12 2.13.
Women
their age are
portrayed as
either powerless
and pitiful or
powerful
and despised.Illustration by R. O. Blechman$80,000, eating popcorn by her window
and realizing ‘‘there are some things that
should never be put into storage.’’ You get
the feeling she is referring to herself.
Rockmore does not struggle toward
this epiphany. Rather than mocking her
for sticking around past her supposed
sell-by date, online audiences — even on
teenager-heavy TikTok — love her for it.
She is, in fact, one of a handful of over-
fashion mentors on social media to attract
an all-ages crowd. There’s Trinny Wood-
all, formerly of the TV show ‘‘What Not to
Wear,’’ who pioneered this type of mad-
cap styling advice, livestreaming from her
closet, or her bathroom, or Zara. There are
also Grece Ghanem, Melissa Meyers, Lyn
Slater and Nina Garcia, among others — all
over 50, all with social media followings
well past the half-million mark, all reject-
ing the culture’s insistence that women
become invisible 50 years before death.
Wealth plays a part in their charm. There
has always been a tendency, as both men
and women age, to replace the appeals of
youth with the appeal of money; when you
may no longer impress the world by look-
ing fresh and dewy, you can impress by
looking formidably wealthy. Rockmore’s
closet is a monument to consumption.
Woodall earned some 27 million pounds
in 2021, a few years after introducing her
makeup line. And yet what they off er is
not simply a fantasy of wealth itself. It is
the fantasy of a well-lived life — the sense
of having reached a place of power and
inhabiting it comfortably. In a landscape
where women their age are portrayed as
either powerless and pitiful or powerful
and despised, this feels revelatory.
This is a diff erent kind of aspiration
than the one found in closet tours of young
infl uencers and celebrities — say, the
clip of Kylie Jenner’s mirrored handbag
depository that has been viewed over 17
million times on YouTube. Many of those
fi gures seem focused on stockpiling luxury
brands and reacting to trends. Part of why
Rockmore and Woodall feel so reassur-
ing is that, like all cool older people, they
seem comfortably past all that, as though
they’ve already seen the trends, chased
the goods and graduated into freedom.
You fi nd yourself envious not of their stuff
but of the carefree, unburdened quality
they exude: the feeling of having moved
past inhibition and fear of judgment into
sovereign selfhood, a place many younger
women are elated to learn exists.
Victoria Chang is a poet whose fi fth book of poems, ‘‘Obit’’ (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), was named a
New York Times Notable Book and a Time Must-Read. Her book of nonfi ction, ‘‘Dear Memory: Letters on
Writing, Silence and Grief,’’ was published by Milkweed Editions in 2021. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches
in Antioch University’s M.F.A. program. Polina Barskova is a Russian poet whose work includes ‘‘Air Raid’’
(Ugly Duckling Presse, 2021), from which this poem is taken. She teaches Russian literature at U.C. Berkeley.Th is poem in translation is about the deportation of Jews from the town of Bialystok,
Poland. It aptly captures the destabilized and paradoxical nature of memory and
history. Bialystok at once ‘‘grows silent and speaks’’ and is ‘‘stocked with soldiers in the
amount of one.’’ Even the poem’s title describes the morning as ‘‘Sunny’’ while the fi rst
line foretells the killing: ‘‘My half-baked fl esh.’’ In this poem, Bialystok is fi lled with
ghosts who are still trying to speak, warning us about the perils of war and inhumanity.
We just need to hear and listen to the past.Poem Selected by Victoria ChangA Sunny Morning in the Square
By Polina Barskova,
translated from the Russian by Valzhyna Mortto T.P.My half-baked fl esh stuff ed with its own tricks
fi nds itself as a leaf or a leafl et caught
in the rush of a train to Bialystok.Bialystok stuck in 1941 (1939?).
Bialystok padded in fright like a Christmas star
stored away in its box.
People still wake there
alive living ablaze.They discuss an earlier event
and read an announcement:‘‘You are to appear in person on the square at six,
bring only your wrist watches , in the amount of twelve,
bring only your greyhounds, in the amount of twelve,
bring only one bolt and one hatch.’’Bialystok grows silent and speaks
stocked with soldiers in the amount of one,
between his brows a swastika shines,
in his mouth a star shuns speech.‘‘Where should we shovel our hounds, our watches, our hatch?
Our knees bleed dew,
our teeth rake burning leaves,
why, shiny soldier, are we so sweet with you?
The soldier curses at them: we’ll build a circus!
Our circus king will show you his tricks.
A star built of smoke and scream!
History crams a lesson down your throat.Mercy me/Master me on the square at seven,
greyhounds bark, hatches shine, wristwatches bang,
by eight the square is ready for bedtime
and you crack like a glass Christmas star. Arrr arrrScreenland