Jodi Hills

So this is who I am – a writer that paints, a painter that writes…

Tag Archives: dress


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The dress designer.

I’m not sure where heaven begins. How high up it actually is… but when I saw the mannequins on the fifth floor of this New York walk up in the fashion district, I thought perhaps, for my mother, it starts right here. 

You could say she loved clothes, but that’s not the complete story. She loved fashion. What’s the difference? I would equate it to the comparison of house and home. Fashion is about the design. The putting together. Accessorizing. For her it was not about what she was wearing, but how she wore it. 

Certainly no one mistook it for the promised land —  the Woolworth’s on Broadway in Alexandria, Minnesota — but when I watched her thumbing through the Butterick patterns, or the McCall’s, on Saturday mornings, when I watched the dream come alive as she swooped her hands from waist to knees, stretched her arms out in the make believe dress, for me I was certain I was in the presence of an angel. 

It had always been her dream to be a dress designer. I imagine her now, so easily she bypasses the stairs and floats her way to the upper floor. How joyfully she passes on her heart and knowledge to the young people amid the mannequins awaiting. How she drapes and flows. So elegant. So possible. And they can feel it. Beyond their pin pricked fingers and weary eyes, they are Woolworthed into her sense of magic. And it’s Saturday morning, every day. And they dare to dream because of her. Just like me. 

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My singing pinky.

The physical therapist for my hand wants to be a singer. I like knowing that she plays guitar. That her fingers create music. Maybe the song she’s humming in her head is traveling down into her heart, through her arms, then fingers, and into my hand. (I may have heard my pinky sing.) 

I suppose as a dreamer, I’ve always trusted those with a dream. 

My mother wanted to be a dress designer. And it was that dream that carried us from Herberger’s, to malls, to boutiques, to dressing rooms around the country. It was pure joy that reflected off of three-way mirrors and bounced from her heart to mine. Lives well designed.

Sitting at the table, drinking egg-coffee and eating home-made pastry, I asked my grandma what she would like to be. “A UPS driver,” she said quickly. “Then I could drive from house to house and sit with people and have coffee and visit.” “I think we’re doing that right now,” I said. We smiled in the moment of that dream come true. 

When we think of people not just as who they are, but who they are trying to become, I think maybe we can be a little more forgiving, a little more empathetic, perhaps more understanding, and certainly more joyful — what could be more fun that travelling along on a dream?!! But we have to be willing to dare, and willing to share. I encourage you to do both. My singing pinky is proof that everything is worth the dream. 

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Be the occasion!

One doesn’t find a place, one makes it.

We couldn’t drink the water in this apartment. The smell was, well…the fact that it smelled should tell you enough. My mother boiled it. Assuring me each time, we wouldn’t be here long. Maybe it was only a year. Possibly less. Time does not pass equally in every address. 

But the rules were the same. “Beds must be made,” she said. “No dishes in the sink.”  Pictures were hung. Books placed on shelves and nightstands. Music played — 45s purchased for a dollar at Carlson’s music center. And we dressed, not for an occasion, but because we were the occasion. “We’re not vagrants…” she said, “yet…”  We could always drink in the laughter. 

Each apartment we moved to was an upgrade. But one was not more, nor less, a home. It was always home. Because we were together. We created the space we wanted. 

When I moved to France, I brought almost nothing, but was certainly not empty handed, nor empty hearted. Our house is filled with art and books. With the scent of bread baking. Photos of family. Friends. The sounds, the marks, of those who pass through — by foot and by heart. And I’m known to change clothes several times a day, because I am the occasion — still and always — my mother taught me that.

Sometimes I catch myself in the worry of time racing, but then remember, this is the gift — I will make something of it!!!

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It suits you so.

It was July 2nd in 1994 that we saw Robert Goulet perform in Camelot. I know the date because my mom wrote it in her journal. She kept record of all the important things. Where we went. The dresses we wore. Because unlike in the song, one of her favorites by Robert Goulet, “I won’t send roses,” he sings, “I won’t send roses, or hold the door. I won’t remember which dress you wore.” And when she sang the last line, “and roses suit you so,” she meant it for me, and most importantly, she meant it for herself. 

She played that record again and again to get the point across. What a lesson to learn! A lesson every woman should embrace and pass on. You have to know your worth, and be prepared to accept nothing less, to give nothing less.

We sat side by side in that theatre in Minneapolis, listening to him sing the “impossible dream,” knowing, we had always, would always “run, where the brave do not go!” 

Today, when I play fashion show, (and I play a lot), there is a bit of vanity involved, sure, but there is so much more. I am my mother’s daughter, daring to bare shoulders and heart. Daring to give the love that I want in return. In front of the mirror, in my black and white dress, a black as dark as Mr. Goulet’s mustache and hair, my heart sings, because I am dressed to receive all the “roses” this life can offer. It is written in her journal, inscribed in my soul — it suits me so.

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Dress Designer.

We were shopping the City Center Mall in Downtown Minneapolis, my mom and I. The shops were magnificent. Such beautiful things. Could we afford them? No, of course not, but the real question was, could we afford not to look? We were dreamers. We had to see.

We dressed up to go shopping. (I suppose like one used to dress up to be on a plane.) We stopped at the Lillie Rubin store window. Such elegance. We began to enter the store when the longest legged clerk I had ever seen asked if we had an appointment. An appointment? “You need an appointment to enter,” she said, as if words could be an eye roll. My mom, without missing a beat replied, “Are the clothes busy?” I laughed out loud. Long legs turned and walked away. We laughed all the way to Dayton’s.

We had already survived much bigger rejections than a Saturday afternoon store clerk. This would never stop us. Life gives you the opportunity to decide. People can’t hurt you unless you give them the power. City Center is long gone. But we’re still here. Still shopping. Still dreaming. Still looking. Still laughing. Through everything, still deciding to make it a good day.

My mother was a dress designer. Not for Lillie Rubin, but for us. I give thanks for that, every day.

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