that come with 9-to-5 hours. We ran errands and went out to dinner on weekends. It was all very banal, really. Snapping photos of my outfits fit into that life naturally. When Ian was a school in Paris, I was working full-time on my blog, which meant I could be ready for photo opportunities whenever he was free. But when we came back to reality in Canada, our work schedules diverged. Taking outfit photos became an activity we had to schedule in our limited time together – and that’s the way things still work.

While I work a normal 9-to-5 job, the line between when I am working and when I’m off the clock gets increasingly blurry with every promotion. I am on business trips two to three times every month. Which means there are chunks of time when, no matter how cute my outfits are, there is no one to take photos of them. Ian works shifts and his hours vary wildly from week to week. It’s normal for him to start work at 5 am on Monday and then at 7 pm on Tuesday. We fit in photos when we can, but photos don’t always fit into real life. Sometimes we have to prioritise things we’d really rather not do, like laundry and grocery shopping. (I have yet to figure out how to make my clothes wash themselves, sadly. But I haven’t given up…!)

The fact is, the only uninterrupted time we have together is on vacation. It is so much simpler for me to carry a skirt and a spare pair of shoes in my tote bag when we’re in Europe with nothing but free time than it is for me to try to do my hair and make-up on a Thursday afternoon at home in between meetings. Sure, my tote gets heavy sometimes. And occasionally, like today, I find myself in a tiny pastel-painted bathroom stall, wondering what possessed me to bring a pair of stiff new jeans on vacation while I make an uncomfortable effort to do a costume change.

Oddly enough, in these moments, what I really worry about isn’t if I’m crazy. (After all, I’m pretty sure I already know – but the jury is still deliberating.) I don’t ask myself if photos are worth the hassle. For me, that isn’t a question. I love what I do. Instead, I wonder if it will be too obvious that we took two sets of photos in three hours because I will be wearing the same beret in both of them. I ask myself if the same beret appearing in this space twice in one week will seem boring or repetitive. And because I’ve read all the same pseudo-expert advice about how to successfully run a blog, I worry if the fact that I sometimes shoot three outfits in one day will appear inauthentic.

But then I finally get my stupid jeans off, pause to fan myself because the exercise left me feeling a bit overheated, and realise I don’t care about what passes for authenticity on the internet. This is my real life. I wear all of these outfits. Sometimes time constraints mean that I don’t get to photograph them on the first wear – but that’s just part of reality, too. I could try to make my life look effortless and unencumbered. But my life is neither of those things, so the attempt would be arduous and likely futile. I am never not busy. So I get photos whenever I can – usually on holidays, because it’s just easier. And really, even though I question them occasionally, I’m happy with the life choices that led me here.

I slip my skirt on, stuff my discarded clothes into my tote bag and straightened my beret. There’s something fun about a mid-morning costume change. I walked into the toilettes as one character, and am emerging as an entirely different one. Maybe, despite the gymnastic jean removal, there is a hint of glamour in the whole crazy process. But either way, the process is mine, and I wouldn’t change it.