Would Swishing by Any Other Name Be as Cheap?

Swish (v): to rustle, as in silk,
or your friends' clothes.

I swished this weekend. Or rather, I went to a clothing swap. It was awesome. Free clothes, timed conditions--it was like being on a game show. There was also socializing and snacks. One group I hooked up with had a whole strategy down. While we were still arranging our discarded clothes, they gathered their favorite items into a corner.

The way it worked (at this particular exchange) was that each person (girl) drew a number, 1 through 3. 1s would go first, then 2s, then 3s. Whoever happened to get a 1, would grab as many of the most coveted items as she could.

We would all have five minutes to grab six items at a time.

One of our group was a 1, and grabbed many nice things. I was a 2, and missed out on some asymmetrical braided leather sandals, but I grabbed more of the coveted pile. Actually, since I'm leaving the country soon, it was my intention only to dump, not to grab, and then see if I could live on my assigned capsule wardrobe.

But there were so many nice things.

Price of a new Banana Republic Skirt 
at Banana Republic: $80
 Price of a used Banana Republic skirt
at a swish: $0

One girl grabbed dress after fabulous dress, even as the rounds went on. I was inspired to do a little hunting myself, and probably grabbed some things I didn't need (but hey, it was free!). The gratis nature of the activity also encouraged me to try on or grab things that I wouldn't normally have bothered with. I had never been a bag person before, but I took home half a dozen (partially justified by how I would be more in need of bags to compartmentalize my things). I also got a dress that needed to be fitted, a pearl necklace, and a black pencil skirt from Banana Republic--just what I needed seeing that I my work skirts had gotten too frayed, too small, or too warm for the weather.

I had brought shoes, skirts, dresses, tops, jackets, coats, and jewelry. Some of it, I was sad to see go, but I was also mollified to see my peacock green dress from Thailand to go to one of my friends. Another dress, a black and white lace confection that had never looked good on me, was claimed by another girl who made it work. It made it easier to see my former clothes go, seeing other people wanting them. It also flattered my sense of style.

Bags to bring clothes to and from home vs. Bags to bring home.

I went in with a large trunk and a full bag and came out with few enough bags and clothes that they could fit inside the black traveling bag I had originally brought. Other girls recounted their own successes. They had come with two bags and come out with one. One girl was disbelieving. She had come with two bags and come out with three! There were still a ton of clothes left in the swap room. They would be left there until the next clothing exchange. Sometimes the owner of the property made donations to charity. Other times, when she was sick of her closet, she would go down and hunt for something new.

Swishing is a great way to rustle up some new clothes and accessories for yourself. It's a great way to reduce and revitalize your wardrobe. It's good for the environment, is great for socializing, and doesn't cost a thing. Organize one in your town this weekend.

20 Reasons Not to Trash the Dress

Ladies, it is your prerogative to destroy anything you own, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. That being said, I think it's a stupid idea. See my full meditation here.

Things you can do with your wedding dress besides trashing it:

1. Do a fearless bridal that won't totally trash it instead 
   
2. Save it for a group friend photo
   
    
3. Save it in a frame
   
4. Save it for your daughter (at least a piece of it)

   

   Even if the style is too old-fashioned for her, she can still carry a piece.
5. Save it for your 10-year anniversary, where you can accessorize it with aluminum jewelry (apparently it used to be valuable)

   

   From Chloe's Ethical Accessories

6. Save it for your vow renewal

   

   Even happier, now that you know what marriage is like. (AinaKai Photography)

7. Resell it
8. Donate it
9. Rent it out to other brides
10. Rent it out to people who need full-length white dresses

    

    See your dress on stage

11. Better yet, lend it out (it will make you happier)
12. Make stuff out of it
    
13. Dye it and wear it
    
14. Shorten it and wear it
    
15. Convert it and wear it (especially if the dress had a nice bodice)

    

    Lingerie or daring top?

16. Wear it when you're feeling sassy

    

    Dance when nobody's watching

17. Wear it when you're feeling down

    

    Remember this?

18. Wear it for Halloween
    
19. Wear it to the Brides of March

    

    Be truly daring, and wear it while shopping and drinking about town
20. Wear it out to a different Starbucks every week for free coffee

    

    Who's to say you're not getting married that day? You're wearing a wedding dress, aren't you?

Why Trash the Dress?

There's an incredible amount of energy put into finding the perfect wedding dress. You even need to say yes to the dress, the way you say yes to your fiancé. In addition to the dress, there are the accessories--the bridal shoes, the bridal veil, the bridal jewelry (besides the wedding ring).

Pre-wedding dresses.

There's not just the dress for the wedding! Just as a wedding ceremony is not just a wedding ceremony anymore, but an engagement party, a bridal shower, a bachelor and bachelorette party, a rehearsal dinner, and a wedding, a bride may choose to purchase not only a wedding dress, but also an engagement dress, a bridal shower dress, a bachelorette party dress, a rehearsal dress, and a wedding dress. Plus there's the silk robe to wear when getting dressed for the wedding. The lingerie to wear after the wedding. Plus an all-purpose T-shirt whenever you are feeling sufficiently (or in-sufficiently) bride-like. 

Why all this conspicuous consumption? It's a two-way street. As much as we would like to place the blame solely on the shoulders of the wedding industry, there wouldn't be such a huge supply if there wasn't at least some demand. Sure, some (much) of the demand was artificially created, but girls sure love shopping, especially for pretty clothes that make them feel special.

What about trash the dress, the post-wedding event? Apparently a Las Vegas photographer suggested it. The idea was that he was bored of normal wedding photos. He wanted to do something fun, like an actual fashion shoot, which includes juxtaposing the elegant with the trashy. So he convinced a bride to do the shoot. Now other photographers are pushing the idea. Why?

Vancouver photographer Darcie Radtke says, “A lot of people are interested in trash-the-dress shoots but when it comes to their own dress, they have a fear of actually doing it. But most women have these dresses and put them in their closet and never look at them again. This is a way to have beautiful, lasting images of your dress.”

But don't women already have beautiful, lasting images of their dress from their wedding pictures? I hardly think they need more. It might also be better to have a beautiful, lasting dress (hence many women's fears of trashing them).

Romantically tragic.

I have to admit, as financially irresponsible as the idea is, some trash-the-dress pictures look pretty nice. Besides the romantic and sexy ones (which, again, could occur at a wedding), there are some effects that are hard to achieve without a body of water. Some seem Ophelia-esque (just be careful to not actually become like Ophelia). Some seem daring. How many times are you going to jump off a cliff into the ocean? Maybe a few times. How many times are you going to jump off a cliff into the ocean wearing a thousand dollar dress? Only once, likely, even if you are in the habit of buying thousand dollar dresses.

Once in a lifetime plunge. Literally. Even more so than the wedding itself.

There's a reason for that. Why ruin a thousand dollar dress that you spent months searching for (and then having tailored to your body)? Personally, I wouldn't even trash a hundred dollar dress. I spent money on that dress! I'm going to wear it again. I'm going to wear it until the cost-per-wear is under a dollar, even if I have to wear it to my neighbor's kid's birthday party to do it.

Trash the dress, with friends.

There's other things you can do with your dress besides trash it, even if you aren't going to wear it every day for the next six years to make the cost-per-wear worth it. For one thing, you could save it for a fun friend photo (after all of your friends are married, knock-on-wood).

You could donate it to goodwill or a bride-in-need. Or you can donate it on a more temporary basis to be used in school plays and graduations, or let your kids trash it when they use it for dress up (that's what my fiancé's mother did, and her dress is still in pretty good shape).

You could wear it again when you renew your vows. You can save it so that your daughter (or granddaughter) can wear it (or at least some part of it). You could have the skirt shortened and dye it another color and make it your go-to formal dress.

Suddenly measuring out one's life in coffee spoons doesn't seem so bad.

Maybe that takes away from the singularity of the dress? Maybe. But isn't that what marriage is? The turning of an extravaganza into the quotidian? Isn't that a good thing?

At the very least, you can always try putting on your dress again and head over to Starbucks for a free coffee.

Why Girls Go for Bad Boys

This has been a beef of mine for awhile, in theory. I myself never understood the appeal, but it became personal when one of my friends actually started dating a "bad boy."


Disclaimer: this is her own definition. My own boyfriend says that he's not really a bad boy. The definition of "bad boy" includes but does not necessarily require the following qualities: riding a motorcycle, being cool, being handsome, being hip, having disdain for society, having disdain for other people, displaying deviant behavior, promiscuity, being tragic, being emotionally crippled, and otherwise being a jerk.


I've talked about this phenomenon with a couple of people. One was a male cousin. Like me, he is super-rational. He did say that one of his reasons for getting into racing cars was because it could lead to a desirable "bad boy" quality. He also admitted that it's been his experience that girls are, in fact, drawn to bad boys. In the meantime, his sweet Japanese girlfriend was sitting there wide-eyed and interested to learn about this possibly American phenomenon. After all, we are the culture of James Dean and Clint Eastwood.


There is also scientific experience to support the bad boy theory. After all, bad boys do not make good husbands, household providers, or fathers (or boyfriends). They're kind of selfish. So as far as evolutionary theory, scientists were wondering why so many women did, in fact, go for them. One theory was that they were handsome, virile, and testosterone (and therefore possibly violence) filled.


Disclaimer: While scientific studies show that all men with a propensity for violence have a high level of testosterone, many men with a high level of testosterone are not violent. So it's a necessary but not sufficient cause.


But again, what good is a man that leaves you pregnant and then leaves you to raise the child on your own? The chances of you and your (his) child of surviving are significantly slimmer than someone who has a nice, consistent husband who doesn't cheat on you or beat you.


So evolutionary theorists came up with the handsome son theory. This theory theorizes that after you have slept with a handsome asshole who moves on to impregnate many other women without helping them actually raise the children, you give birth to a handsome asshole who grows up to impregnate many women without actually helping them raise the children. Evolution-wise, you still win, because your genes are being spread around by your handsome son.


That's one (evolutionary) reason why women may be attracted to bad boys, or perhaps people who have undesirable characteristics evolved to become handsome, because who would put up with them otherwise? However, while I find evolutionary reasons interesting, I don't find them sufficient. After all, nature's only half the formula. There's also nurture.


The society I grew up in aspired to raise girls to believe that half of romance consists of a mysterious and dashing stranger out there who will be rough around the edges, but who overcome this to become their knight in shining armor and they will live happily ever after (see The Mummy, Pride and Prejudice, Disney, etc.). The other half has to do with sex.


Romance novels follow a similar formula, except all that mysteriousness and roughness applies to a steamy sex scene, complete with a near fantasy rape where the woman doesn't really want to because he's such a jerk, but at the same time really wants to because he's so sexy. So the guy basically rapes her. Consensually.


Did I mention that my friend was once talking with her TA about their jerk boyfriends who keep saying they'll do things, and sometimes even do after excessive nagging, but mostly don't, and they agreed that nice guys are boring? This has to do with nurture. In fact, it has to do with behaviorism. There is a licensed social worker who writes about Attractions of Deprivation.


My boyfriend thinks the grammar of this concept makes no sense, just like I find the concept of Managing Up really annoying, but in our sound bite culture, you have to at least try and come up with a catchy name for a concept. Attractions of Deprivation does sound a bit more accessible and self-helpy and new-agey than something like "variable ratio/interval reinforcement schedule that leads to great resistence to extinction," which is basically the same thing.


Jennifer Weiner writes in Good in Bed that in college Cannie took a science class in which rats were exposed to three different ways of getting food pellets. Some rats got a pellet every time they pressed a bar. Some rats never got a pellet if they pressed a bar. The third group of rats would randomly get a pellet if they pressed the bar. Obviously the rats who never got the pellet stopped pushing the bar, while the other two groups pressed the bar quite a bit. Then in the second phase scientists stopped giving pellets altogether. The rats who were previously used to a steady stream of food pellets soon learned that the trick wouldn't work anymore and adjusted. However, the rats who were on the random, variable ratio reinforcement schedule never stopped pressing the bar. Cannie says that she became her father's rat.


Well, a lot of women become their boyfriend's rat as well. They stay because, "maybe the next time it will work," and once in awhile it actually does. Hence the nagging that mostly doesn't work but sometimes does. It's exciting and suspenseful. It's certainly not boring. I also threw in interval reinforcement because, after all, boyfriends, even bad boy ones, are real people too. They might some day just feel like being nice. Girls stick around for that kind of stuff.


Going back to the sex. I recently read No Cheating, No Dying by another Weiner (Elizabeth--no relation, I think). She spent awhile trying to improve her marriage, including her sex life. Some of her research came across a theory that married couples purposely kill the passion in their relationship. This is predicated on the supposition that passion is based on unpredictability and mysteriousness. Those two things, while great for sex, are not so great for marriage. Most people want a stable marriage--it's one of the main reasons for getting married, commitment and the house and dog and kids and all that. Most people don't want their partner to be a stranger. You want to be intimate with your partner, to know everything about him/her. Unfortunately, these two things lead to bad, or at least boring, sex.


There are ways of mitigating this stuff. Penelope Trunk wrote in a recent post that you can get the passion back into a relationship by speaking another language, wearing a wig, or even wearing a new necklace.


In any case, I think bad boys (along with psychopaths and other emotionally abusive people) are unpredictable. They have this default state of assholeness with a side of douchebag, but once in awhile they're really great--just enough to convince others to stick around for awhile longer, because maybe this time it will work out. In addition, since most of them are incapable of real intimacy, they maintain an aura of mysteriousness that makes them both unattainable and desirable.


There are two more dimensions to the whole "liking a bad boy" phenomenon. One is that, since bad boys are generally not that nice to anyone, the fact that they are sometimes nice to their girlfriends makes their girlfriend feel special. Yeah. I don't get it, but my friend's "bad boy" boyfriend once criticized my own nice guy boyfriend by saying, "I wouldn't want to be his girlfriend. He treats everyone the same"--meaning that he treats everyone nicely. This is true. My boyfriend does treat everyone nicely. Sometimes I think he treats people too nicely, to the point that his own nice behavior is frustrating to even him, but you know what? I'm proud that he's a nice person, and he does treat me differently from other people. Sometimes this isn't good. Because I'm closer to him, he doesn't mind asking me to not talk to him at that moment because he's busy. Most of the time, however, it's good. Some theories say love and emotional energy are limitless and shouldn't be rationed out. Other theories say that you do have a limited amount of time and energy and that you do distinguish your friends by treating them differently from others. However, even if you believe in the latter, I believe the one who is getting the most time, energy, and love in the case of the bad boy is himself.


Of course, girls do aim to change that. That is the last dimension. Girls are attracted to bad boys, but then quickly realize that they are not good boyfriends. Therefore, they go about changing what they were attracted to. My friend frequently talks about the need to "fix" her boyfriend, and when I point out various foibles she says, "I know! I'm working on that!" I used to be quite upset about both the way her boyfriend was and how he treated her, and then one day my own boyfriend finally made me realize that said bad boyfriend was happy with himself. It became my new mantra. He's happy with himself, so he'll never change. Why should I spend so much emotional energy wishing he were different? (Especially since he wasn't even my own boyfriend.) Now for some wise quotes.


“Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.”

--Anonymous

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

--Reinhold Niebuhr

“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
 --James Baldwin


The first quotation is to try and convince all the girls out there to give up on trying to reform your bad boy boyfriend. The thing is, he's probably smugly content with himself. Actually, I don't know; I think some of them are supposed to be miserably tortured about how no one understands them. Either way, it will be a very difficult process to change him (or her, if you're dating a bad girl/crazy bitch).


The next two quotations are to give hope. You may not be able to change the person you're with, but you can change yourself. At the risk of getting sappy, I'm going to say that you have the power to change yourself in myriad ways. It won't be easy, but it's possible. You can start by giving up getting into bad relationships with bad boys (if that's what you want). So I guess I'm being hypocritical, hoping to change others. I have to admit I haven't managed to change my friend. In fact, I have given up. But I am hopeful that she will eventually realize things herself.