The Maid of Orleans

Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed

and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could

head me! And ain't I a woman?

Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?”

Look. If there’s any upside to going back to school in September, it’s that your mom finally breaks down so you can buy swag. And you get to spend money and pick your own look. Are you gonna be a marketer? An influencer?? A recording engineer? We signal a whole lot about who we we are - or who we think we are - by our choice of style, of clothing. I mean, who of you owns a pair of $400 Nike sneakers made by poor child laborers in a sweatshop in China? And what did they cost to make? Maybe $2.50, tops? Because you know, $40 Keds cost the same amount to make - in the same sweatshop by the same laborer. (That, of course, is his problem. Your problem is that you have $400 shoes.) Our clothes are like the two-way mirrors in Law and Order: SVU, where only Tutuola and Olivia can see both sides of the glass. You’re in the perp room, thinking, “Ha! They think I’m guilty? I’ll never break!” while Tutuola and Olivia are saying, “Oh God. He’s guilty. He’ll definitely break!” My own style of clothing says,“duchess, of course” I think that works, don’t you? And if it doesn’t, I’m too gracious to say otherwise.

I think we have always been interested in clothing and accessories, and stories are smart to strategically include them. Correct me if I’m wrong, but do you or don’t you know what Eve was wearing after she and Adam were expelled from Paradise? I think you do. It’s in the Third Chapter of the first book of the Holy Bible . . “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” Here is the story of the beginning of the world: earth, people, and fabric stitched together. And Joseph of Egypt? Did you ever hear that story? What did Joseph’s father have made for him? A coat of? . . . “many colors,” of course. Yeah, you knew that as well - although the rest is a little bit hazy. And Jesus Christ wore - on his way to the cross? (Hint: it’s a headpiece. . .) We don’t even know if these people existed - and yet, for some reason, we know what they wore.

But we do know that Joan of Arc - The Maid of Orleans - was real. She was a peasant girl from Domrémy, France, who, from the age of thirteen, heard the voices of Saints (Margaret, Catherine and Michael) and angels telling her to save the dauphin (Charles VI) from the occupying English, and crown him as next King and also, to save France. And she did! Can you imagine? A seventeen-year old peasant who listened to voices in her head? And also we know that she dressed as a man, wearing a white full-body armor suit to lead the French troops to victory in Orleans in 1429 over the occupying English. She wore the armor because she was going into battle, but also because she was afraid she she might be sexually assaulted, of course, by the same French soldiers that she improbably commanded. In 1430, she was captured, betrayed and sold to her English captors by the French people whom she had just saved! and burned at the stake for the high crime of heresy, which means, “rejecting the church’s authority in favor of direct inspiration from God.”Recently, it seems that her armor has been found. She was evidently a tiny little thing; some speculate she may have been anorexic as well. Yet, between her seventeen-year old thinness and her head-to-toe armor, Joan of Arc signaled to her armies that “I am a man.” In fact, part of her legend is that she continuously wore men’s clothing in a time when so doing was completely unheard of.

In 1430, the duke of Burgundy France captured her and SOLD her to the British for 10,000 francs, (By way of comparison, a horse at the time would have cost 12 -14 francs.) She was thrown in a prison - in chains - in anticipation of her “trial.” Ten months later, the trial was held. There were sixty English inquisitors - prosecutors - and she, after ten months, was allowed no defense. At one point, when they had told her that she would be burned at the stake, she briefly “recanted” that she’d ever heard “the Saint’s voices” because she was terrified of being burned to death. And, in exchange for her life, she also agreed to put on women’s clothing. But then, in her cell, she heard the voices again; the Saints were reproaching her for “giving in” to her enemies, and as a result, she resumed wearing men’s clothing. That was the last straw for the English inquisitors. They came to her cell and condemned her to death. Her most unforgivable crime - that of being “a relapsed heretic” - was their legal way of saying she was being herself. And their proof? That she was once again wearing men’s clothing. When they burned her the next day at the stake, she was silent and uttered only two words of grace:

“And the silence of Jeanne D’Arc

Saying amid the flames,‘Blesséd Jesus’ —

Revealing in two words all sorrow, all hope.”

“Silence” Edgar Lee Masters

So, it really is serious business what we put on out backs Obviously, our clothing signals how we want to be “seen.” But we, who are buying it - we don’t “see” ourselves. So I think, on a subconscious level, it’s about what we need. Remember, Ariel, the mermaid who just wanted to be loved? “Every footstep as if she were walking on the blades and points of sharp knives, just as the witch had foretold, but she gladly endured it.” (Girlfriend, high heels . . amirite?) So what is the deal about those $400 (Oh please. Even I know they’re $600 shoes - that you never even wear.) What are you seriously trying to say? That you HAVE them? That just to KNOW you have them says that you’re not a footman - you are clearly a duke? That the pain and the loss and regrets in your life have been assuaged by the shoes in a box at the top of your closet? That you’re a somebody of “style” with a shoebox as proof?

Just a thought, but have you ever considered that that might be shallow? When you’re at home and no one’s watching, do you sit around thinking about your shoebox of shoes? Or, do you think about someone you love? Or someone you’ve hurt, or instead, has hurt you? Do you think about what you’d like to do in your life? Do you think about how hard it’s going to be to get a job? It’s going to be hard! Or do you think about who’s selling your next pair of shoes? Seriously, when you are alone with your thoughts in the chapel of your soul, are you honestly thinking about Kanye shoes?

I mean, you might. I don’t think so. But I mean, Kanyes? Jesus.

You know, your choice of clothes does not define you any more than the job you choose does. I learned this from Joan of Arc who heard the voices in her head, led the French armies to victory, rescued France and also dressed in male armor. It was a choice that she made, and it worked until it didn’t. But for of all her exceptional achievements, she was, seriously, most proud of her spinning and sewing. At her trial for her life, in front of sixty inquisitors, she was asked “if in her youth she had learned any craft. She said, ‘Yes, to sew and spin: and in sewing and spinning, I fear no woman in Rouen.’ ”