Is This a Skinny Mirror?
Cathy Deutsch
Word Count 600
“Is this a skinny mirror?” It was the number one question I heard throughout my years owning a ladies clothing boutique. The woe of being too curvy or too small-breasted filled my days and became a study in the female fight to be enough.
As the daughter of a “garmento”, opening a boutique had always been my dream. Before owning my own shop, I worked with large fashion giants and small privately owned shops across America. I helped the designers style celebrities, dignitaries and even First Ladies. In that time, I learned that the mirror, alongside an honest opinion, was the combo that sealed the deal.
In 2002, I opened my own store, Tiger Lily Boutique, in a suburb of New York City. Mixing the sexy confidence of the Tiger with the feminine softness of the Lily, I was owner, buyer, merchandiser, window washer, bill payer, and, most essentially, a mirror to the thousands of women who passed through my purple door.
Some women would stay in the dressing room using the full-length mirrors provided to make their decision. Some were confident about their choices and chose to make their decisions privately; others chose to stay hidden behind the brocade curtain of the dressing room because they were embarrassed by their body.
Most, however, came out to seek counsel, turning front and sideways in the big mirror where I could engage in conversation, offer advice and, of course, sell, as this was the income I survived on as a divorced woman on my own.
Sometimes it was wearisome having to hand hold so many. While some customers made their choices confidently, so many were constantly backsliding into self-doubt, I found myself regularly dragging them back like skaters who had fallen through the ice.
Mirrors are about seeing ourselves clearly, but they can also be dangerous. Too much scrutiny breeds judgment, self-absorption, and vanity. Witnessing the pain and insecurity of so many women on a daily basis for eighteen years took its toll. Menopause had changed my formerly curvy sexy size 10 (the extra pounds landed in all the wrong places) to make me look more like my Mom than my lanky Dad, whom I had formerly resembled. As I heard others bemoan their thickening waist, I was not immune to my own self-scrutiny and a drawer full of Spanx to hold in my tummy.
Perhaps it worked for me as a saleswoman. I was not a thirty-something skinny shopgirl telling them that they looked “awesome” no matter the fit. I was trusted because I was one of them, a mirror they could rely on. Many of my clients were regulars and we told each other our body stories like broken-hearted cowboys after too many whiskeys at the local pub.
As I turned a shopworn sixty-three in 2020, Covid hit our region hard. Most of my clients went to working remotely, stopped dining out, canceled celebrations, and stopped attending religious services. How we looked became less important, and the mirror became irrelevant. In a way, I think it was a relief to many.
Clothing must be sold in its season and I knew I could not meet expenses on severely diminished sales so I decided to close. I built a website to liquidate my inventory and sold all my fixtures to neighboring retailers.
In the end, all that remained were a few empty hangers, volumes of stories yet to be told, and the skinny mirrors Gorilla glued to the walls, reflecting nothing but bare shelves.
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Cathy is a freelance writer, essayist, former restaurant columnist, and word game enthusiast. She recently published an essay for The Inside Press, where she is a regular contributor, on her beloved Rolling Stones, In Honoring Charlie Watts, which got national attention and filled her cup. She has also been featured in the online blog Storytelling at Work.