| |  Illustration by Lauren Tamaki | There’s a mink coat that hangs in my closet that I rarely wear but would never part with. It was passed down to me by my grandmother and has a message stitched inside from my grandfather. About two years ago, I started collecting soccer jerseys from each of the countries I’d visited because I wanted a souvenir that I could wear. And there are these Dior moon boots that I’ve been wearing religiously every winter since I asked for them for Christmas in 2006 because I had seen Mariah Carey wear them in a paparazzi shot in Aspen. It’s not just me. Everyone has stories behind the clothing they own, whether they wear it or not. For the past ten years, through various projects from Worn Stories to her most recent work, An archive of everything worn to MoMA, artist and writer Emily Spivack has been talking to people about their relationships with the garments they own. She deals with clothing in an anthropological way rather than spotting trends and strictly viewing garments through the lens of fashion.  Illustration by Lauren Tamaki |
“[These are] the things that we put on our body every day and then go out into the world and live our lives in,” says Spivack. “Those choices are portrayed on the Internet or through photographs or archival material. We can learn a lot about culture and society and who we are through the clothes that we wear.” Spivack’s investigation into clothing started in 2007, when she wanted to explore why people get rid of clothing. For this project, called Sentimental Value, she spoke to eBay users about the clothing and accessories they were selling and why. Eventually, she started bidding on the clothing and put together an exhibition that showed in Brooklyn, Portland, and Philadelphia.  Illustration by Lauren Tamaki |
In 2010, Spivack introduced the world to Worn Stories, which was later turned into a New York Times best-selling book. She collected more than 60 stories on the memories people had about one specific garment. The book included entries from everyday people to luminaries like Thelma Golden, Greta Gerwig, David Carr, and Marina Abramovic. “The project emerged as this new way to use clothing, which is usually overlooked as a storytelling device,” Spivack says. This past October, she released the latest in her series, Worn in New York, a book that collects people’s memories of the city through their garments. Now, for her project with MoMA, which is presented in conjunction with the museum’s first clothing-related exhibition in 70 years, Items: Is Fashion Modern, Spivack is taking a more broad approach. Her project asks MoMA visitors to submit descriptions of what they are wearing via text message—at the close of the exhibit, she’ll have a record of three months’ worth of outfits from thousands of visitors recorded from November to the end of January. “With Worn Stories, each story stands on its own, but what I’m hoping with this project is that we’ll be able to figure out who we are at this moment in time, whether it’s someone wearing a Future Is Female T-shirt or someone talking about their Steve Jobs–inspired turtleneck. There are a lot of different things that you can read from just someone inventorying what they’re wearing,” says Spivack.  Illustration by Lauren Tamaki |
The texts, which museum visitors can submit through January 28, will be archived to create an every-day log of the museum’s visitors. “I've heard that Andy Warhol would stand by [MoMA’s] coat check and just take pictures of people,” Spivack says. “I wanted to do some version of that.” Moving away from selfies or “outfit of the day” images, she’s asked MoMA visitors to tune in to something more considered: language. Whether the participants are complimenting their own leopard readers (“very chic”) or professing that they “feel compressed. Like a panini” despite their “excessively large jeans,” we can ask ourselves Spivack’s key question: “What happens when we portray ourselves through our own words?” Tahirah Hairston is an associate editor at Lenny who loves to ask strangers where they got their shoes. | | | | |  Gif by Louisa Bertman | On December 12, 2017, San Francisco mayor Ed Lee died of a heart attack unexpectedly. He was the city’s first Asian-American mayor, and he was serving his second term. The city charter mandates that, in the event of the mayor’s death, the president of the Board of Supervisors (San Francisco’s equivalent of a City Council) shall become acting mayor. The board president at the time of Ed Lee’s death, now the acting mayor, was London Breed. London is an accomplished San Franciscan with close ties to the city, its roots, and the enduring challenges it faces around housing and poverty. She was raised by her grandmother, and despite having grown up in an area struggling with violence and drug addiction, she found enough encouragement and support from the community to go to college and, ultimately, to come back and serve the same district as supervisor. London is homegrown and came from the grassroots, having operated a cultural center in the neighborhood in which she was raised. Not only that, as a black woman, London is a historic figure for San Francisco, which has never had a black female mayor. A special election to select the new mayor is scheduled for June 5, 2018. Meanwhile, London will serve as acting mayor until the Board of Supervisors appoints an interim successor, who will fill the role in the short period leading up to June’s special election. The board could choose to appoint London as interim successor, allowing her to continue to fulfill the duties of mayor, just as she’s capably been doing since Ed Lee’s death. Previously, the board has placed great faith and responsibility in London, perhaps most obviously by twice electing her board president, in 2015 and 2017. Growing up in public housing and seeing in her lifetime San Francisco’s black population dwindle to five percent, London has been especially focused on affordable living. She’s advocated for a complete overhaul of San Francisco’s housing to ensure not only that public housing is sustainable, but also that everyone across the city can live and stay here. But now, in a perplexing move, some members of the board are appearing to bend over backward to avoid appointing London as interim successor and to prevent her from continuing as mayor for the next six months. Even before Ed Lee’s body was buried, some had called for the appointment of a “caretaker” mayor, a concept not formally contemplated by the charter. Proponents of appointing a caretaker argue that such a neutral party would “level the playing field” before the special election, so no individual likely to run in June would unfairly receive an “incumbent” advantage. It comes as no surprise that many of the caretakers being proposed are white men, such as 79-year-old Art Agnos, who was mayor of San Francisco from 1988 to 1992. What is going on in San Francisco right now is a matter of fairness: we have a tradition, and we have a charter, both of which clearly dictate in these circumstances that the president of the Board of Supervisors becomes acting mayor. Especially in the wake of tragedy and instability for a grieving city, this shouldn’t be a political issue — just as it wasn’t when now-senator Dianne Feinstein became mayor after George Moscone was assassinated in 1978. It’s a time, perhaps more than any other, where we must rely on our traditions and precedent and not exploit uncertainty as a way to gain on a petty political agenda. Unfortunately, that appears to be exactly what’s happening. This is a pathetic echo of what happened in Chicago in 1976, after the death of Mayor Richard J. Daley. Just like in San Francisco, by tradition, the president pro tempore of the Chicago City Council was to occupy the mayor’s office until there was a process in place for the election of a new mayor. That individual was Wilson Frost, a black alderman and lawyer with an “impeccable reputation” and credentials. Because he was black, however, Wilson Frost was prevented from even entering the mayor’s office, the door of which had been blocked by armed police officers. This injustice was the very catalyst that led to the election of Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983. Chicago’s political machine had hijacked process, tradition, and fairness, and black voters rose up. They organized, held rallies, and they registered a record number of voters to ensure that their voices were heard and that fairness prevailed. If anyone deserves fairness in 2018, it’s black women. When it comes to the progressive agenda, black women have repeatedly made the difference, and we saw this as recently as last month. With the upset victory of Doug Jones in Alabama’s Senate race, many finally seemed to catch on to what lots of us have understood for a long time: the indisputable political power of black women. Ninety-eight percent of black women voted for Democrat underdog Doug Jones, while 63 percent of white women voted for his Republican opponent, accused child predator, Roy Moore. Not only did black women vote overwhelmingly for Doug Jones, had they stayed home, he would have lost. What was missing from a lot of the election-night commentary, however, was the fact that black women in Alabama didn’t just magically ordain this win: it was the hard-fought result of brilliant community organizing and grassroots strategy. Black women have been doing hard work that deserves all of our recognition — and as many noted, it’s also time we stand with black women by fighting for their distinct and varied interests, rather than simply showing gratitude on social media when the outcome benefits everyone — meaning, only after black women are viewed as having stepped in to “save America.” Right now, we have a moment to do that in San Francisco, to actually show up for a resilient and deserving black woman. And yet, we are stumbling. In the most progressive city in the country, we are failing at fairness instead of seizing an opportunity to let a black woman lead. Some local leaders have begun to speak out, in particular calling on other women to stand with London in this critical moment, regardless of whom they may choose to back in the June special election. Last week, women gathered at City Hall to voice their support for London. If you live in San Francisco, you can call your supervisor, who could be voting on whether to allow London to continue serving as mayor; if you don’t live in San Francisco, share this, and encourage others to #trustblackwomen. And if you were someone who publicly thanked black women for defeating Roy Moore in Alabama, please join me in sending a simple and resounding message to San Francisco and beyond: when given the opportunity to stand for fairness, and with talented black women leaders, we must do so deliberately and wholeheartedly. Please go here to learn more about London. Meena Harris is the founder of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign. | | | | |  Illustration by Ariel Davis | As a doctor, it is unnerving to confront an ailment that you don’t immediately know how to conquer. All those years of training, all those hours of study — and yet at some point, every doctor is confronted by one terrifying prospect: you will never know everything. When that happens, you have two options. Tell the patient the truth, however uncomfortable that might make you feel, or try to come up with an answer that “possibly” captures the diagnosis. The latter is tempting. Not being able to give a clear answer can feel as though you’re failing to fulfill your responsibility as a trained professional. The patient is looking to you for answers, and that pressure is daunting. Reflexively, you want to reassure them by showing there are no gaps in your knowledge. Of course, that’s impossible — with all the changes in our environment, lifestyle, and food, there are new diseases developing all the time. From eleven years of operating my own practice, I can tell you that there are times when every physician has the right to be dumbfounded. Despite all the advances in the field, there are still many shadowy corners of medicine that are a mystery. And that’s OK. In fact, I’ve discovered that one of the most important things a doctor can say is “I don’t know.” In the early days, when patients would come in with vague, but troubling complaints, I would conduct what I thought at the time were very extensive tests — an analysis of their blood and urine, a detailed physical exam, and then, if warranted, radiological studies. When they returned a week later only to discover their results were all normal, I was frequently surprised by their frustration and sadness — and, on occasion, by their tears. It seemed like good news to me. But when I asked, I’d hear the same thing time and time again: they had hoped to finally have an explanation for their suffering. Even an upsetting answer is often better than no answer at all. So I did the best thing a doctor can do in that situation. I looked a little deeper. When a patient appears “normal” but is in distress, that’s when we need to get creative. I expanded the scope of my tests, hunting diligently for hormone and vitamin deficiencies, Lyme disease and coinfections, unusual thyroid conditions, and whatever else I thought might manifest in the symptoms a patient was presenting. In doing so, something special happened. I got to fall in love with medicine all over again. When I graduated from medical school, I knew very little about Lyme, vitamin and hormone deficiencies, or endometriosis. Now the management of these conditions is pivotal to my everyday practice. As a physician, when you’re unsure of what’s going on, you can call specialists and hear about the latest diseases they’re seeing and the treatments they’re offering. You can search through the most recent journal articles and case studies. Sometimes, you may need to go back to basics and pull that old faithful medical textbook off the shelf. It’s a chance to reconnect with that excitement you felt in med school when the intricacies of the human body were first revealed to you. So why don’t we allow ourselves the space to continue learning throughout our careers? Our training cannot prepare us for the constantly shifting landscape that is modern medicine, and so we need to adapt our role to shift and grow with it. When facing these newly evolving medical conditions, doctors have to join forces with the patient and walk side by side with them to do some serious detective work. And letting the patient know that empowers both them and you. Saying “I don’t know” is not an easy thing to do. The medical culture we work in makes it difficult to deal in maybes instead of absolutes. But the consequences of an incorrect or incomplete diagnosis can be far-reaching, breeding mistrust that can be hard to come back from. Worse, you might overlook some clues and symptoms of the patient’s true condition that may lead to many more months (if not years) of their suffering. Imagine you are suffering and you don’t know why. When you turn to the medical world for help, well-meaning doctors try to put you at ease by telling you that you’re “fine” and “It’s all in your head.” Women in particular hear that last one far too often, and it can dissuade them from seeking the help they desperately need. When you hear this from your doctor, a person you trust with your life and well-being, where else can you turn to relieve your pain and suffering? Some patients are driven to dangerous off-label medicines and treatments. Others find that their families and friends start to cast doubt on the validity of their complaints and symptoms, since, after all, a doctor dismissed them, and surely the doctor knows best. Although no doctor willfully intends for this to happen, it can lead a patient to feel isolated, depressed, and — in some extreme and deeply tragic cases — even suicidal. So when a challenge walks through your door, you should relish it. It’s a chance to prove your chops and help another patient in need. To fulfill the oath we all took, doctors need to be ready to roll up their sleeves, put aside their egos, and partner with their patients. When it comes to vague but disabling symptoms, sometimes you will need to wear the dual hats of doctor and detective. And I know, this can be hard — not least because our current health-care system doesn’t allow for such time-consuming endeavors and we’ve all been trained in a culture that cautions us against telling patients when we’re unsure. But we owe it to our patients, and to our profession. We have to try. Sandra Gelbard, MD, is a board-certified internist in New York City. Her practice is focused on disease prevention, cholesterol management, and individualized vitamin supplementation. | | | | |  Gif by Melanie Lambrick | While we might believe that evocative color names are a peculiarity of our own times, this is emphatically not the case. The nomenclature favored in Tudor England during the sixteenth century, for example, is probably best described as earthy. “Puke,” as well as being a kind of woolen fabric, was a mid-brown; “horsefleshe-color” was a pinkish-brown, while “lustie-gallant” was a dashing pale red. And while no one is precisely sure what “dead Spaniard” looked like, “goose-turd green” remains self-explanatory. Eighteenth-century France also had a full complement of deliciously evocative hues, including “great reputation,” “indiscreet complaints,” and “the vapours.” (Sadly, knowledge of what these actually looked like has been lost.) Such examples make “millennial pink” — a pallid tint with plenty of yellow undertones and the current darling of the color-naming world — seem rather on the nose. Attempting to pin colors to names has a long history, even outside of the fashion world. At the very end of the seventeenth century, a Dutch artist called A. Boogert created a volume filled with more than 800 hand-painted swatches, glossed with descriptions in spidery handwriting. At that time, cataloguing all known colors was easier than it is now. There were relatively few reliable, stable colorants available to artists, decorators, and dyers. Since the nineteenth century, however, they have multiplied exponentially. Such choice has obvious advantages but has also led to unexpected difficulties: with innumerable colors on offer, communicating precise tints, shades, and hues has become harder. It is, however, of vital importance commercially. A designer in Sydney may be happy to communicate a precise color to a manufacturer in Taiwan using an anodyne code or reference, but that name is highly unlikely to appeal to buyers. To do that, descriptive and imaginative names are needed. Although this might seem intuitive, there is also research to back it up. Color names associated with something positive or appealing were found to influence consumers to buy. Researchers in 2006 found that people preferred colors given expressive names — such as “mocha” — over plainly named ones — like “mid-brown” — even when the colors themselves were identical. Furthermore, they were more likely to buy products (and for a higher price) when they were labeled “ocean” and “sage” rather than boring old blue and green. From a commercial standpoint, then, it pays to get creative. This is something Leatrice Eiseman — executive director of the Pantone Color Institute and the woman responsible for picking Pantone’s Color of the Year — knows only too well. A well-chosen name, in her words, helps to “glamorize, strategize, romanticize, or tantalize the targeted consumer”: music to a marketer’s ears. How is this done in practice at Pantone? With great care and by committee. After deciding on the colors that need to be added to the system, appropriate names are selected based on the mood or feeling that such a name will create. A blue-green, Eiseman says, might be called “lagoon” because of the hidden promise it contains of an exotic holiday location, while a bright blue might be called “skydiver,” a name redolent of adventure and excitement. Emotional, fun connections are also important for nail-polish brand Essie. A series of specially commissioned short films, available on YouTube, give a flavor of the myriad inspirations that can go into naming polishes. Recent examples include “Backseat Besties” — named after a girls’ road trip — and “New Year, New Hue” — a rich, holiday-season magenta. Sometimes the names contribute to the success of the varnish with consumers: “Bikini So Teeny,” a lilac blue, caused a buzz when it launched in 2012 because of the memorable name. Another company famed for its color names is Farrow & Ball, a small British firm specializing in ritzy wallpapers and paints. Its approach is both more personal and more scattergun. “Drop Cloth,” another term for the dust sheets used by painters and decorators, was picked for a hardworking beige. The pumpkin-spice hair of the company’s head of creative, Charlotte Cosby, inspired “Charlotte’s Locks,” while a daughter’s rosy cheeks lent a true pink to the name “Nancy’s Blushes.” Despite the firm’s freedom in choosing names, and the vital importance given to colors themselves, such names are a core part of its brand identity. Although usually the color comes first, as at Pantone, very occasionally it happens the other way around. More subtly — a point for true Farrow & Ball connoisseurs — the firm works to make sure that colors that pair especially well together have names that reflect this relationship. “Cord” and “String,” for example, are both yellow-based neutrals reminiscent of the color of twine, while “Ammonite” and “Purbeck Stone” are cool, natural grays inspired by the scenery of the Dorset coast and the Isle of Purbeck in England. Color names, however, can be a hindrance as well as a help. Nearly two and a half centuries after A. Boogert’s book was created, Aloys Maerz and Morris Paul published their Dictionary of Color in New York in 1930. Their vision was to do for color what the lexicographer Samuel Johnson had done for words. Created over eighteen months, their book, which you can still find secondhand, includes pages of color swatches in grids and an index of names at the back. One of the reasons it took them so long was that the names proved slippery, varying wildly over time and place, and even from person to person. “Taupe” was a prime example. The word is actually French for “mole,” so the color should have been rodent-colored, or “a deep grey on the cold side.” Instead, it had been applied to all manner of shades, from brown to cream to gray. Determined to put an end to such a lack of discipline, Maerz and Paul toured zoological specimens of moles, finally including in their book a gray that was “a correct match for the average actual color of the French mole.” Perhaps if Messrs. Maerz and Paul had read the work of Samuel Johnson a little more clearly, they might have been more relaxed about the precise color of taupe. Johnson was well aware that language evolved as people used it. “To enchain syllables,” he wrote, was like trying “to lash the wind.” Colors and their names are the same. For the sake of accuracy, we could, of course, give up on names and use RGB references or Pantone numbers instead, but where would the charm be in that? Names endow colors with an emotional charge, personality, and a sense of time and place. True, you are unlikely to ever want to paint your nails “goose-turd green” or the walls of your home “dead Spaniard,” but if nothing else, they offer a window into the humor and tastes of Tudor England. Kassia St Clair is an author and design journalist based in London. | | | | |  Illustration by Lauren Cierzan | Just before my novel Talk was first published in 1968, I had the idea for another taped book. The concept was to invite a number of ex-boyfriends over for dinner one by one, serve them each the exact same meal. I'd turn on the tape recorder the minute they came to the door of my New York apartment, and keep it running until they left. Then, I'd edit the recordings into a book, hoping, in the process, to discover What Went Wrong. I invited — or at least considered inviting — twenty guys; in the end, twelve showed up, including a crime reporter, a radical radio personality, two sculptors, an auctioneer, and one businessman. Each encountered a different version of me. The shortest session was only seven minutes (after which the paranoid invitee fled at the sight of the microphones); the longest lasted until late the next morning. Certain things didn't play out as planned. The menu changed from homey Jewish to more classy career girl, and there may have been a little too much wife talk. One purist was disappointed that the tapes would be edited and not exposed raw; another said he'd kill me if the book were ever published. This story is part of a series of five excerpts from the taped dinners — but not that last guy's. Here's Ohan.  Illustration by Lauren Cierzan |
Linda Rosenkrantz is best known for her taped novel Talk, recently republished as a New York Review Books Classic, and she is also the co-founder of the popular baby-name website nameberry.com. Lauren Cierzan is an illustrator based in Nashville, Tennessee. Her scribblings and more can be found at laurencierzan.com. | | | | | | | | |
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