everyday is a child with teeth #10: supposed former infatuation junkie
A few weeks ago the phrase “supposed former infatuation junkie-core” appeared in my mind, fully formed. Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie is, if you recall, the name of Alanis Morissette’s 1998 follow-up to Jagged Little Pill, where she showed how she had shed her “angry woman”1 persona after a trip to India (“Thank U India”) where she found enlightenment. A lot of people found enlightenment in the late ‘90s: Madonna turned 40, became a mom, found the Kabbalah, and put out Ray of Light that same year, arguably one of her best-ever records, all about her new enlightened sense of self; Courtney Love didn’t put out an enlightened record per-se, but she was also dabbling in Kabbalah and doing Kundalini yoga with Gurmukh Khaur Khalsa, the same LA-based yoga guru that Madonna and Gwyneth were frequenting at the time. I know about Gurmukh because she got a little profile in a 1999 issue of Vogue (the writer did yoga with Courtney and Gurmukh). You could buy OM perfume at the Gap. I’m sure it was all the effect of that pre-millennium tension.
I keep thinking about supposed former infatuation junkie mostly because I like the phrase. I like how it feels in your mouth when you say it (try it) supposed former infatuation junkie. I like that it feels like both nonsense and like it contains a whole universe—supposed former infatuation junkie. We’re all supposed former infatuation junkies, if you really think about it. (Or at least definitely J.Lo is.) Last weekend at karaoke with friends I sang “Right Through You,” from Alanis’ first record and while texting my friend Adam about it after (he loves Alanis so I thought of him when I sang it and then of course it made me miss him), I also informed him of my current obsession to make supposed former infatuation junkie-core happen. He could see it. I love when you text a friend something sort of half-joking and halfway through you realize maybe you are half-telling the truth. The best song on Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie is “Baba,” about her experience with a guru on her trip to India. The chorus goes:
How long will this take, Baba?
How long have we been sleeping?
Do you see me hanging on to every word you say?
How soon will I be holy?
How much will this cost, guru?
How much longer til you completely absolve me?
Alanis became rich and famous singing about all of the things “good catholic girls” weren’t supposed to say, a poster child for the liberated ‘90s woman, and just as soon she left it all behind. Going from “Are you thinking of me/when you fuck her?” to “Dear Matthew/I like you a lot/I realize you're in a relationship/with someone right now and I respect that”?! That takes guts.
Anyway, lately I think a lot about HOW LONG HAVE WE BEEN SLEEPING.
Alanis’s concert style in 1998 and 1999.
But back to the “-core” of it all… Before I started thinking about the music and the songs and the meaning, I was thinking about it as it relates to Alanis’s style at the time. The Indian-inspired raw silk fabrics with gold embroidery; layered sheer tank shell tops, maybe some Gaultier-inspired ones with images of the Buddha or other deities; cargo pants or skirts in military green cotton or a nylon, tech-y fabric. The most important part involved the layering of a straight skirt, made simply from two rectangles, over straight leg pants that erred on the side of slouchy.
On the Eckhaus Latta website there is currently a pair of pants that come with a detachable half-mid-length skirt-belt thing made of lace. I desired them immediately. I think that instant connection came from the skirt-over-pants layering, like they unlocked something in my brain though they don’t necessarily fit the description of anything I mentioned above. A few weeks ago, after Dries Van Noten announced he would be stepping down from his own label, I went on Getty to look at his old shows; and I discovered his collections from ’98 and ’99 especially were exactly all of the things I had been thinking about. Before he was known as like, the king of color or the master of florals he was a designer that dealt in “ethnic touches.” A 1997 review in the Times described his collection as “intriguing when he made familiar touchstones of Occidental style exotic with a light brush of Indian or African culture.” The point is, I love the thought of a post-rage, healed-Alanis wearing Dries van Noten.
Some Dries Van Noten Looks from 1998 and 1999.
Back then there was anxiety about the end of a millennium—doesn’t it seem so cute to think about how only twenty-ish years ago people thought the computers would malfunction because they wouldn’t understand the concept time?—now there is anxiety because well why isn’t there anxiety. The future. We are looking at tinctures, adaptogens, whatever Bella Hadid’s upcoming wellness line will be about. We wanna get off the machine!
At some point later this year or next year, Dries will name a new designer that will replace him. As it always happens, this new designer will begin by going into the Dries archives. I think people had forgotten about the richness of his early collections, is something this new creative director might say in an interview describing why their new collection is covered in rich Indian embroideries, or a Hungarian color palette—done in direct collaboration with artisans from the specific regions of course. Do you see it all coming together? Do you feel enlightened?
“I’m glad that we’ve all made inroads so that Alanis can present a safe version of female rage on TV”—a quote from Courtney Love that I read on the back page of some teen magazine back in the day and I’ve never forgotten since.