Notes on a shopping trip

About three weeks ago, I visited my first Los Angeles vintage clothing store on the excellent suggestion of another student from this class. (I promised, at the time, not to disclose the name, and I’ll be true to my word.)
The items were more expensive than one might have found in, say, Goodwill, but less than I had seen in my hometown of San Antonio, where vintage clothing seems scarce and thus more valuable, apparently. It was a compromise I was willing to make, since the store had, to be crass, already cut through the bullshit for me. When taking 17 hours of graduate-level courses, one must be satisfied with the thrill of the abridged hunt.
I was able to find several things I liked, but narrowed it down to one: a housedress with bright blue flowers (and tiny black dots between them), and a subtle black frill that lined the collar and the edge of the button placket.
In choosing it, I was thinking of my grandmother, and so I was immediately connected to our past reading. The cut reminded me of something I had seen on her in an old picture. Somewhere between 19 and 20, I went from looking like my mother (who strongly resembles her father), to looking like my grandmother. I think it has something to do with length of hair, but beyond facial features, we have the exact same physical shape. Something about that seems to draw me to clothes that she always admires, saying: I think you and I have the same style. This makes me feel connected to my grandmother’s personal mythology, which is an element in the pastiche that is my wardrobe. A little grandma here, a stolen shirt from my sister (who is my best friend) there, a necklace that belonged to my other grandma (who hated me, may she rest in peace), a poofy dress an old director bought for 50 cents at a garage sale thinking specifically of me, and some shoes I found on sale on Amazon. (Yeah, I’m thrifty.)
There are other reasons I purchased the dress, ones I don’t recall our reading really addressing in much depth. There was a lot of focus on what a piece of clothing does to the body, what desirable silhouette it can create, but not much attention paid to how it highlights one’s other features. In this case, my housedress highlights my eyes, which, blue-green and patterned as they are, happen to be my favorite thing about myself.
I also imagined how I will now be a part of this dress’s history. What have people done in it before? What will I do in it? Who will have it after me? My thought process reminded me of the opening of Miranda July’s New Yorker story “Atlanta,” as she effuses wonderment over her dirty old mattress (in a way one can only expect from July):
“From the stains on the mattress it was clear that people had died on this bed, slowly, over the course of a lifetime. How great, I thought. How wonderful to be a part of such a long history. What would I do in this bed? In this room? What fluids would I secrete?”