One day you see it, and suddenly you’re in another era. You recognize the gauzy material, the ripples, the billowy whiteness, and all sorts of bucolic images come to mind: country, farm, nineteenth, eighteenth, seventeenth century, Renaissance, Europe, green pastures, nubile girl milking a cow, ruddy faced woman churning butter. You remember seeing it in a Whistler painting, on a fleshy female with a basket under her arm, standing on the shore of a stream. Goya painted them on giggly rosy-cheeked girls dancing in a circle, as barefoot boys looked on with straw in their teeth.

A whiff of bus exhaust brings you back to forty-second street, and the thing that caught your attention is floating on a beautiful waif wearing a jean skirt and platform sandals.
“I want one of those,” Lisa says.
“What?” You say, still lost in an agrestic dream.
“I want a blouse like that.” She gestures towards the waif.
“Oh yeah? It’s a nice shirt,” you say.
“Peasant blouse. It’s called a peasant blouse.”
“Isn’t that a little too provincial for your urban taste?” You ask, with your eyes still fixed on the waif who is half a block ahead now.
“No.” Lisa flashes you a menacing look. “It’s totally urban. The peasant blouse is quintessentially urban, if you ask me. You obviously know nothing about fashion.”
She’s right. You obviously know nothing about fashion because you don’t see how an article of clothing originating from rural regions of the past could be quintessentially urban in the twenty-first century.
“There are no peasants in New York,” you say.
Lisa laughs. “You’re missing the point.”
When you reach the subway, she asks, “So are you coming to my birthday party?”
“Next Saturday? Definitely.”
“Cool,” she says with a flip of her hair as she disappears into the underground.
You look for the waif, but she too has disappeared. The peasant blouse, however, remains visible on every other woman who passes. Some are very flattering, inviting you to stare and fall into a rustic fantasy of deflowering a lusty milkmaid in an abandoned barn. Others are as unexceptional as their wearers, downright plain, beyond tasteful simplicity. You are beginning to distinguish the well-made authentic blouses from the cheap factory-sewn imitations.
One is nearly identical to the waif’s blouse but the woman is short, fattish, and hirsute. You realize the peasant blouse doesn’t discriminate. A half-blouse with flared sleeves puckers just below the chest of a lumpy teenager. So inauthentic, you think. Even peasant whores were modest enough not to expose that much flesh. A woman who brushes your shoulder flaunts a rose peasant top with delicate blue and green embroidered flowers around the neckline where two drawstrings are tied in a dainty bow. Bohemian, you think, until you notice her three-inch heels. Another, another, and another: they appear like pigeons when somebody tosses a scrap of bread on the sidewalk.
Now you know what to get Lisa for her birthday. The signs are everywhere. Besides that’s what she said she wanted. You decide to look for one today while you’re already out and the peasant blouse is fresh in sight and mind. Since Lisa is such an urbanite, Urban Outfitters seems a likely place to start. So you turn around and walk back to the subway. You take the F train to Fourteenth Street.
A sign in the window greets you: SALE! PEASANT TOPS AND SKIRTS.Skirts? This is far more than you anticipated. You walk in and an ebullient peasant-top clad saleswoman says, “Hi! Welcome to Urban Outfitters. Let me know if you need any help.”

“Yes, actually, I’m looking for a peasant blouse,” you say to her chest.
She smiles. “We have plenty of those and there is a sale on our peasant collection.” She points to a nearby rack. “Is there any particular style you have in mind? For your…girlfriend?”
“Friend. I don’t know. White, I guess.”
“Here’s a cute one.” She holds up a long-sleeve gossamer blouse with crochet neckline.
“That’s nice, but too transparent,” you say.
The woman slides the hangers along the rack and stops at a low-cut cap-sleeve top with girlish ruffles. It laces up the front like a corset. “This one is very sexy, but not as see through,” she says as if she’s divulging a secret.
“Yeah.” You stare at it blankly.
The selection is too vast, too vague. What if you choose the wrong one? Lisa can always exchange it, but still, you don’t want her to think you have no taste. A sexy blouse might signal your true feelings for her. Then again, if you give her something plain and conservative, she might think you’re like the shirt: plain and conservative.
The saleswoman asks, “What’s her size?”
“Small, petite I guess.”
You really have no idea. She could be a medium. One of your ex-girlfriends yelled at you for overestimating her size when you bought her lingerie. So you think the smaller the better.
“Let’s see.” The saleswoman continues to sift through the rack. “There’s this one.” She pulls out the corset-like top. “And here’s a cute floral print one…oh, but you wanted white.”
She pulls out six different blouses: long sleeve, short sleeve, no sleeve, crochet, embroidery and ribbon adorned. The cheapest, the nearly transparent one, is forty bucks. The others cost more than what you’re willing to pay. You thank the woman and leave, embarrassed with your indecision.
On the street, you can only look at peasant blouses. You are on a mission now to find the perfect one at the right price. A middle-aged obese woman lumbers by in a peasant dress—white, sleeveless with lace trim. You grimace. That is so wrong, you think, as you try to convert the image into a trim, pretty slave girl with insurgent spirit in her eyes. Instead, youth and beauty melt into chunky skin. Insurgency is crushed between folds of fat. What is happening? The female peasant fashions (you have yet to see peasant pants) are meant for My Antonia, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, all those bucolic beauties you read about in high school: hard-working, honest women of the earth. Lisa is not a woman of the earth, but she could look like one, with her chestnut hair and freckled face, her expansive brown eyes imbued with guileless charm.
You approach Union Square. Mannequins draped in peasant blouses beckon from the window of Strawberry. You enter. Several round racks drip with white and cream crinkled folds. Your mission blocks every curious feminine look. At the racks, sifting and sliding, you note that the average price is twelve dollars. The styles range from slutty to cute. You pick out a couple of options: one is plain cotton, three quarter sleeved with embroidered trim. Made in India. The other is cap sleeved with lace, gathered at the waist, flaring out like a mini mini-skirt.
A woman laughs and says, “I think that one would look better on you.”
Your cheeks redden. “Oh really, I was thinking the other one is more my style.”
“Shopping for your lady?” The woman asks.
You nod. She is thin and pretty like Lisa. Suddenly an idea spawns.
“You’re about her size,” you say. “Would you mind trying these on?”
“Sure,” she says.
She leads you to the dressing rooms. You hand her the two blouses. She disappears into a room and you linger just outside. Other shoppers smile and raise their eyebrows. In a few minutes your model appears wearing the lacy gathered blouse.
“Turn around,” you say.
She turns in a circle then poses with one hand on her hip.
“Are you a model?” You ask.
“No. Actress. So I can play a model,” she says, striking another pose.
“Your performance is great, but the shirt is not so impressive. What do you think?” “It’s nice…for a twelve year old,” she says.
You both laugh.
“I’ll try the other one,” she says.
In a few moments she emerges wearing the Indian blouse. She spins. Through a whirl of color you see a ravishing peasant woman standing there, holding a basket of wildflowers against her hip. Almond hair glistens in the sun and her face shines with freckled youth. Her plump lips part as coyness pulses through her gaze. She is half child, half woman. You smell the flowers, sweet meadow grass, pungent sweat on her bosom. You want to seize her, kiss her, throw her down on the earth, roll with her in the strewn wildflowers of violet, yellow, and white. You can’t hold back. The sun is so blinding, you close your eyes before leaning in to kiss her. When you open your eyes and refocus, you are pressing the woman in the store, your model, against the dressing room door. She stares at you in alarm, her pretty features twisted in disgust.
“What are you doing?” She says as she pushes you away.
You shake your head. You are dizzy, still intoxicated by the lingering mingled fragrance of wildflowers and sweat.
“I…I…” You stutter.
You look around. The saleswoman is glaring and nearby shoppers have interrupted their material quests to get a glimpse of you, the trespasser.
“I’m sorry,” you say to your model. “Something came over me. I thought you were…I like the blouse. I just wanted to…get a closer look.”
“Sure. Whatever, pervert.”
She retreats into the dressing room and slams the door loud enough for everyone in the store to hear.
The saleswoman intercepts, “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“But—”
“Sir, please, you are harassing our shoppers. Please leave.”
“I want to purchase that blouse,” you say, pointing to the dressing room. “For my friend. It’s her birthday present.”
The saleswoman stares right through you as if your face was forty dollars worth of gossamer. She opens her mouth to say something just when an angel sails over the top of the dressing room door. The heavenly blouse lands right in your arms. You clutch it to your chest and without another word you bolt to the front of the store, cut to the front of the line, slap fifteen dollars onto the counter, hold up the blouse for the cashier to see, say, “keep the change,” and run out.
The birthday party is at a bar in the East Village. Noisy and crowded—not conducive to the offering of a peasant blouse. Lisa’s attention is mostly divided among her numerous male friends, some of whom she has dated. She greets you with a kiss when you arrive, but you only chat for a few minutes before she is whisked away by another guy. You don’t stand a chance next to these friends who are like trends, coming and going, creating sensations then disappearing in a month or two. In the year you’ve known Lisa, you have been the reliable pair of jeans that never goes out of style. Comfortable, convenient, goes with everything. But would she ever look at those jeans and say, “I want you. I have to have you?” Before leaving, you catch her long enough to invite her out for a birthday drink Sunday night. Lisa never passes up free drinks.
“I got you a little something,” you say, as you open your bag and pull out a bundle wrapped in blue tissue paper.
“How sweet,” she says.
Her eyes smile as they always do when she is the center of attention. You hand her the gift.
“You didn’t have to,” she says coyly.
“I wanted to,” you say.
She peels away the blue paper. “A peasant blouse?” She says, staring at the white folds on her lap.
You nod.
She twists in her chair and holds the blouse out to the side. She turns it around then holds it up to her chest. Her eyes are no longer smiling. Her mouth smiles, but you can tell it is a forced, polite one.
“Do you like it?” You ask with pounding heart.
“Yeah,” she drawls.
“I can return it if you don’t, or exchange it, if you want…”
“No. It’s nice. Thank you.” She smiles directly at you, a sort of half-smile, then refolds the blouse onto the paper, wraps the paper around the blouse, and stuffs the package into her purse.
There is a short silence then she starts talking blandly about her plans for the next week. You finish your drinks. The conversation dwindles. You pay the bill. She gets up and says she has to go. She plants a perfunctory kiss on your cheek.
“Thank you. So I’ll see you around,” she says.
“You really like it? The blouse?” You ask.
“Oh yeah, it’s great. Thanks again. I’ll see you around, okay?”
“Sure, see you,” you say.
She is out the door.

Weeks go by. You never see Lisa wearing the peasant blouse. One day as you’re walking her to the subway, a woman wearing a denim trench coat passes.
“That’s such a cool coat,” Lisa says. “I totally want one of those.”
You don’t hear. Her voice is diaphanous.



PAGE PAGE 8
Sellars-Attack of the Peasant Blouse

You don't hear. Her voice is diaphanous.

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