I was in my country kitchen making pizza from scratch the other day when from the corner of my eye I saw a startling vision. Hillary Clinton on the TV, dressed in a sun-yellow blazer. Electric sun-yellow, a color that made no sense outside a Crayola box. As a former New Yorker used to my female Senator in sleek black pantsuits, I thought, what the hell? But then I read the scroll along the bottom. She was at a town meeting in South Carolina, and it dawned on me in a rush of sympathy -- local fashion victim. I know from this. A year ago, I moved from Manhattan to New Hampshire, and I'm becoming one, too.
I shouldn't complain. Coming here was my choice. After a sterling education and a high-powered legal career, after two decades in New York and other cultural centers, I grabbed the ultimate 21st century brass ring. Move to the big ole house in the country to raise my sons and write novels. Now I go to the kids' soccer practices, ski and do yoga and cook (from complicated recipes, using organic ingredients). I commute to an office in the converted barn out back where I can work in my slippers.
The problem? Working in slippers is kind of ick, and there's no longer any justification for professional manicures or blow-drys.
Why didn't I take this into account beforehand? I didn't grok the fearsome extent of it, that's why. It's not just about manicures. There's a look here in my corner of northern New England, a kind of self-consciously crunchy-frumpy look that I can't get used to but that the reigning cool moms all sport. The moms who bake bread and grow their own kale and whose broods of pale home-schooled children dominate the local pick-up hockey scene. I call them the Thetford Wives, after the too-perfect Vermont village. They love patterned tights and corduroy jumpers and clogs. Their beauty regimen consists of long graying hair, no makeup and Vaseline or Blistex on bitter days. They pretend to be above fashion but they're just as judgmental and group-thinky about it as any Upper East Side hedge-fund wife with her Goyard bag. The scariest thing about the Thetford Wives? They'll get you in the end. They're beginning to get me.
The fashion you see every day changes your eye, like it or not. Slowly but surely, my minimum standards for leaving the house are declining. Admittedly I come from a place where the beauty bar was set stupidly high. On the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the resume of the average private school mom looked something like this: Seven Sisters or junior-Ivy grad, formerly in HR at major investment bank or law firm, married a partner, now spends her time party-planning and fund-raising for her children's schools, doing pilates and grooming to keep her man. These women contribute little to the world, but they sure as hell look good doing it.
Minimum standard for school drop-off on the Upper East Side: full makeup; professional manicure, pedicure and highlights; regular eyebrow, lip and bikini wax; Joe's or True Religion jeans or Theory or Michael Kors slacks; cute little top or blazer; heels and The Right Bag (constantly changing, I couldn't tell you what it is now).
Minimum standard for drop-off in New Hampshire: so long as your body is protected from the elements, none.
Minimum standard for a dressy event on the UES: all of the above plus professional hair and makeup, freshen highlights and Botox, couture cocktail dress or suit, Judith Leiber bag and The Right Shoes.
Minimum standard for dressy event in New Hampshire: a clean shirt, or, there are no dressy events.
Living here, I couldn't cleave to the old ways if I wanted to because there is no shopping. No place to buy makeup or real shoes, though there are about 15 different outdoor outfitters in a three-mile radius where you can get fleece vests and brightly colored hiking socks.
I used to hate the pressure to look good. But now that I live in a place with the opposite pressure, where grooming is viewed as a form of self-aggrandizement, I find myself disturbed at how I'm slipping. How far and fast is the fall from no manicure to no hair color to sewing my own clothes? Should I worry about this, or have I been liberated? I don't know. Now the Manolos only come out of the closet on bad days. I put them on, stand in front of the mirror and wax nostalgic about my old life. But as the Thetford Wives inexorably claim me as one of their own, those days are becoming fewer and farther between. I wonder if there's a third way. I could be true to myself, try to find my own unique look. But that's the thing about fashion. There is no self, there is only the collective, I think, as I reach for more Blistex.