Sujata Massey
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| Moody blues at a a Taj Resort in Goa |
I didn't know what to wear.
I was planning to meet my writer friend Marcia Talley for lunch at a good local restaurant. She always shows up looking splendid, usually in some classy, colorful jacket bought in a faraway boutique. I wanted to match her energy, but my mind was scattered. Then I remembered where my clothing ideas live. I only needed to open my phone, and go into my digital wardrobe app, Indyx, to look at various garments and coordinated outfits on file. And voila.I pulled myself together on a cool spring day in blue and cream. I spotted a long chiffon floral skirt with a navy ground. I could wear it with an Eileen Fisher cotton tee in sky-blue cotton, and pulled it all together with a cream-colored vintage wool jacket from Italy and my mom's diamond hoop earrings. Dressed in a flash, and no double-thinking.
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| Marcia and I unexpectedly sharing a dark floral moment |
This is what it means to be alive in an age where glamour has trickled into practically every subconscious. It used to be that movie actresses, fashion stylists and museum curators were the only ones who took photos of garments and filed them away. But not anymore. Even though it seems as if we are in the midst of some pretty hard times, computer-assisted style and beauty seems to be everywhere.
The current four-day period we are in--May 1-4, 2026--are what I consider the annual Fashion Olympics. The Devil Wears Prada 2 movie is releases tonight, and you better believe I'm going. On Monday, Vogue Magazine and E! will live-stream the Met Gala, a very expensive and fabulously dressed benefit party to support the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Gallery. Two events; hundreds of quality outfits.
Fashion has been around since looms were invented, but it seems only recently that things became so ubiquitous
My theory is the escalation began with the face, during the years we were shut inside and seeing each other’s faces close up on zoom only. The pandemic is when Emmy-worthy makeup videos began lighting up YouTube. Skincare and makeup tutorials run between 30 minutes and an hour, mostly. Many of these videos are titled with the acronym GRWM. It stands for “Get Ready With Me” and signifies a bathroom or bedroom film shoot in which the YouTuber in a robe delivers a monologue about makeup—and often, many more topics on their minds—whilst putting on her makeup. Instagram and TikTok abound with short reels that famously illustrate ‘hacks’ to make grooming and fashion easier, for both guys and girls. My favorite mini-tutorials are scarves. Clothing tutorial videos are also making a far reach. My secret obsession are the videos about scarves. I have witnessed so many permutations of scarves and pashmina shawls turned into blouses, skirts and dresses. Why am I so hesitant to actually leave the house in a scarf being not-a-scarf?
Video is more effective at telling fashion and beauty stories than print ever was. I say this as a continued paper magazine subscriber, and someone who toiled in the American newspaper world before throwing it all in for a ticket to Japan. Oh, those were great days at the Baltimore Evening Sun. The surprising perk the paper gave me was the fashion beat, which included two annual trips to New York to cover the spring and fall fashion collections. Naturally, I felt like a country mouse at these events. I carried a forgettable tan leather bag o hold my reporters bookbooks, and black Prada or Chanel purses dangled from the arms of editors dressed all in black attire. It was an era when fashion journalists, top store buyers and a few socialites still had top status at the shows, and these ladies got the first three rows.
The Baltimore Evening Sun was no Dallas Morning News—that wealthy community's fashion section was legend—but it still was a bona fide publication. And it was a high fashion dream for a girl from St. Paul Minnesota, someone who unsuccessfully auditioned at age 14 for the Dayton's fashion show, to get to see the country's most important clothing collections unveiled before stores had bought them. There I was, seated at the Plaza Hotel ballroom watching the models stroll with power and insoucience, showing off the collections of Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, and Carolyne Roehm. Just--wow.
The PR heads for these design houses—the sainted souls who actually added me to the guest lists—couldn't have that my inclusion would spur hundreds of Baltimoreans to seek out their styles. Yet I came to New York, with a brilliant staff photographer, Patrick Sandor, a dear deceased friend I still think about, decades later. Patrick clicked gorgeous photos and while I took notes on the repeating style elements—the trends! Our articles flew out on the precursor to the Internet, the 'wire service', to be reprinted by other papers across the country. Patrik and I got into those shows only because we had that kind of reach.
But what did I wear when I was in New York? This was a constant stressor. I was in my early twenties and living on a typical young reporter’s budget, with no ‘fashion closet’ like the ones Vogue and Elle reporters could access. I knew how poor my shopping-mall-purchased clothes were in comparison. If you saw the original Devil Wears Prada scene where Meryl Streep disses Anne Hathaway in her preppy cerulean sweater, you get it--although words were never spoken.
On the plus side, this was the late 1980s and early 1990s, a golden age for street style. All sorts of creative people in the fashion industry, or aiming for a place in it, were sitting around me in the deeper seating rows at the Plaza Hotel. They wore artistic, vintage, and often hand-made ensembles. Admiring them, I realized I could also attempt something different from what the Black Cashmere Mafia wore. So, the second year I traveled to the collections, I chose to wear a salwar kameez suit: a traditional two piece ensemble, with scarf, that I’d bought recently on a trip with my father to India. The tunic had exquisite applique on all the edges. The colors--pink and green and orange--were vibrant and quite an original clash. The response? People didn’t look past me, and even a few photographers said they liked what I wore. I wasn't high fashion, but felt like I occupied space in the room.
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| In gowns with Anne Murphy of Malice Domestic |
In my thirties, I went through long periods of not thinking much about clothes. Life as a young mother with a book due each year felt too busy for more than sweaters and jeans. Yet for the times I left the house and playground to attend publishing and bookstore events, I dressed. I realized my closet was an untapped vault. It held half a dozen different vintage silk haori coats collected during my years living in Japan. I also had plenty of silk tunics and dresses from Indian venues as varied as the inexpensive Fab India and the designer boutique Ritu Kumar. I often mixed these clothes with velvet or silk pants, long earrings, and twisted ropes of pearls. I l could enjoy color, pattern and ornamentation to my heart's content. Inside my house, I was a peasant; and outside, I played princess.
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| A beaded velvet maxi dress from Ritu Kumar |
As my career rolled along, and just as I seemed to be getting into an individual style groove, 2023’s big style shift—Quiet Luxury—stopped me short.
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| QL, as illustrated by E! |
What is Quiet Luxury? First off, it's about touch. Cashmere, linen and silk. I have no argument with these fabrics; I buy them when I can. But for this particular incarnation, there was no pattern or bold colorway. Hues of choice are beige, white, and soft versions of browns and grays. Throw in blue jeans and diamond earrings, and expensive loafers, and you are there. Timeless style, with flat shoes and logo-less bags. The fashion is to look like you don’t follow fashion. I tried to resist the pressure of QL. Still, by the summer of 2023 I was hunting for vintage Bottega Veneta handbags--admiring their woven leather patterns and lack of logo. But at least the bag I bought from a second-hand seller in the Netherlands isn't beige. It's purple.
I believe it served as an necessary transition from two years of quarantine. The pandemic made us accustomed to dressing in sweats and athleisure for almost two full years. Once you’ve live with an elastic or drawstring waistband, it’s hard to say goodbye. The relaxed styles and longer tops of quiet luxury hid weight gain and were comfortable, yet the luxury element made us feel we could wear it out socially, and of course to work. Most of it was bought online, at an iconic retailer called The Row, as well as cheaper brands like Quince. Even though we are three year’s past pandemic, the QL influences continues. Pantone’s official color of 2026 is a creamy white called Cloud Dancer. White and cream linen pants and jeans abound. And speaking of light colors and fabrics, have you seen the milkmaids? Last year, low-necked, bosom-forward dresses seemed to be a staple at riverfront cafes. I don’t think this boomlet is over yet—not with the plethora of conservatives advising women how to please men.
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| "Raw Milkmaid Dress" sold by Evie Magazine |
The retail business doesn't judge. Retailers require big shifts in fashion taste so they can stay profitable A less dramatic example han tradwife dresses is denim. I watched skinny jeans morph to flare jeans into mom jeans to barrel-leg jeans--over the span of ten years. I read online that 2026 is bringing jeans in cream and various earth tones (Quiet Luxury!) And to go on the feet, I'm fascinated by 'ballet sneakers' that for some reason are perforated and tied up in with ribbons rather than shoelaces.
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| Kenneth Cole's Annalise ballet sneaker |
Now that I’m older and don't see every day as a race for survival, I slip into restaurants and museums wtih friends or alone, whenever I can. I enjoy not only the food or art, but also the interior design, and the aura of the other guests and staff. It’s like entering a specially designed world. And when we wear something that blends with the elegant atmosphere of the restaurant or nightclub, or the eclecticism of the museum or gallery, we become part of a living tableau. I might only be a small dot in on an impressionist’s canvas—but nevertheless, a speck of something that is real and combines with others to build a picture.
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| My travel uniform for fall in Europe |
This is why I think fashion is a form of public service. I’m not advising anyone to shop hard to fit in with other people. Dressing in a way that makes you feel like your best self is the advice I gave someone who asked what to wear at a party at my house. And this is what I need to remind myself. On days when I’m not feeling great, comfortable sweat pants seem like the only possible choice. But even if the sweats are cashmere, it doesn’t make the day better than the one where I put on real clothes and some earrings.
You might think that caring about clothes is trivial; that it has no relevance when the world is in crisis. However, costumes and streetclothes can be strategies of resistance.
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| Minnesota protest cap for sale on Etsy |
Remember the frog suits worn by protestors in Seattle last year during the ICE occupation, and the Minnesotans wearing hand-knitted red knitted caps, hats reminiscent of those worn in Norway during the Nazi occupation. In Ukraine, fashion designers are offering new versions of traditional chemises and shirt called vyshyvanka for people to wear and feel beautiful, strong and proud as the war drags on.
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| Ukrainian designer garments |
And perhaps most significantly, women in Iran have been beaten, tortured and killed because they refused to wear the hijab and showed themselves to the community with uncovered hair, and wearing modern clothes that express themselves.
Fashion being dangerous enough to cause execution seems all the more reason to give clothes their proper respect—and to be grateful for my ‘what should I wear’ moment, every morning, whether at home or away.
Sujata will speaking about mystery writing with fellow writer Amin Ahmad at McIntrye’s Books in Fearrington Village, North Carolina at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 9. She hasn’t yet decided what she’s wearing.
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