Red is a colour I rarely wear in hot climates, since my skin tends to flush in the sun.
I am also prone to smatterings of heat rash and mosquito bites. When I lived in Japan, other women at the school where I worked used to voice concern at my freckled complexion, and recommend I confine myself largely indoors during the warmest months.
Still, I was inspired by the clothes swapping of writer friends Maxine Kumin and Anne Sexton to borrow a red dress from Emma Claire just before a week’s trip to the Spanish island of Mallorca, and so I ended up fitting the outfit carefully into the top of my suitcase just before I zipped up the bag.
Em had told me she’d previously worn this red dress for a successful PHD interview, but, even when I first tried it on in the cooler temperatures of my London bedroom, I knew I’d never have worn it for an important academic meeting.
When I lifted it from my bag after my arrival at our villa, I found that feeling magnified by the sun’s bright light pouring in through the windows.
Of course, I am only thinking of this as an outfit for myself here; Emma Claire will have looked thoroughly professional on the date in question. But owing to differences in our figures, I had to compensate for gaps that opened in its button-up seam with several strategically-placed safety pins that I’d have feared might show – further proof if it was needed that this was very much a holiday outfit for me, rather than something I’d wear to an interview.
Despite the skirt also soon getting all scrunched in the heat of the car, I had a wonderful time wearing Em’s dress for a day out with my partner, exploring the remoter reaches of the island.
Walking along dusty hilltop lanes, breathing in the scents of bright vine flowers, it struck me how the same material can be so vastly altered by placing it in a new context or hanging it on the frame of another person.
This is, in fact, a familiar feeling. When Emma Claire and I first sit down to write a feature article together, or plan a forthcoming joint talk, we’ll sometimes find that, though we come to the table with the same basic ideas, we each envisage the end result from quite separate angles.
This has been known to lead to heated discussions – occasions when I’m not necessarily as measured as Em might have it – but we’ve come to really value this way of working.
The process challenges each of us to stop sticking to our usual approaches, but to break out and try on our friend’s way of doing things. And it’s turned out to be incredibly helpful in developing a distinct voice and style for the pieces we write together.
Something Rhymed 