It's Time to Get Dressed Again

Toronto-based writer Randi Bergman is a prolific dresser—and the first person who came to mind for personifying the feeling of finally getting dressed again. As someone who dresses up for a trip to the mailroom as if she’s covering the Met Gala red carpet, Randi knows a thing or two about how what we wear can shape who we are. Here, she shares all the reasons to celebrate our outfits past, present—and especially future.

One day last summer, I met my best friend in the park for one of the many “let’s sit on the grass and stare into the abyss” outings emblematic of socializing during a pandemic. I was sporting my standard 2020 get up: a baseball cap, bike shorts, a vintage t-shirt and Teva sandals. As I sat down, he bluntly read me to filth, saying: “I used to be so excited to see what you were wearing when we’d hang out, but now you just look like Robert Pattinson at the gas station.” Once I dried my eyes from cry-laughing (you know that side-splitting cackle that results from being roasted by one of your closest friends?), I realized the awful truth: the pandemic had made me sartorially boring.

I’m a notoriously silly dresser: I ride my bike in heels. I love mini bags so much that I rarely use a wallet. And I repeatedly fill my closet with summer wares even though I live in Toronto, a city that experiences three months of heat at best. Despite how all of this might seem counterintuitive to everyday city living, I’ve always made it a personal mission to make wild wardrobe choices work for me (tbh, I also loved the shock elicited from arriving to an event with my bike helmet and, say, lucite Chanel heels). The pandemic changed everything though, and even for those of us who embrace a more is more aesthetic, psyching ourselves up play dress up on Zoom often became all too much. Wallowing in sweatpants while Netflix and chilling FOREVER? Much more appealing. This collective loss of showcase has done more than just make us lazy. It’s hidden the modes of expression through which we communicate our innermost selves with the world.

The light at the end of tunnel—and a jab or two in the arm—is upon us or soon approaching depending on where you live, and while life might not return to complete normalcy just yet, I can’t help but break out into song when I brush my fingers longingly across my racks of slip dresses:

“Reaching for something in the distance

So close you can almost taste it

Release your inhibitions Feel the rain on your skin.

No one else can feel it for you

Only you can let it in”

Is singing the words to Natasha Bedingfield’s early aughts anthem, “Unwritten,” in my closet a little dramatic? Yes. But is rising from the ashes of a global pandemic dramatic? Hell yes! 

We’ve all been through something drastic, and like any makeover montage from the nineties teaches us: nothing uplifts the mood like a good outfit. If you look back in the history books, traumatic times are typically followed by exuberance: see the Roaring Twenties or the wild, inexplicable aesthetic of the early 2000s. All this leads me to believe that when glamour does make its comeback, it’ll look different, having picked up a little Miss Havisham on the way. We’ve had enough time to get a little weird inside the caverns of our condos, now’s the time to share that weirdness with the rest of the world. Taken to layering bangles alongside rainbow bright tie-dye? Or matching your new favourite strawberry print dress with fruity accessories? Nature (and by this I mean the fashionscape) is healing and ready to see it all.

As for me? I’m ready to wear my biggest hoop earrings, don my brightest miniskirt and make my friends excited to see (and maybe even question) my impractical outfits again.

Spring 2021 Campaign

Photographer - Amar Daved

Stylist - Sophie Van Der Welle

Model - Shanali Singh

Hair - Franziska Presche

Makeup - Celia Evans

Nails - Lucy Tucker