I was on Facebook the other day, and I saw a picture that my mother (yes, she's on the site) was tagged in. I almost passed over it, but something about it caught my eye. I looked a little bit closer and I realized what had made the picture so noteworthy: She was wearing my dress! I texted her and told her that the dress she was wearing in the picture looked familiar. She said back: "Well, you left it in your closet, I found it and tried it on, and it looked good!"
I laughed because this was so typical.
My mother and I have shared clothes ever since I grew big enough to fit into the same things as she fit into. Hey, celebrities do it: Remember when Kris Jenner recently wore Kim's dress on the red carpet? Lourdes has started sporting Madonna's clothing as well, and Madonna apparently likes to wear her daughter's Converse sneakers.
It's a blessing and a curse. I mean, I think my mother got a little too excited at the idea of us being an inseparable BFF mother/daughter pair when she literally forced me to put on the exact same dress as her and take this awkward family photo in 2001:
But aside from that horrific situation, there have been a lot of great aspects to sharing closets with her. One is just obvious: I have two closets. That means double the clothes -- which is basically a girl's dream come true. Also, my second closet acts as a great vintage store, in which I can pick and choose all the pieces I want for free. I am eternally thankful that my mom didn't toss her old Ralph Lauren crop tops and sweaters from the '80s. They are so awesome to wear now. And I have to admit, it is pretty cool to be able to say to people, "Oh this? It was my mom's," when they ask me where I got a certain piece of clothing.
Moreover, not to get all sappy (i.e. I'm going to get a little sappy), I feel this intense connection to my mom when I wear something that she wore when she was my age. We have very similar personalities, and she always tells me, "Oh, you're just like me when I was your age." I always like to imagine what she really was like at that time of her life, and being able to wear something that she did when she was younger makes me feel really close and united to her. She lives in Florida, and I live in New York City. When I miss her, I like putting on something of hers and feeling like she is almost present wherever I am.
Additionally, I'm kind of broke. And when you and your mother like to wear the same clothes, shopping can be a very fun event. I can't even count the amount of times we've been at a store and I've picked up a dress and said, "Oh, mom, this would look so good on you."
Usually she falls for it.
"Really? You think?" she'll ask back so innocently.
"Yes!"
She'll buy the dress and then I'll "borrow" it, eventually slyly starting to just put it in my closet after a few times of putting laundry away.
When we go shopping, we are so in tune with each other's closets that there have been multiple times when I say I want to get, say, a skirt. She will look me dead in the eye and say, "Renee, you already have five versions of the exact same skirt." Touchￃﾩ, Mom. Touchￃﾩ.
My mom may help me rein in my shopping, but I help to keep her young -- when you're a single older woman living in south Florida, it's good to wear trendy clothing. Before she goes out, she always asks me if something looks good or not, and she knows she can count on me -- for better or for worse -- to be brutally honest. Her friends are floored when she says she's wearing something that belongs to her daughter.
But I think the best aspect of sharing clothes with my mom is the fact that we have so much fun getting ready for events together. She becomes one of my best girlfriends, as we both spend hours trying on outfit after outfit -- trading different items of clothing with each other -- until we both agree on what looks best on each other. We get to laugh and joke about how silly the other is, and to me, it feels like one of the only times that a 23-year-old woman and a 57-year-old woman can be on the exact same level.
So Happy Mother's Day, Mom -- there's no other mother in the world I would rather share closets with. And yes, I'll send back that dress of yours that I "accidentally" took with me when I moved to New York.
Here's some stylish mother/daughter celebrities:
