I HATE DISCOMFORT,” SAYS Marina Rust, a longtime writer for Vogue and one of its style icons. “I moved to L.A. so I didn’t have to wear stockings, and by the time I moved back no one was wearing them, thankfully—I loathe binding.”
When I think of cozy clothes, I think of comfort like Marina, and not just physical comfort, but cultural comfort, aesthetic comfort, personal comfort. Your body is the first place you start—a localized home that travels through different contexts. Do you have a uniform? What do colors and textures do to your state of mind? I asked my husband what he thought about his suits, and he said they were cozy because they were so reliable—something he can count on like his morning coffee in the mug with the cow on it. He has only a couple of suits; he knows they fit, he knows how they work, he knows what to expect from them.
Fashion seems to be another category; it’s just not one I know so much about. For better or worse, when I think about clothes, my mind immediately goes to a pair of navy sweatpants emblazoned with the name of a kid’s school running down the leg. Or the faultlessly weighted white cotton bathrobe I am writing in at this very moment—fitted, tidy. My father was forever insisting we all have socks on for warmth. If we were seen slapping around barefooted in drafty March, he would ask, “Where’s your socks?” as if we were sitting naked on a pile of gravel. I now find myself looking under tables at my children’s feet while they do homework. Do they have socks on? Our French cousins seem to permanently have a scarf or two deftly wrapped around them at all times—chic and armed for drafts. I think of the bouncy fleece pullovers I had the children wear in the winter almost every day of elementary school. If I saw those little bodies go out the door donned in fleece, a part of my soul could relax for the entire day knowing that whatever third-grade mountain they had to climb, at least they had a little protection. Prominent on my cozy list are high-top sneakers. I’m not sure I wore any other shoe in my twenties—all mojo was stored in those kicks. Peacoats, decades of blue jeans, and one oatmeal-colored J.Crew sweater I’ve had since 1986. It strikes me these items are thematically about warmth, and that would make sense as I have spent most of my life in the cooler climates of the northeast of the United States, but at the same time, every fiber in those garments is infused with personal experience. Clothes can connect you with past generations, perhaps to people we never even knew. Lots of times I’ve complimented a friend on a coat or frock they are wearing that seems particularly suited to them, and not surprisingly the response is, “It was my grandmother’s.” Think of young lovebirds the world over wearing each other’s musty, perfumed, particular T-shirts, or daughters wearing their mothers’ wedding dresses. I remember my niece wearing her father’s prayer tallit on the day of her bat mitzvah. Hugh and Thomas have my father’s pocket squares in their top drawer awaiting the time of life when they might feel peacock-ish and want to tuck a vibrant piece of silk in a blazer pocket.
My boys, being roughly the same size for most of their lives, had one interchangeable set of clothes, which I only realized when one of them went away for a semester, and we were packing from a single mess of T-shirts. I feel two ways about the one pool of clothes. There is a connectedness in sharing clothes—“what’s mine is yours” is a cozy philosophy—but I have a twinge of regret too as it occurs to me that one’s identity can be entwined in clothes. The way a shirt fits could be defining, the particular ink stain on jeans from a pen you were using could be very personal and not easily shared. Is it cozier to have items that are just yours? I can’t tell. When my stepdaughter, who falls in between the boys in age, first started spending the night, she wore their clothes too. One set of clothes for three kids.
I’ve always wished that other cultures’ clothes were mine to wear, like the saris of Southeast Asia—there are eighty ways to wrap a sari. Or the North African djellaba, with their huge hoods, which are not only meant to protect one from the sun or keep one warm in the cold temperatures of the mountains, but are big enough to carry a loaf of bread home from the market.
Last year, I traveled with my husband to Marrakech. He had business there. In Morocco, the air was thick with mint; tiny donkeys pulled carts; there were massive jars of olives and pyramids of stacked tagines, Moroccans crowded in the narrow alleyways, and there was a closet-sized shop where one could buy wooden spoons. I luckily found a store filled with colorful kaftans and tunics, some hanging, most folded and stacked in military-like neat piles. I tried on a creamy, woolen djellaba, with silk coffee-colored piping. Looking in the mirror, side to side, I almost felt bridal. The cob, or hood, rested gently on my back, and it did look like I could stick a hunk of bread in there and carry it home. The light, soft robe was elegant, and restful, I wanted to keep it on. I was positive I would wear it all the time at home, especially on cold nights in New York City. But whenever I take it out of my closet, put it on, admire its supple, fine construction, I almost always hang it back up. Somehow it just doesn’t feel like my own.
Garments like the djellaba are steeped in tradition and meaning. Even the colors are deeply significant. As objectively cozy as it is, and as beautiful, I feel like a fraud with it on—I don’t recognize myself. Perhaps we have to feel that the clothes we wear align with who we are and where we come from. That said, I covet religious habits of all varieties, and I’m far from being a nun. Uniforms, like Peter’s suits, are cozy to me, something consistent to be relied upon each day.
Marina also talked about having confidence in who you are with regards to clothes and coziness. She recalled a girl she knew in college who wore a “perfect” shade of red lipstick every day. She was widely admired for it, and people tried to copy her but came up short. “That lipstick was who she was, and as much as we all wanted to pull it off too, we couldn’t.” It’s strengthening to have a signature because it’s knowable; perhaps it conveys you are familiar with yourself. But sometimes it’s hard to recognize one’s clothing identity. Marina told me if you ever get complimented on something you’re wearing—run with it! If it’s an item of clothing, get as many of them as you can. If it’s a color, fill your closet with that color—have it be a signature.