The Journal of Wear: Shoes, Symmetry and Dressing rituals
This is the fourth entry of our running monthly series The Journal of Wear, where we document our swappers’ stories and relationships with their wardrobes in a style reminiscent of the 2000s blogging era. In a time of hyper-editorial and polished fashion content, this series centres the humanity of the wearers, captures the nuance of their relationship with their clothing pieces, and highlights how everyday clothes are incorporated into their lives.
The journey walking up to Paola’s abode was an experience of its own. From locating her walk-up apartment in Tiong Bahru to being greeted by a thoughtfully decorated living room, it felt like I was visiting a friend’s new home for the first time. Upon entering Paola’s bedroom, I notice a large painting hanging above the bed. It is a painting of pink and white flowers against a floral background. “I painted this at one of the art jamming cafes in Haji Lane,” Paola recalls. The colours in the painting match the rest of her furniture in the bedroom. I wonder which came first — the pink and turquoise bed sheets or the painting? I’ve yet to ask.
Paola’s room
Paola sits on her bed and I sit across from her on the daybed. Her room smells subtly of magnolias and lemons, very similar to how I would imagine her room to smell. As I sit across Paola, I can’t help but notice how the green glass windows* give a slight green hue to all the objects in her room. This is the first interview I am doing alone without Esther and I felt inevitably nervous. I soon found myself in a state of ease faster than expected. I was surrounded with visual and sensorial calmness.
[A note on the green glass windows - According to this blog post about living in Tiong Bahru, windows that are outside-facing are made from green glass (e.g. east and west facing windows). This is a result of considerate design. The green windows help filter out harsh morning and afternoon sun, especially useful in the past when air-conditioning was less common than it is now. This keeps the room sufficiently lit, yet not too hot to be in.]
Paola tells me that she moved from Italy to Singapore, 9 years ago. Tiong Bahru is her favourite neighbourhood thus far.
It was early on in the conversation when Paola confessed in a hushed tone, “I have a shoe addiction.” She refers to her shelves of carefully laid out high heels behind her. Her shoes are arranged in a colour gradient — from red to black and silver to gold. All of which look carefully kept and cared for.
On top of her shoe shelves, Paola displays a diffuser, a hairdryer, and some skin and bodycare products. A door opens up to the shared balcony.
Paola’s love for her shoes is evident, and infectious. From how she displays them such that they are visible to her and every guest she welcomes, to the way her eyes light up when speaking about them.
She runs me through some of her favourites, but makes a point to show me a pair of shoes she keeps at the side of her shelf, in a dust bag. “They are not on display because they are super destroyed. I can show you but we don’t take any pictures,” she laughs. Paola is referring to a pair of black chunky heels she swapped out from The Fashion Pulpit a few years ago.
True enough, the shoes look like they are worn a lot. It reminds me of the pair of shoes we all own; they are not the most glamorous nor do they guarantee compliments, but simply serve as the pair we wear repeatedly because they are comfortable and suitable for everyday wear. “I keep repairing them but I think they need another fix,” she adds.
“Sometimes, I think about what shoes I am going to wear first and build my outfit from there. For example, when I go to themed parties, the first thing I think about is the perfect shoes for the theme.”
“It doesn’t happen everyday, say if I am going to the office, then I will choose comfortable shoes. But I always wear heels, because I don’t like flats. It’s very hard to find me in flats.”
“If I go out, I will think about the shoes first. You also have to think ‘If I go dancing, then I must make sure that I can resist all night with that pair of shoes.’ But if it is dinner, then I can wear the pretty-but-not-very-comfortable ones.”
Learning this was fascinating to me, as my choice of footwear is commonly made only as I am leaving the house. Very rarely is it front and centre of my getting dressed. Though I may never be as shoe-obsessed as Paola, it’s definitely prompted me to think about the role of footwear in my everyday style.
There are three small wardrobes in Paola’s room. Most of her dresses are kept in the first one while she hangs all her tops and bottoms in another. The third wardrobe houses outerwear like jackets and blazers.
She shares that this organising system is fairly new. “I used to separate my clothes into two different categories: work and going-out. But then I realised that the line between both is actually a bit thin so now it is organised by type of garment.”
“But in my mind I still have these distinctions – what [I wear] for work and weekends. Organising by type makes my life easier to find specific items and put [the clothes] back after laundry. I watch a lot of Marie Kondo…”
When asked how she would describe her wardrobe, she responds without hesitation. “Colourful. 10 years ago it was mostly just black. Now I really like the confidence of wearing more colours. I have more pieces that I wouldn't [have worn] 10 years ago. I feel like I'm going in the direction of Iris Apfel. I like to stand out and I like the clothes to stand out.”
I certainly see a similarity – prints, colours and textures are apparent in Paola’s wardrobe too.
Paola walks me through the pieces in her wardrobe. This wardrobe contains all her colourful dresses.
Paola shares that she takes inspiration from the women in her life, namely her late grandmother. Paola fondly recalls the summers she spent together with her, admiring the colourful clothing she would wear from ages 60 to 80. “At their age, it’s not very common. She would wear very colourful clothes and glasses with the bling-blings. I feel, not being scared of playing with colours, I got it from her.”
An old selfie of Paola and her late grandmother, courtesy of Paola
Paola shows me a vintage Versace clutch from her drawers. It’s a gift from her grandmother. “This one is from her, but it is black though,” she says amusedly.
Vintage Versace leather clutch she got from her late grandmother
Paola tells me that now when she goes back to Italy, she looks through her mum’s wardrobe for things to wear. “Because all my winter clothes were trendy 10 years ago!”
Paola is a practical and meticulous dresser. Besides prioritising her choice of footwear, she also thinks about all the activities she’s going to do for the day before getting dressed.
“First, I think about all the activities in stages and imagine how the day would go. I plan my outfit accordingly so it serves me at every stage. If I know that I will go out after work, I will wear something that can work for both – office and night out. Or maybe I will change one [element of the outfit], like from pants to skirt to make it work throughout the day.”
“I also think, ‘What are other people going to wear?’ Before going to a new place, I will search on Instagram what the place looks like and what people usually wear when they are there. For me, the rule in this case is ‘better to be overdressed than underdressed.’”
Paola pulls out a colourful white dress with floral motifs. This is a recent piece she swapped-out and has already worn it to an art event. She shows me how she styled the dress.
Left: A possible styling combination laid out on Paola’s bed. She styles the dress with electric blue heels, a blue bangle and a navy and cream clutch. Right: A mirror selfie of Paola in a different iteration of the same dress and heels, carrying a pink handbag
I noted how the blues of her shoes and clutch match the darker floral accents on the dress. I ask Paola if balance is what she seeks when deciding what to wear.
“I like that there is a continuity in colour. Italians have weird rules about cooking, and also a lot of rules about what you can wear and cannot wear. Most of the time it makes sense, but there are exceptions… There are all these small rules I grew up with. Like never wear red with pink, blue with black… but there is a lot of freedom for other things.“
“I find myself following these rules subconsciously. If I wear a pink dress and my bag is gold, I will match them with gold shoes. I won’t go for white shoes. I like to match my bags and shoes. I think I’ve always had a sense of symmetry and wanting colours to match.”
“There is another rule I follow. I don’t know if I am just making these rules up, or they got stuck with me over time. A rule I follow is I won’t wear a dress that shows cleavage and is short. I will wear something that shows cleavage and is long, or something that is short but no cleavage. Balance is not just about the colour but also about the form. So yes, I think balance is the right word.”
[Author’s note: Paola came into TFP wearing this dress as I was writing this piece. It felt like I’d manifested her in my mind to appear in real life. Paola styled this dress with the pair of chunky heels she wears to work all the time. “I had an important lunch appointment today,” she says in reply to my exclamation upon seeing her wear this dress. She looked amazing, and in every way like the person I imagine she dresses to be.]
I ask Paola if she could run me through what getting dressed looks like on a typical day.
“There are a lot of pieces involved in getting ready. The longest part for me is getting my hair ready. I will get this done first so it’s out of the way. While I do that, I think about what I am going to wear. I also give myself time to think of the outfit. Sometimes I lay them out on the bed to better visualise. Sometimes I start with shoes, or bags. Sometimes I go straight [to the clothing item I want to wear]. When I feel like I am getting there, I will do my makeup. If I am stuck, then I will do my makeup first and go back to my decision later. Also important to multi-task and not be late.”
As she explains, I imagine how Paola moves around in her room every morning, moving from dressing table to wardrobe to standing in front of the mirror, some days more frantic than others.
“I would love to plan ahead, but I also change my mind a lot,” she laughs. I ask if it's dependent on her mood, only because I am largely a mood dresser – what I wear reflects how cheery (or not) I feel about getting ready for the day.
“Sometimes you look at the mirror and it's just not the same as you imagined it to be. You want to feel confident and look good, so I change until I feel confident that that is the right outfit for the occasion.”
Though Paola laughs about how she changes her mind too much whilst dressing herself, I get a feeling that it isn’t due to indecisiveness or not knowing herself enough. It is the opposite of these reasons. She doesn’t dress from an imagined figment of herself in an outfit – she dresses for how she feels in her body each day. As she decides what she’s going to wear, she’s shedding and adding external layers and getting acquainted with her mind and body. In this process, she rejects, reconciles and gets to know different versions of herself.
The daily occurrence of getting dressed might be mundane and ordinary motions our bodies do on autopilot, but it is affirming and ritualistic at the same time. Paola pays attention to the details set in her room, which I believe translates into the routine to get dressed and her relationship with the clothes she wears. The scent diffuser in her room, the accents of red and pink, the intentional colour matching, the music she plays in the background — all of these, not performative, but truly nourishing gestures she does for herself to prepare for a new day.
At the end of the interview, I thanked Paola for letting me into an intimate part of her life. Our wardrobes are private spaces, and I don’t take this trust lightly. She says that she’s happy to talk about her style and the wardrobe(s) she’s built for herself. “It’s like someone is finally hearing me out!”
I admire how confident she is in her independence and how much of that is rooted in the inspiration she takes from her mother and late grandmother, and perhaps the sentimentality of her other life in Italy.
Post-note:
A part of the direction I’ve taken with this profile is inspired by “Dressing for the Dream Space”, a zine published by independent fashion gallery, Fashion On Display. Published in line with an exhibition on everyday clothing in 2022, “Dressing for the Dream Space” gave centre stage to the clothes in our personal wardrobes. The “dream space” is defined as “The immaterial place your mind wanders to when in a museum. It is where memories, random associations, and evocations meet.”
In her curator’s note, fashion curator and writer Weiqi Yap writes, “By simply getting dressed each day, we are all experts of our personal wardrobes and the act of wearing clothes.
I wonder if a big part of “influence” and “inspiration” in the ways we dress come from ourselves. And if our imagination and mental associations inform our style in more ways than we think? Writing Paola’s journal of wear helped me appreciate the wonders of our mind. I want this liberation for all wearers of clothes.
About The Journal of Wear
The Journal of Wear features narrative-style writing, where we capture the wearer’s unique voice and story from their perspective and ours. Instead of a simple Q & A format, we hope to craft a narrative that depicts us entering the wearer’s wardrobe/closet/bedroom space, how we got to know about the wearer’s story of their chosen item of clothing, and how each of us felt within the experience of conversing about our clothes.
The Journal of Wear is the labour of love of Esther Koh and Xingyun Shen who first bonded over how clothing can affect and shape its wearer in an intimate way. It is an extension of The Fashion Pulpit’s existing video series: SWAP STORIES. This article is written by Xingyun. All photos in this entry are captured with an iPhone or kindly shared by Paola.