This plaid holiday jacket from Zara was not the easiest piece of clothing to acquire, and I owe it all to Suzie. The Boston location did not have my size, but it was absolutely perfect for a holiday party that year, so I called all over and the closest store that had one in a 40S was one in Manhattan. To give you an idea of how old this jacket is, Suzie was still living in New York at the time, and had not yet given birth to her first-born child Oona, so this was prior to 2006. Good friend that she is, Suzie managed to find it in Manhattan, then get it home that Thanksgiving, and I had just enough time to add the beaded adornments you see on the shoulders. (I was inspired by one of Barbra Streisand’s gowns in ‘Funny Girl’ at the time.)
From that moment on, I’ve worn it at least once every holiday season, not only because of the effort it took to get the damn thing, but also because I still absolutely adore it. Plaid is a timeless holiday pattern, and I’m embracing it even more as I get older.
This year, I put it on for a video conference with our office staff in which we were doing a group shot for some holiday show later on. Of course that demanded some tinsel and sparkle for the background, which should see me through all my video calls until 2021, and perhaps beyond since it’s so fun. The world needs some fun right now, and God knows I do too. So I got dolled up, plopped myself in front of the golden fringe, switched on an O-ring light, and took a few selfies to commemorate the moment. I even had pants on, though you can’t see them. It was a brief and nostalgic moment of feeling like my old self again, even if everything else had changed, even if we would never be our old selves again.
