I’m drawn to them—the floral-print, flouncy dresses that lend themselves perfectly to the bubbly spring season. Perhaps now that the weather is changing from a miserably bleak atmosphere to a shade of something more uplifting, so too is my wardrobe outlook. I want to wear the feeling of spring; I want it to cover me with its relative luminescence. I want spring to spring into my closet.
In my quest of being spring, a scroll of memories plays through my mind’s eye. I imagine scenes from the past of the wonderfully plump mother of my mother. She has skin that folds into elegant wrinkles, she laughs a laugh of crackling corn, and likes to cook meals for hundreds of people. But today, I’m imagining her as a thin, lean youth walking through the streets of her Caribbean island on an exotically warm spring day. The dress she is wearing in my rose-colored imagination rides the waves of the slight island breeze. She looks beautiful in her antiquely patterned raiment detailed with ruffles and lace. She is the embodiment of spring—the thing that I presently long to be.
Maybe I’m turning into my grandmother. Or maybe I have what people call an “old souI.” Or maybe my instincts are pointing to a reemerging fashion trend. Every time that I catch sight of an old-time-y dress that has a waterfall-esque movement, flowers, and a hint of my own grandma, I grow an unadulterated, tooth-heavy smile and a sharp yearning in the pits of me stomach.
Our familial roots are embedded in us, even in our fashion sense.
Spring has sprung and my grandmother, back in the day, knew what was up.
-Karis Stephen
Image courtesy of: Anthropologie