My great-grandmother Helen used to take her three children to Wanamaker's in Philadelphia.
Wanamaker's was the first department store in America. It was a massive twelve stories with marble floors and glass cases. I imagine the smell of leather and perfume was like money in the air. Helen would walk slowly through the women's floor, her children trailing behind her, and study things she couldn't afford. The pin-striped wool suit with the fitted waist. The way a hem fell. The buttons. The lining you could see when a sleeve folded back.
She would memorize what she loved; then she would go home, take down her patterns from the cabinet, and make her own version. On most Wanamaker's trips she left without a single bag. And even to this day, she's still the best shopper in my family line if you ask me.
Helen had an eye that could see what made a piece beautiful. She had hands that could bring it home in a form that fit her life.
She called it shopping. I would call it reclamation.
You have Helen somewhere in your history. A great-grandmother, an aunt, a neighbor who knew how to find elegance in resourcefulness. Some woman somewhere who refused to wait for the budget to catch up to her eye. This is your invitation to reclaim her, whether you ever heard her name or not.
When a piece reads like it cost five times what it did, and you feel that click of aliveness, that is her eye in yours.
PUT ON something today that cost you less than it looks like. Then find the woman in your history who taught you that trick, even if you never met her. When you feel the click, call it what it is. Reclamation, working right on schedule.
