In a regular new column, Numinous founder Ruby Warrington dishes on life as a material girl in a mystical world…
Is this the perfect outfit for the afterlife?
I usually avoid too much contact with the outside world on a Monday morning. I find it’s way more conducive to the creative flow to begin the week with a few extra hours of solitude and some light meditation, and after a weekend that was more about spirits than spirituality (my fashion designer friend Henry Holland was in town, and I always lapse seriously into excesses of my Taurus South Node when we get together) the last thing I needed was to be traipsing up to midtown before my morning Yerba Mate.
But then I was on my way to a photo shoot to interview seven cast members from the Netflix series Orange is The New Black (including Crazy Eyes). And anyway I told myself, as I attempted to astrally project my energetic body away from the inhuman crush of the L train, the Universe always knows best.
I arrived on set to find everybody in hair and make-up – they all had their own “glam squad” so all was calm – and lo, within half an hour I found myself in the middle of the best conversation ever with Natasha Lyonne. She plays reformed drug addict and loveable loudmouth Nicky Nichols on the show, although she’ll always be Jessica to me, the one with all the hot sex tips for Jim in American Pie.
It started with the Mayan 2012 prophecies, which led us onto the fact that her publicist’s birthday is May 21 – which, in 2011, was when the Christians said the Rapture, a.k.a. Judgement Day, would hit. I think I was on holiday in Ibiza at the time, which felt like a fitting place to greet the end of the world actually, and I seem to remember us not being that concerned at all by the idea of Pacha disappearing in a flash of fire and brimstone.
Anyway, “you should have had a Rapture party”, said Natasha, over the whir of the hairdryer. “With a Hallowe’en-meets-the-Hamptons theme!” I chimed in. I mean, obviously. “No!” (The publicist) “At a Rapture party you should be allowed to wear what you like. If it’s going to be your last night on Earth, right?”
“Wrong” according to Natasha, who went on to reveal that she’d had her “outfit for the afterlife” all mapped out for years, and would wear it religiously on “long plane journeys” and other times she felt there was more risk of crossing over to the other side. Her reasoning; “You’re stuck in this outfit for the rest of eternity, it better make you feel f***ing good!”
FASCINATING stuff, I think you’ll agree, especially when we got into the specifics. “A good pair of panties (she actually had a pair of her favourite American Apparel ones in her bag to show us) and a good bra, a good pair of jeans, those Rag & Bone boots (seriously, why is everybody wearing those boots?) and a Helmut Lang blazer. All black, with some fierce gold jewellery.” Did I mention that Natasha is one of the only people I’ve met who was actually born in Manhattan?
It then dawned on me that she was actually describing my exact outfit, right down the Helmet blazer. Spooky. In the actual afterlife, I think I might switch up the jeans for a pair of Lululemon Wunder Under yoga pants – way more comfy – although we did all agree that the lack of pockets might present a problem when it came to a keeping the key to the gates of heaven safe.
By the time the catering staff served up a Paleo lunch of seared tuna and grilled veggies and leading lady Taylor Schilling had confessed to being a totally Numinous girl at heart (how “a connection to something bigger than us is the security that underpins everything”), I was questioning how I came to give Monday’s such a bad rap. It’s probably something to do with my Moon being in my eighth house. To be discussed next time…
THE IDEAL OUTFIT FOR THE AFTERLIFE?
Crux Wool Blazer, $695, Helmut Lang
Mini Pentagram Cuff, from $280, Pamela Love
Harrow Boot, $495, Rag & Bone
Penelope bra, $75, L’Agent by Agent Provocateur
Girl Short stretch briefs, $25, Commando
