A riot of rose-colored chiffon arrives, carried in both arms like a sleeping child by the Dolce & Gabbana salesman. “It’s going to look so lovely at that bachelorette,” he coos. Zipping the gown up, I twist around in the dressing room to note the price tag — $8,245, almost exactly my student-loan balance — but I don’t blink. Instead, in the three-paneled mirror, I start figuring out my angles; when the man returns to ask about the fit, I proclaim that the waistline alone has brought on happy tears. Once I’ve taken enough pictures and pulled my fraying hoodie back on, I turn to my time-honored protocol: I hang the dress up, say thank you and leave.
There is no party, nor was I ever going to buy that dress. Such is my routine of visiting luxury boutiques to try on clothes I have no plans, let alone means, to purchase. A few afternoons a month, I’ll be at Lanvin or Louis Vuitton or the like, browsing through runway garments with the nonchalance of someone shopping for milk.
I’d say I’m an orderly member of society. I pay my taxes and don’t cut lines. Most of the time, I even look both ways before crossing the street. So I’m aware that my jaunts involve false pretenses and wasting innocent people’s time. This behavior actually originated with my mother, the frugal daughter of rural Guangzhou shopkeepers, who discovered the delights of upscale window-shopping when she immigrated to New York City in the late 1980s. At age 12, I followed her inside the Fifth Avenue Prada, arms pressed to my sides like I’d done at the Met, praying I wouldn’t elbow a Vermeer. My mother laughed at my bloodless face. “We’re allowed to touch them,” she said, patting a pair of pointlessly large sunglasses. “Here, you try.”
To her, this wasn’t transgressive. It was a way of showing a store that we loved its designs, even if we couldn’t afford them. If we were feeling really frisky, we might even put something on hold.
As I grew up, I made a solo ritual out of it. Sometimes I’ll try on clothes because I can’t stand them, to experience the idea of being so rich I don’t even have to bother being choosy. I once shimmied into a transcendently hideous orange dress at Saint Laurent, so bright and broad it could serve as some kind of national alert system; toasting my reflection with a complimentary Pellegrino, I conceded that the fluorescence might actually be doing my wan cheeks some good. Another day, at D&G, I found a peachy, flower-smothered mass slouched in the corner of my dressing room as if awaiting last rites. I realized I’d seen it before — on Taylor Swift, of all people, in the music video for “Blank Space.” It took 10 minutes, but I got it on. How did she manage all that effortless prancing, I wondered, when this itchy, weighty gown made it practically impossible to move?
I know my try-on habit can seem hair-raisingly gauche. Many of my own friends are so appalled to hear about it, you’d think I was doing something actually illegal, like indecent exposure — except, well, the opposite. They also don’t understand why I would regularly remind myself of all the nice things I can’t have.
But the thrills here are cheap and plentiful. As a freelance violinist with an unpredictable income, I think of my practice as offering a rare concordance of excess and thrift. It’s also a standing appointment with my blithest self, making me ask for things I’m not sure I should be allowed anywhere near.
Most of all, though, it’s worth every bit of social friction to be able to transform my appearance on a dime, without actually spending a dime. Two years ago, when an injury forced me to quit my job in an orchestra and move into my mother’s basement, I feared the end of the career I had sought since childhood. It was these dressing rooms that helped nurse my flailing ego back to health. With my good wrist, I yanked fabrics over my head, availing myself of one audacious silhouette after the next. I wanted to feel like a performer, even if I wasn’t one on paper.
I was lucky: Eventually, I healed enough to play again, though orchestra life was behind me. In fond memoriam, I ducked one day into Gucci to sample some symphony-appropriate necklines — because these dressing rooms are also a place where you can entertain the possibilities of your reflection.
The greatest pleasure is the mirrors. They’re usually several titanic sheets of glass, oriented so as to duplicate you, endlessly and forever, at angles you didn’t know existed — turning you into a queen of infinite space, commanding any number of costumes and characters. All you need for this multidimensional leap is to slip on, briefly, a $1,000 off-the-shoulder blouse.
Anyone looking for a smidge of the high life in New York City can ponder priceless art at Sotheby’s, stroll into the bathroom at the Plaza or give the tester lotion bottles in front of Aesop a few vigorous pumps. But mine is a special sort of coveting, because as much as I love sampling these garments, I never end up wanting to bring them home. My visits give me all of the fantasy and none of the reality of the dry-cleaning, lint-rolling and puddle-navigating that ownership would entail. In these dressing rooms, a few minutes of indulging can obviate the want altogether. You get to have your cake, eat it, then put it right back on the hanger.
Jennifer Gersten is a writer and violinist from Queens.
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