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There’s pleasure to be had in searching, desiring, and getting your cart filled. Lauren Festa investigates the sartorial hotness of The RealReal.
like all the thrifted cashmere sweaters folded, er, piled up in my closet, look strikingly alike: it's 11pm. I’m in bed. Face washed, teeth flossed. My bladder, empty, so as to avoid the interruption to pee. Nothing to do but nod off doing my favorite thing…
Favoriting my favorite things on my favorite dating app—The RealReal. OK, so it’s not exactly a dating app. But I interact with it exactly like a dating app, so what’s the difference?
Lights on or off? Am I alone, or is my partner home? Is he in bed next to me: if yes, awake or sleeping? I caress my phone screen, its body resting inside a spread open book. If he’s awake, he likes to get involved. I ask his opinion or he gives it without asking. He’s generous like that. If it’s something I really desire, I don’t hesitate to pull the trigger. But sometimes, for fun, I ask for permission…
(with my personal Google Account email, for free). Sometimes I come back to check on something specific. Knowing what you’re looking for is half the fun. Eyeing that special something for a few days; then, returning to it. Or I go directly to my cart—the equivalent of DMs. There, I can see what’s in my bag—a tip for keeping things you really want on top. When you see something intriguing, but not cart-worthy, you can “Favorite” it by tapping the heart near the item. From there, it gets filed into a tab called OBSESSIONS. This name is perfect. It describes not only what these things are to me, but the feeling I have about them. I am obsessing. I am obsessed.
I plug in a few tags to guide the algo: S and M (my preferred clothing sizes) 9-9.5 (designer shoes run narrow). I picture myself, no fantasize, wearing this Yohji skirt, holding that buttery Bottega bag, showing up on city streets, never feeling the chill of New York winter in these The Row cords. The merchandising, if you can even call it that, is lacking in creative direction (but who needs someone else’s vision of you when you have a perfect vision of you?). I’m here for the realreal, the rawraw, the unfiltered goodgoods. A canvas this blank gives me room to fantasize. The effect of these images is nearly 2D: dresses, skirts, jackets, and pants lay flat as paper-dolls on headless mannequins, so white as if to fade into the abyss of the internet itself, like that scene from The Matrix. Accessories—rings, bracelets, earrings—comically Photoshopped, like tails pinned on a donkey. Any given item has a maximum of four views: full frontal, backside, and two side views. Much to my irritation, some products have only two images. Show me more! You can swipe left or right on these, and tap to zoom in. Others get up close, some interior bag shots revealing too much, like a blurry dick pic or an illicit peek up a woman’s skirt. A text sent at 2am, reeking of regret.
Not The RealReal interrupting me with a text. The RealReal: You've got $40 off for Singles' Day. Even if you're taken—and especially if it's complicated. Reader, I clicked.
I play a little game with myself. I obsess over something, add it to my cart, and as a sort of punishment, I watch like a voyeur, letting the whole 20 minute HOLD—the interval of time wherein you can “reserve” an item from the clutches of other obsessives, or “shoppers”—until the countdown dissipates, the final seconds ticking by at a speed that feels like watching sand slide through an hourglass. The item, lost, like Cinderella’s glass slipper. But not lost forever. I believe when I hear, if you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it was always yours. If it doesn’t, it never was. If I see the item again, it’s mine.
until my toes touch the foot of the bed, pretending I am stretching out the possibility of time and the probability of an item coming back to find me. Sleeping a dreamless sleep, drifting, thinking, if it’s still there when I wake up, then it was always mine. Is this shopping? It feels like edging.
But it’s not all lust and games. Nothing breaks my heart more, truly, than to lose something I have loved. Even if it was just for 20 minutes. Here’s the deal: I’m a natural deal-finder. A thrift-seeker. Nothing thrills me more than finding the one. But here’s the catch: There is no such thing as the one. The ONE, dear reader, is an illusion that has deluded me–all of us–into thinking we can control our desires. In truth, I have no control and I love it. Like a sub, I want, no, need The RealReal to Dominate me. Each time I think …this is it, the last and final thing I will ever buy. The coat to end all coats. The boots to take me from here to eternity (or at least through all the East Coast winters I hope to live to experience). Because there is no one-season that fits all. There are in-betweens. There are style evolutions. There are transitions. And I am always transitioning.
More often than not, the biggest, foundational changes in our lives show up as haircuts. But all obsessions are subject to becoming old hat. Each one is replaceable. There are so many fish in the sea. And sometimes, what you thought you needed just isn’t for you. That’s where RMAs (returns) come in, sending Mr. WrongFit back into the circular jerk economy.
Still, the fun never ends. I crave the pleasure of looking at a feathered Chanel cape. In the same way that I can appreciate fine art I don’t like, like a Kandinsky: strange to look at, thrillingly expensive, ostentatious. Each new thing, from the absurd to the absolutely fabulous, that catches my eye, catapults me to some place more glamorous than my reality. Mentally slipping then physically feeling my feet in a pair of shoes that are more like a whole new personality. Another me. Trying myself on for size.
It’s the best, or at least to me, the least embarrassing way to get to know my own body. In the confines of the bedroom (if I order for delivery for a fee of $12.95) I can do this with privacy. Need an audience? You can visit a physical The RealReal retail location, and draw a curtain—which never fully closes, leaving a peek-a-boo sized crack for voyeurs—watching myself, the main character of my solo fashion show in a floor to ceiling mirror. Every piece I try on, coming from someone else’s drama, items inhabited by other lives, inherited by me and you, back to me and you again. There are secrets and stories between the seams. We can begin to know, or at least pretend to know, the kinds of kisses exchanged and the number of cigarettes smoked in an Alaïa black leather jacket (from 1987!).
With every purchase, every Favorite, every obsession, I get to know myself a little better: Maybe I am one size down. Or one size up. Who else is offended by “one size fits all?” It’s these and other questions that keep me coming back, night after night, to my favorite dating app.
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