The dreadful empty black pants

When did we get obsessed with "travel clothes"?

When I was little, Dr. Seuss’s Pale Green Pants (with nothing inside them), scared the bejeezus out of me. These spooky, empty pale green pants wandering around the Snide bushes creeped me out so much I could barely turn the page. I didn’t buy the realization toward the end, “That I was just as strange to them/As they were strange to me.” I’ve heard that one about rattlesnakes, too.

I’ve been thinking about those pale green pants because lately I’ve been stalked by black pants. Everywhere I go—scrolling through the pages of the New York Times, on Facebook, every time I open my computer, there they are: empty black pants. They aren’t just one pair of black pants, either, but a menacing multitude. There are perfect black travel pants. “Billion dollar” pants. Effortless pants, airplane pants, on-the-loose pants, Oprah’s favorite pants, lightweight wool travel pants. Pants, pants, dreadful empty black pants follow me everywhere.

I summoned these specters. I was just trying to figure out how to take only a carry-on bag for a three-week trip to Europe. It used to be that I would simply wear a pair of jeans, bring one dress, a couple of tees, a lightweight jacket, and go. I once traveled for nine months with a small backpack with little else. But things have changed. Now there’s a whole new category, Travel Clothes—sort of a hybrid of athleisure and Eileen Fisher with a touch of merino wool—the existence of which makes you feel, paradoxically, that you have to buy a whole lot of new stuff in order to pack light. Nevermind that I have a closet with plenty of black pants already. You can’t just take clothes you already have, the clothes you’d usually wear for three weeks, traveling wherever you go around town where you live. Those suddenly seem all wrong. 

Several years ago, when I was doing a lot of international traveling, O, the Oprah Magazine asked me to write a piece about how to pack light for a trip. My advice—groundbreaking!— was to bring layers of black plus some colorful accessories, including a lightweight cashmere throw for the plane and evenings out. This little story led to a presentation to a fancy women’s group where I demonstrated what was in my suitcase, to general noises of amazement that I could survive with so few clothes.

Back then, packing was easy; I could throw things in a bag in the morning for an international flight that left at 1 pm. I once packed for a three-week trip during winter for Egypt, Ireland and London in a carry-on, and had room leftover to bring home a bunch of scarves. My roommate on the Egypt portion of the trip, on the other hand, brought nine pairs of shoes. Nine. She also complained when I hand-washed my versatile black tunic and pants in the sink and hung them to dry overnight. These days I wonder if she’s online buying quantities of pack-light travel clothes to fill the three giant suitcases she schlepped on that trip.

 I am a great believer in carry-on bags for an international trip, or any trip, not only because things get lost during layovers (I once spent a week in Sicily in the clothes I wore on the plane and some emergency undies), but because if you want to make a last-minute flight change due to delays or cancellations, you’d better only have a carry-on. Plus, if you’re hauling bags up and down stairways in train stations and along cobblestone streets, it’s better to travel light. Really, it’s always better to travel light unless, say, you’re moving.

But now, post-pandemic, I haven’t been to Europe in five years, when I used to visit Italy almost yearly, and I’m out of practice. All of a sudden I’m in a panic about packing. I’m doing what I used to tease my mother for doing, which is set out clothes weeks in advance to make sure they have the maximum use for the minimum weight, and that they all match. You can’t go around looking like a slob in Italy. People there dress up when they leave the house; they want to cut a bella figura in public.

That anxiety started me spending hours online and in shops looking for things like the perfect black travel pants. It reminds me of the anxiety I used to have packing  before I went to New York City to make the rounds of magazine editors to try to rustle up story assignments. That anxiety, however, was based in reality. I’d go into Vogue or Elle or wherever, already practically illegally overweight for those magazines, and the editor would look me up and down to see, presumably, whether my outfit indicated that I could write. The editors themselves would solve their fashion dilemma by buying the perfect black editors’ pants and wearing them endlessly with a crisp white blouse, basically so afraid of making a fashion faux pas that they wore a uniform. But I was always trying too hard, like spend-my-rent-money-on-Armani too hard, and I’d still end up still looking like I’d just come from a consignment shop in Santa Cruz.

My deepest anxieties about clothes probably come from a childhood where I was always criticized for being overweight, so I only wore dark colors to hide my body. I wore little but brown until college, when I branched out into black, which had a punky edge. In my 20s and 30s, I tried out other styles, but as one magazine editor told me, he never knew if I was going “to show up looking like Deborah Harry or Mary Tyler Moore.” I didn’t really have a style of my own. Over the years, though, particularly after meeting a shopkeeper from Amsterdam who asked me, “You have such a colorful personality, why do you dress so boring?” I’ve become more bold and confident in my style, less self-conscious about my body, and fond of beautiful textiles. 

But faced with that carry-on bag, something melts. What if I bring the wrong clothes? This is particularly ridiculous going to Italy, where they are not short on clothes. It’s not like I’m planning a trip to a remote village, although even in remote villages I can always find a sarong that fits. I would be fine—as I have been every time my suitcase has been lost—supplementing what I wore on the plane with what’s in local shops. But old securities arise. 

I recall a time I visited a fashionable friend who was living temporarily in Rome, who observed that I’d gained weight, and remarked that Italians were going to consider me an “ugly American.” Deeply offended, I told her that it was more likely that they were going to first notice that I speak good Italian. I left unspoken the fact that after living there for nine months, she could barely say buon giorno. After that visit, I never spoke to her again, because I don’t think there’s anything quite as ugly as insulting a friend about her body size. But I still fear coming off as una brutta americana in Italy, where the women are tiny to begin with, smoke to keep themselves that way, and effortlessly dress in chic pants and jackets that do not resemble anything you would wear to exercise in. They do not understand the concept of “athleisure” for being out in public, where they wouldn’t be caught dead walking in Lycra leggings—or the “travel pants” that look suspiciously like sweatpants.

So I have spent weeks obsessing. What are the right pants? The right jacket? It’s tricky: we’re going to Sardinia, where it’s hot, and the north, where it will be cool, plus we’ll be bicycling for a week. Trying to solve my packing problem, I’ve done crazy shit I’d never ordinarily do, like buy a polo shirt from Talbots, thinking I could wear it everywhere; I have spent my entire life never wearing a polo shirt anywhere, because they make me look like a Republican. I forced myself into a variety of unflattering black “travel pants” from Athleta, Vuori, AYR, Ruti, Quince, and, yes, Elieen Fisher. I bought some god-awful black travel-anywhere shoes that Katie Couric recommended in her newsletter that I will not wear out of the house. I fell for the 100-day-challenge wool dress, a shapeless thing that I have not worn for a single day, and which will soon be available on Poshmark. For a week, I was convinced that only a wildly overpriced double-breasted sweatshirt from the luxury brand Frank & Eileen would do for a jacket. I bought an itchy wool sports bra that may breathe, but made my bustline look…sad.  I became so confused with all this travel wear that I bought a bright kimono that doesn’t really go with anything, and a floral dress on Ebay that looks like something an Italian grandmother would wear to church on Easter—non-refundable, of course.

“Is there a 12-step group for Ebay?” my husband Peter asked. He doesn’t understand this recent obsession. He thinks, bless him, that I look fine in anything, or nothing. He is only packing about five flowery button-up shirts, two pairs of pants, a sweater, undies, some topsiders and walking shoes, and a lightweight coat. Done. His only worry is whether he’ll have to buy an extra seat on RyanAir for his guitar.

I’m never like this. I do like clothes, but I’m not much of a shopper. I usually only buy a piece or two by happenstance, when I am traveling or in a boutique somewhere and see something witty, unique, and flattering. None of these clothes have been remotely witty, unique or flattering. Okay, the Ruti pants look pretty good. I’ll keep them. And the wool tank will be great for days on a bike without getting stinky.

I have just sent my fourth package back for a refund. All those travel clothes are doing a lot of traveling, back to where they came from, a useless waste of time, money, and energy. Some of them, new with tags, may end up in a landfill or in a pile of clothes across the border in Mexico. It’s irresponsible consumption. Those black pants stalking me brought out my worst demons.

Now that my period of madness has abated, I can focus instead of being excited to go to one of my favorite places on the planet, to visit with friends there, eat Italian food, see the glorious sights, and spend time with my wonderful husband. I’ll end up bringing the usual: layers of black, good walking shoes, and my old cashmere shawl for the plane. And with three weeks off-line, the Empty Black Pants may disappear for good.