Accessories tap into different versions of ourselves — and they help break them open

The first piece I ever wrote for Image was about my love of hats. It’s a love I trace to my cotton, wide-brimmed hat that I wore when I was 6, probably from the Gap, that had a large sunflower beaming from my forehead. In photos, when I was wearing it, I always seemed happier. I can think of various beloved accessories that I’ve owned through time. In middle school, dangly earrings defined me — hoop earrings especially (gold ones, silver ones, ones with white hearts hanging from them). I felt sexier because of them. Then there was the “evil ring”: carved from metal, it rose from my index finger like a temple and opened at the top like a box, the kind of thing people usually use to store, let’s say, valuables (even if I had snorted drugs, there were holes in the base of the ring, so it wasn’t practical). It was the first thing I bought upon moving to New York City for college, manifesting some edgier version of myself.

An accessory is an opportunity for fantasy, for gently trying on a new vibe or look — it’s a suggestion, an accent, a little risk. This was especially the case when I was coming of age. But in truth, I feel like I’ve never stopped coming of age. Aren’t we always stepping into new phases and roles in life?

My latest experiment has been a pair of plastic, exaggerated cat-eye sunglasses, striped in rainbow colors. My partner got them for me for $5 from a neighbor’s garage sale. When he gave them to me, I placed them on the dresser by the doorway, so that the next time I went out for a walk I ended up grabbing them (gotta protect my genetically predisposed macular degeneration!). I hadn’t seen what they actually looked like on me until I caught a reflection of myself in a car window, and thought I looked insane. A block later, I received an enthusiastic compliment from a stranger — I love your sunglasses! — that surprised and encouraged me. I continued to wear them, fueled by compliments (on average multiple in one outing), until the sunglasses that I initially found too ridiculous to wear became a part of me. Just a few months ago, I made my friends go back into Disneyland’s hellscape, after we had already exited the park, when I realized I’d left the rainbow sunglasses at Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin.

This issue explores accessories as a form of time travel, whether through your grandmother’s jewelry collection or a night out dancing. For many, accessories are a means to reinvention and stepping into a new self — a truer one. They tap into different versions of ourselves; they help break them open. Together they form a colorful timeline of what it feels like to keep changing and growing up.