The Clothes In You Closet #027

Feat. artist Maayan Zilberman, a birthing dress, Barbie shoes, and a ten-year-old skirt from Target

The Clothes In Your Closet is a series where I style people in their existing wardrobes and share the stories behind the outfits.

Leaning over a plate of eggs, potatoes, and toast and a side of bacon at Montague Diner in Brooklyn,

Maayan Zilberman

was telling me about the ALAÏA. An artist, sculptor of sugar—Vogue has called her “fashion’s favorite candymaker”—and writer of the just-launched Substack

Red is Best

, Maayan was now the keeper of a friend’s collection of clothes. This friend had handed down a lifetime’s worth of ALAÏA pieces (haute-me-downs, if you will), and she’d been wearing them ever since.

The only thing was, she’d gotten out of practice putting together outfits because with a zip of a dress—and her signature red lip, gray hair slicked back in a pony, and nails long and lacquered—she was good to go. I realize that this kind of dressing is something many people aspire to, but if you enjoy the act of puzzling together pieces like me and Maayan, you want to exercise your sartorial muscles. A scroll through her Instagram and you’ll see that she’s continuously reimagining her wardrobe, rewearing pieces over and over again into looks that feels fresh and original. It’s the most stylish (and sustainable) way to dress. But as I know myself, we can all use another pair of eyes to see our clothes with a new perspective.

Maayan also wanted to figure out how to wear pants. “I never wear them,” she told me, but she’d recently attended an event where everyone wore the same pair of jeans, and she noticed that people came up and talked with her. That doesn’t always happen. Maybe denim was the great equalizer. When I styled her a few weeks ago, pants were the first thing on my list. We started with two pairs of jeans (Maayan has only two pairs!!), but after a few attempts, decided that they just weren’t the right fit. If I’m trying to make something work, but it isn’t happening, I note what we did and didn’t like, and move on. That noting is essential so you don’t repeat the purchase.

What did come from this attempt was our first look. Then a birthing dress styled into an outfit, a cupcake-of-a-dress with Barbie shoes, and a button-down styled with a floral skirt from Target. Read below for our thoughts on Zara, videos about how to style a dress into a top, inspiration on how to make an oversized dressed look fitted, and the story behind that floral skirt.

Cut That Mini

Maayan previously wore this sheer Batsheva dress with just a bra and underwear, but she wanted to style it in a way that felt more her in the now. I kept the bra she was wearing—the laser cut lace felt sporty, and I liked its texture under the sheer fabric. I tried the dress with a pair of jeans, but ultimately nixed the idea for a quilted Tory Burch skirt that Maayan had altered into a mini.

“This past winter I was trying on all my skirts and they were hitting right above my knee. And I thought, I’m always in tights, I might as well make them micro-minis. So I cut off all my skirts, and I think they’re much cuter now.” I totally agreed. Fingertip-length minis are long enough for you to sit down, but still show some leg.

Browsing through her jewelry, I gravitated towards this chunky silver chain necklace. “My friend Jenny has a line called Johnny Valentine and she handmakes each of these chains,” she told me. I liked the necklace’s weight against the gossamer fabric. It reminded me of Maayan’s silver safety pin earring, which she’d been wearing at our breakfast. I used it for this look and all the others.

For the finally touches, I grabbed these leopard print Zara heels and a purple & Other Stories bag. The shoes were one of four pairs she’d pulled for me, mostly Zara. We got to chatting about the brand, and its prevalence in her closet.

“I don’t treat Zara like fast fashion” she told me. “It’s not disposable to me. I find my favorite pieces there, and I wear them for years.” I related; when I was in my twenties I combed the racks of Zara looking for pieces I could wear repeatedly because I didn’t have a lot of money to spend on clothes. From there I started to learn more about fabrics and how our clothes are made, ultimately leading me to shop mostly secondhand, but that was after years of slowly shifting my mindset.

Mayaan continued, “I have a lot of really nice shoes, but I always find myself reaching for the Zara. It’s just as valuable as my fancy shoes. I love them as much as the heirlooms.” If more of us treasured clothes the way Maayan does, whether they’re SHEIN or Chanel, our wallets and world would be a lot better off because we’d create less clothing waste.

The Birthing Dress

“This is actually a birthing dress,” Maayan told me, as I pulled out a cream-colored slip with an empire waist, lace paneling, and bow-tied spaghetti straps. I was looking for a slip dress to go with her biker boots.