How Gen Z Is Tucking in Their Shirts
Notes on Medium Femme from Carmen Maria Machado.
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Today’s Style Questionnaire is with !
Carmen, 37, is a writer and the author of In the Dream House and Her Body and Other Parties and the
newsletter. I’m a huge fan of Carmen’s books as well as her razor sharp analysis of The Ultimatum. I’ve had a big style crush on Carmen since I started following her on Instagram, in that special way where when you find a fat person who you think has really good style, you start paying extra attention to what they are wearing. I’m so glad to have Carmen doing the style questionnaire today!Let me know what you think about shirt tucking (and everything else) in the comments.
What are you wearing right now?
My pajamas! Soft black shorts (either Universal Standard—I think all the ones I have are old/discontinued styles—or the Target Stars Above brand) and a long-sleeved black top that I used to wear out, but now it’s full of holes so it’s become a PJ top. I blame covid/quarantine for really relaxing a lot of my clothes systems. I’m much more likely nowadays to roll out of bed and into my day in my PJs (or a second, clean set of clothes that… resemble a fresh set of PJs) if I don’t have any plans to leave the house.
What was the last item of clothing you bought?
Universal Standard had a Memorial Day sale and I bought a matching linen short set in, like, this gorgeous goldenrod color. I am a huge, huge Universal Standard fan—I’ve been a customer of theirs since they had, like, five pieces available for purchase. I think their size inclusiveness should be the industry standard, and I also have discovered that since entering my late thirties I am very into simple basics that you can dress up/down.
If you had to wear a uniform (same thing every day) what would it be?
Comfy, relaxed jeans, a loosely tucked-in tank top or t-shirt, a cardigan, lace-up boots, and a great pair of earrings and/or necklace. I would describe my style as solidly “medium femme.” I love the trappings of high-femme fashion but I am kind of lazy and don’t have the energy to be fussing over myself all the time. (Which is not a dig at people who do! It’s just not who I am.) So I love getting my nails done, but get the kind of manicure that lasts forever and doesn’t chip and doesn’t have to be touched up. And I love the look of makeup but I’ve never figured out how to do a full face—and honestly the idea of slathering my face in foundation and contour makes me feel weirdly claustrophobic—so I just do a light powder and sunscreen and v low-effort dramatic lip. And I love accessories because they are fun and easy.
Jeans are almost always Universal Standard. (Are you sensing a pattern?) The only other brand I wear is one I have a complicated relationship with—the Target Ava & Viv brand. I bought a pair of jeans on a whim from them last year and they were, like, incredible??? But I am very hot and cold on Target's plus-sized clothes. The style I bought last year is just the Women's High-Rise Cropped Slim Straight Jeans (similar). It's the pair I'm wearing in the last photo in this post, with the white button-down.
Where did you get clothes as a kid? Describe a favorite childhood outfit.
Clothes were fraught when I was younger—my mom did not really allow us to choose our own outfits or the clothes that were bought for us. I don’t think I minded it when I was very small, because she wanted to dress me like a little doll and I liked being dressed like a little doll. Tights and Mary Janes and puffy sleeves and twirly skirts. But as a preteen and a teenager, it was a mess. She was constantly trying to dress me like I was forty. (Which now, I would love! But obviously hated as a teen. No fourteen-year-old wants to dress like an accountant.) She’d buy me clothes without taking me along or asking me what I wanted, I’d tell her I hated the clothes, she’d cry and tell me I was ungrateful, we’d fight—rinse, repeat. This also happened with my hair—she cut me and my siblings’ hair for us, but only in the way she wanted, and every haircut was a complete trauma.
It seemed to have never occurred to her to just ask us what we wanted to dress like? Or how we wanted our clothes or hair to make us feel?
Add in fat/body shaming and general melodrama (like her sweeping into every store at the mall ahead of me to tell the employee working there that spaghetti straps—which were on every formal dress at the time—were NOT appropriate for someone my age) and clothing has always been a weird site of suffering and healing in my life. I did have a beloved aunt who seemed to have her finger on the pulse of adolescent fashion—she told me years later that it was because her sister worked at a department store and always knew what was “in”—and would buy me very cute pieces for Christmas or birthdays that I wore until they fell apart. But that was the exception to the rule.
Anyway. You asked about favorite outfits, not trauma. The first time I ever really got to wear stuff I wanted to wear on a consistent basis was when I got a job at sixteen at the local Goodwill. I had an employee discount, and loved to spend my shift sifting through the racks for clothes that I liked. I bought a lot of black t-shirts and jeans and costume jewelry and tops with spaghetti straps—sort of halfway between high femme and low femme. (I think of myself as a medium femme now, so that tracks.) My mom was always demanding to know where my paycheck was going; I don’t think she ever understood that it was helping me feel like myself.
Tell me about an item of clothing that you wear only to do a specific activity.
I have a very specific teaching uniform—not very different from my above “uniform” except I love an oversized blazer instead of a cardigan. I have a bunch of them from Wildfang. I don’t really wear blazers for anything except teaching, and maybe some literary events. I love how they look! But even an oversized one looks kind of formal (to my eyes!) in non-professional contexts.
Describe a favorite article of clothing from a work of fiction.
Anne (of Green Gables) and her beloved puffed-sleeved dress. The one that Matthew buys for her for the Christmas party—oh! I’ll never forget it. (He knew how she wanted her clothes to make her feel, because he listened to her. It’s what made him so special: his ordinary love.)
What did you wear to the last party or event you attended?
In May I attended a fundraiser in honor of Graywolf Press’s 50th anniversary in New York and wore this very cute little black dress I got from Target a few years ago? It’s like a mock-neck backless dress from their Future Collective line. It doesn’t look like much on the hanger but it’s honestly a knockout. It was that with some sheer tights and my trusty Dansko Mary Jane heels. (They’re not really heels, they’re closer to clogs because I am old and have bad ankles, but they make me feel like I have heels on, which I love.) And I wore some kind of dramatic earring, though I don’t remember exactly which pair. I’m not on tour and spend a lot of time at home nowadays, so I really do love an opportunity to dress up and go out.
What do you wish you had in your wardrobe that you don’t?
I don’t know if I have anything like this because when I want something (like actually want-want it, not just like have a passing fancy about it), I buy it. Like, this past winter I got my hands on someone’s hand-knit (or maybe crocheted? I can’t tell the different) sweater vest and I loved it so much I tracked down a hand-knit cardigan and a hand-knit sweater for myself. They’re so much more beautiful than mass-produced pieces! I’m very grateful to have found them.
Tell me about an experience that changed your relationship to clothing or getting dressed.
When I was finally out of the house and able to really and truly direct my fashion choices, I was also becoming more and more “plus sized.” It might feel weird to explain this to your younger readers, but trying to find stylish clothing in sizes larger than 14/16 was so fucking hard in 2004. You had Lane Bryant (mostly awful) and Torrid and that felt like it? I was also broke, so that didn’t help. I knew the look I was going for—it was like, equal parts sexy librarian and Renaissance Faire attendee and genderqueer gamer and a teeny bit goth/punk—but it was hard to know exactly how to create it.
Since I was a Livejournal girlie, I joined communities like fatshionista and a fat-clothing exchange and used that to slowly build a wardrobe that made sense to me. Sometimes I really lucked out—like once, I went to pick up a dress that a local fatshionista was selling and she was like, you know, I have a bag of clothes in your size in this same style that I’ve outgrown—can I just give it to you? And I remember coming home and spreading this absolute bounty all over my bed and bawling with gratefulness. After that, I was still broke, but I had developed enough of a sense of what I wanted that I was able to articulate what was becoming my style. I’m so grateful to both those communities. I don’t know what would have happened without them.
Tell me about an accessory or piece of clothing that you lost or ruined but still think about.
Oh my GOD. My friend Lucinda made me a necklace that she gave to me for Christmas in like 2001. I loved that necklace—it was like, a wire circle with all this green beadwork and little charms. We went on vacation to the beach that summer and I wore it everywhere and then at some point noticed it wasn’t on my neck anymore. I was devastated: I backtracked to every place we visited on the trip, even called stores we’d gone to, and never found it. I also kept dreaming that I’d found it, and then waking up and realizing it was lost forever. I hate losing things, so this was a very sharp and particular kind of grief.
What’s your 2024 summer must have?
I’m very excited about my newly purchased matching set! I just like to feel cool and breezy and comfy in the summer. Which is also why I like to bust out my robust caftan collection (90% of them are Jibri! A brand I adore so so so much) and swan around like a thrice-widowed heiress when I’m near a pool or the beach. Caftans are precisely the amount of low-effort I want in an outfit, but are so regal and beautiful! I love them.
Who do you think has good style?
My friend
has written beautifully about her own style, which I have admired for years, and which she calls “frump.” I have really learned to embrace my own frump by admiring her and her wisdom and her incredible outfits.Anything else you want to tell us about getting dressed?
I know there’s a lot of online discourse about, like, millennial vs. zoomer fashion. I mostly ignore it, because a.) I am tired and b.) it’s not for me, really, c.) I am trying to consume/buy less, d.) no one, not even our stylish youth, can convince me to re-embrace the low-rise jean, and e.) I want to dress like myself, and not anyone else. But at some point my partner told me that the kids were tucking in their shirts in a particular way and I started tucking in my shirt in that way and honestly I liked it so much! Thanks, Gen Z.
One of the ways is in this photo—like with one part of the button-down in and one out! And the other way is just tucking it really loosely, or doing a French tuck. (I know Gen Z didn't invent that but apparently that's how they do it, according to my stylish and much more plugged-in-to-the-ways-of-the-youths girlfriend.)
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Absolutely love this conversation with two icons!!
Oh this feels like such a treat for a Wednesday! I so feel the comment about struggling to find plus sized items in 2004. I was a plus size tween then and it was right around the time I joined LJ but sadly never discovered the community Carmen mentions. The amount of ill-fitting jeans and matronly sweaters I suffered through...