What Do Writers Wear?

 

photo credit: Joshua Franzos

I casually pondered from time to time, what do writers wear? But it never resulted in me pulling my phone out of my back pocket to google it, until today.

Many months ago, I watched a documentary about J.D. Salinger, the recluse author of The Catcher in the Rye. I actually hit "rewind" on the film when an ex-lover talked about him suiting up each day in a gray canvas jumpsuit, his uniform for writing. Yes, Salinger donned a jumpsuit each day and closed himself off from the world in a concrete bunker and wrote. People were not welcome in there. One part of my brain cried, "That's sooo weird!" The other part of my writer brain said, "Oh yeah...That makes perfect sense." Writing is dirty, thankless work and most people simply do not get how long it can take. Nor do they understand the silence and seclusion you need in order to create fictional worlds. People think writers are day-dreamers. It would seem so as we half-stare at our screens, half gaze upon the worlds we're building like a chess player thinks, three moves ahead. The next moves and motives of our characters hang tenuously in the air, becoming more and more concrete in our minds and our fingers hang over the keys, ready to strike. That is, until someone shatters the glass menagerie with one lascivious crunch into a celery stick. So, I get the hard labor uniform, just as I get closing yourself off from the world in a concrete bunker. 
"It sounds like a vacation," says my writer brain. 
"Yeah," quips the normal half of my brain, "for a serial killer."

photo credit: Joshua Franzos

So, Salinger was a little extreme and judging from the documentary, may not have had the best work/life balance. But what about the others? I pulled the phone out of my back pocket and googled: "Writer's uniforms" and "what do writer's wear?" I pulled up some old blog posts, a few buzz feed type "lists," and this awesome wikihow article, that I don't think was written in satire, but has me seriously laughing like it was. Hollywood portrays present day writers as slobs. Maybe. I, unfortunately, do not know many writers, so I can only speak for myself. I mostly write during my lunch periods M-F, so I wear whatever I wore to work...usually a funky oxford shirt, a cardigan, and pants. I felt that I had to say pants, because I learned that John Cheever wrote mostly in his tighty whiteys. (He claims he only had one suit at the time and didn't want to get it wrinkled). I find good cheer and company in knowing these quirky little things. Though I don't wear anything too outlandish (or not wear anything), I like knowing that I'm not the only ocd weirdo writer out there. I have my rituals, patterns and superstitions that set off Pavlovian-like responses that signal to my brain, it's time to get busy and write.

photo credit: Joshua Franzos

photo credit: Joshua Franzos

photo credit: Joshua Franzos

But writers as slobs...while I may not wear my pajamas when I write, (I say this without judgement, by all means, do whatever you need to do in order to get those beautiful words onto the page!) but my oxford shirts are definitely a little rumply from sitting in the laundry basket, not getting ironed by me. I also tend to choose colors these days that work with the omnipresence of little white dog hairs. I also wear holes through my elbows quicker than you can say M. Night Shayamalan. I either have a hole in my elbow or I've patched it. Either way, I usually look like a character from a Dicken's novel in great shoes.

photo credit: Joshua Franzos

photo credit: Joshua Franzos

This outfit is a weekend writing/get work done look.  This past weekend was a productive weekend for us. I got a little writing done, but mostly because I had two days off from work for Rosh Hashanah. Weekend writing time has mostly been AWOL since May when we started moving and renovating. But besides that, I also got some IKEA furniture built. Mr. Franzos and I got tile for our kitchen backsplash picked out and ordered. Ditto on the tile for fireplaces. We went for a nice, long urban walk, and we also broke in our newly remodeled kitchen for the first time. Home cooking is the best. Our home is finally really coming together, though we aren't done with the weekend projects quite yet. As a result, when I do write these days it's almost always done outside the home where there are fewer distractions.

What do you wear when you write? 

What I wore:

Sunglasses: Ray Ban

Cardigan: vintage Bergdorf Goodman cashmere.

Top: past season, J. Crew

Jeans: H & M, here.

Shoes: last year's tired slip-ons

Your Bosom Friend in Pittsburgh,

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