TURTLE NECKS

AND TIES, BIKINIS

AND BRAS
Ive never known a woman who didnt love to shop. My sister Robin is a Ross Dress
for Less maven. Dorrie, my baby sister,
loves North Face and Tommy Hilfiger.
My friend Susie Becker is a walking dictionary of fashion, with a closet the size
of a costume rental store. Carol Kane loves sacky dresses in prints la Marni
and Yohji Yamamoto. All my girlfriends love to shop. Then theres my
daughter, Dexter. She is not a shopper.

I named Dexter after Cary Grants character in The Philadelphia Story, C.
K. Dexter Haven. She arrived in a basket eight days into life wearing a pink
ruffled dress with a white bib trimmed in red. I was ready for action. Off with
the fussy garb and on with a pair of black leggings, matching cap, licorice
loafers, and ebony socks. Dexter was among the first to have a Baby Gap
wardrobe of gray striped onesies accessorized with plaid bibs, Vans slip-ons,
and a Billabong baby trucker hat. For her first Christmas I bought her a
hounds-tooth baby boy suit and a pair of vintage cowboy boots I found at
the Long Beach swap meet. My reign of terror ended when she was able to
distinguish pink and purple from black and gray. As soon as she could string a
couple of sentences together, Dexter let me know she didnt take to boys
trousers and she wasnt going to be a princess in black. She was her own
Dexter, and she was living in color.
By the time I turned fifteen, I was my own Diane, and I was living in
Black and White. It began after the annual family trip to Graumans Chinese
Theatre, on Hollywood Boulevard, where we saw The Wizard of Oz. I was so
upset I wrote Judy Garland and asked her to explain why Dorothy had to
leave Kansas for Oz. She didnt write back. But when I saw Cary Grant as C.
K. Dexter Haven in The Philadelphia Story, I couldnt believe my eyes. I was so
excited I wrote to him, asking for an autographed eight-by-ten glossy. Two
weeks later, a manila envelope arrived with a picture of him wearing thick-
rimmed glasses that offset his dark eyes, his square jaw, and that
dazzling smile. I didnt want a picture of Katharine Hepburn, his costar, who I
thought of as upper-crust. Plus, I didnt cotton to her long gowns or shoulder-
padded suits with A-shaped skirts. In fact, I felt sorry for her, and could never
have dreamed that one day she would be one of my heroes. She probably
had to wear corsets every day in order to have an hourglass figure. Big deal.
The last thing I wanted was to be hemmed in by a twenty-one-inch waist.
Katharine Hepburn must have been terribly uncomfortable. Maybe thats why
she stomped around the Lord family mansion with a snooty sense of
entitlement, while Cary Grant skipped through the stuffy atmosphere in
double-breasted pin-striped suits with black loafers and white socks. He wore
things like white cardigan sweaters thrown ever so casually over his shoulders
after a game of tennis, or a tuxedo with a white bow tie for afternoon tea, just
for the fun of it, old man.
My Things and Stuff scrapbook was crammed with pictures of him
in turtleneck sweaters under crisp striped shirts, and herringbone jackets
over tweed pants. He wasnt afraid of a polka-dot tie handkerchief. He wore
gray worsted wool suits with wide lapels, a waist button, a white shirt, and his
collar up. I also wrote down several of Mr. Grants fashion tips. For example, he
knew that the proper look of a tie lies in a taut knot. If not executed to
perfection, the knot loses the necessary spring to arch out from the collar. He
believed every man should own a variety of ties, adding that he
preferred the relatively wide sort while never venturing near what might be
considered over the top. I wrote down two of his famous quotes. Number 1:
Clothes make the man. And Number 2: I pretended to be somebody I
wanted to be, and I finally became that person. I had no doubt I could be the
person I wanted to be if I applied Cary Grants concept that clothes make
the manor, in my case, clothes make the woman.
When Dexter turned fifteen, she received a two-hundred- dollar gift card
to Victorias Secret. I had to drag her into their store on the Third Street
Promenade in Santa Monica, where we were welcomed by aisles of boy
shorts with messages like Life of the Party and Unwrap Me printed on the
crotch. We passed hipster panties spelling out No Peeking and Lets Go
Skinny Dipping on the butt. At the million-dollar Fantasy Bra display, Dexter
informed me shed recently become a C cup. Wait a minute, a C? When did
that happen? Just yesterday she was a solid B. Was she going to become one
of those breast-implant gals who fears shell never be big enough? Surely she
didnt want to become an oversized Dexter cow with a couple of udders
dragging on the floor? Dex kept insisting she was a C cup. I kept insisting she
was a B . . . and that was it. End of discussion. She marched off to find a
saleslady.


From the Book, LETS JUST SAY IT WASNT PRETTY by Diane Keaton. Copyright 2014 by Diane Keaton. Reprinted
by arrangement with Random House, a division of Penguin Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.