October Issue: Meet Molly Brown
on sustainable dressing, "textile-based" moral support, and more
It’s difficult to make new friends as you get older, and living through a pandemic hasn’t made the task any easier. But making friends with Molly Brown was simple; we met up one later summer day to get coffee and instantly bonded over a love of mid-century women writers such as Barbara Pym—as it turned out, we’re both members of the Pym society. Since that day, Molly has often become the answer to the question, “who will do this with me?” We’ve observed a working Linotype in action, wandered through Cambridge’s “secret gardens,” watched ballet choreographed to the Rolling Stones, and shared spicy mulled wine over a bonfire in sub-freezing temperatures. I particularly love ambling through bookshops with Molly since she reads widely and deeply across genres and has a knack for describing a book’s deal. And no matter what we’re doing, Molly always dresses for the occasion. One of the things I really admire about Molly is that she dresses with a certain formality that is rare among my generation. Molly’s polish isn’t an unattainable glamor, but the easy elegance that comes with wearing a low heel and a delicate gold brooch. For me, gaining Molly as a friend has fulfilled the promise of Desk Set or Sex and The City—i.e. the promise of having friends who consider getting dinner or a drink with you an event worth dressing up for.
Apart from being a sporting friend and sartorial icon, Molly is also a generous Boston-area colleague, serving as the Reference and Outreach Archivist at Northeastern University’s Archives and Special Collections where she works tirelessly to make the collections accessible to the the public. Molly is a leader in our field, serving as co-chair of the New England Archivists' Teaching with Primary Sources roundtable and publishing important conversations on radical empathy in graduate education for librarians and archivists. Whenever I hear Molly talk about her work, I notice she centers the communities she serves, widely cites colleagues who inspire her, and advocates for better labor conditions for cultural heritage workers. It was no surprise that Molly brought her usual spirit of care and empathy to our conversation. Here’s our interview:
Meet Molly Brown
How would you describe your style?
Right now, my style is structured classic comfort informed by a joy for mixing fine textiles. Or in other words: Anni Albers’ wannabe weaving apprentice who watched Turner Classic Movies and wants to be cozy like a Beatrix Potter creature. Or perhaps a multi hyphenate approach to describing my style: Albers-TCM-Potter-core.
This is simply a sensational answer. I really appreciate the specificity. One of the things I really admire about your approach to getting dressed is your commitment to sustainability. You wear a lot of slow fashion pieces mixed with vintage. Have you always gravitated toward sustainable dressing or is this something you’ve cultivated over the years? How did that start?
My gravity towards sustainable dressing and slow fashion started simply because the fast fashion/less sustainable options were not making clothing that felt like me and didn't fit me. Although, I should amend this statement slightly with the qualification that in my youth I was a big proponent of the early Susan Kroger years of ModCloth; what a time to be a twee-inclined high schooler! But online shopping still felt kind of wild and too much at the time.
Growing up in Montana, there were limited options to dress in a way that felt like me (one part Turner Classic Movies heroines one part Gilmore Girls), which is what led me to go into shops like Goodwill and the vintage stores in town more frequently than stores in the mall.This process repeated itself when I moved to Boston for grad school and my old reliable not-so-slow fashion brands were no longer carrying things that felt like me. At this time Instagram clothing resale accounts were just growing in popularity and I found the Instagram account @selltradeslowfashion and came across the brand Elizabeth Suzann, where I purchased my first piece of modern slow fashion: the navy silk Georgia dress. A loose fitting hearty silk dress was my gateway into finding carefully handmade garments using fabrics that were sustainably sourced by workers who were sufficiently compensated, and woke me up to think of the lifecycle of clothing creation and decomposition.
"Investment and longevity" is my clothing purchasing and maintenance philosophy and I like to think of it as a pairing to the great Dame Angela Lansbury's phrase she offered in her Positive Moves books and video as well as brought up in a 2012 Gentlewoman interview: "loveliness and dignity." Investment and longevity guiding my wardrobe help me feel like a lady of "loveliness and dignity" and align myself with our late and great Dame Angela.
What are some of your favorite places for finding vintage clothes? Favorite slow fashion makers?
I have a wide spectrum of favorite vintage shops as my favorites must change as my body and clothing wishes change! Perhaps my favorite "vintage shop" is the clothing my mother saved from her time as a college bookstore manager in the 80's. Incredible blazers, skirts, and dresses that have served as my richest inheritance. But a mother's closet is not a place everyone has the privilege to shop so instead I might recommend a couple formative vintage spots. Montana Vintage Clothing, based in Billings, Montana, raised me. It helped me find the garments that shaped my aesthetic and gave a kid in Montana a sense of control and excitement over their style. A recent favorite shop that is now formative because I found my ideal trench coat through them is OhLaLa Vintage Studio on Etsy. They are based in Rome but their selection and styling is amazing and very much worth a browse.
As for favorite slow fashion brands, my number one has to be Revelle Collection. Gorgeously structured and appointed artworks that Lisa Harbottle, the creator and visionary behind the brand, tailors to suit you and your body. Lisa's designs take a certain vintage sensibility and elevate it to become modern, comforting, chic, and durable clothing. She is clear and communicative about the design work she is doing and her process. Every piece has a cost analysis and is clear about the labor that went into the garment and how that impacts pricing. She also shares where she sourced her fabrics from (often deadstock or small family businesses). Something extra special about following Revelle Collection is that instead of doing surprise seasonal collection drops, Lisa generously and frequently shares her early design and fabric concepts far ahead of any release. It feels like a standing invitation into an artists' studio and it also allows for you to financially plan for any purchases you might make.
While Revelle Collection acts as my signature design house for me, I also love and enjoy some other brands:
NAOMI NOMI, has many tempting clothing items, but is especially known for their gorgeous take on the oxford shirt.
Two Days of Clothing (mentioned later for their "Track Your Wears" tags) makes amazing flexible and soft garments.
Aliya Wanek creates breathtakingly designed garments that are very playful in their shape and are made with really rich and texturally satisfying textiles. Every new collection of theirs feels like an art gallery.
Left: Molly in Revelle Collection Linen Mesh Palermo Jacket, Devon's Drawer, Linen Shirt, Revelle Collection Linen Gentlewoman Skirt. Right: Revelle Collection Black Rayon Twill Gentlewoman Blouse, Gentlewoman Lounge Pant, and Runabout Jacket in Jasper Linen.
Slow fashion brands can feel expensive, even though the prices are driven by paying creators and workers fair wages for their labor. What advice do you have for people who want to make good choices but are on a tight budget?
As someone that is extremely inclined toward enthusiasm and relishes in treats both big and small, I have to do some de-escalating of my purchase impulses to make sure I don't put myself in financial ruin over the gorgeous pieces priced proportionately for the labor that goes into them. I have employed some methods to make sure I am not only staying on budget but also keeping a proper scope for my vision of my wardrobe that is right-sized to my practical needs.
"Simultaneously keep track of your clothing wishes and the frequency you reflect on certain gaps in wardrobe while also keeping track of how often you wear certain items of clothing. To sound click-baity: “the results may shock you!” as you find out that you only wear about twelve items over and over because they are your comfort clothes. A great example of what this can look like comes from the slow fashion brand Two Days Off Clothing, who includes a "Track Your Wears" tag with checkboxes so you can keep track of how many times you wear items in your closet. (Note that I had to more adamantly adopt these first two measures due to too many acquisitions of jumpsuits and clogs that I want and wish to wear but just never do, yet I buy them because I think they are neat!).
Save for a "wild card" purchase every month. Something that all brands are inclined to do, in part so that they remain successful and relevant, is a "drop" aligning with the seasons or their own production schedule. You may be surprised by these collection drops and discover that the dress of your Nora Ephron main character dreams has just become available in limited quantities for a brief and swiftly ending time. Limit yourself to what is in your wild card funds. Seasonal drops and implied scarcity are tools of a capitalist mindset and are ultimately antithetical to the original principles of "slow fashion." Resist when you can and budget for when you can't!
Finally and most importantly, read Aja Barber's book Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism and examine your relationship to the textile and fashion industries. It is such an incredible work that should be required reading for anyone contending with how to clothe themselves.
Tell me about your favorite thing in your closet and how you wear it.
Because I am incapable of only choosing one, I would like to choose one slow fashion item and one vintage item. Given what I shared earlier it will come as no surprise that one of my favorite garments is a dress from Revelle Collection, specifically a navy wool crepe short-sleeve shirt-dress called the Marcel Dress. This dress is my go-to when I am feeling puzzled about how to show up to a day or am in need of textile-based moral support. I usually style it with a belt, a low-heeled pump, and some brightly colored cardigan or texturally contrasting jacket (structure canvas or denim). I also use it as a duster jacket over my sleeveless summer clothing that I'm trying to transition from spring into summer or from summer into fall. It is both a blank canvas and also something that can stand perfectly well on its own. If I ever win an award in my life, I would consider including this dress in my thank-you speech.
The other item I would be remiss to not include in my "favorite thing" list is a houndstooth blazer that was previously owned by my mother and worn during the heights of her own professional career. At the time the blazer felt like an investment purchase for her and it speaks to her own sustainable practices and clothing stewardship that it exists in like new condition for me to wear to work. It is a reminder of the "sustain" in sustainability approaches to clothing acquisition (this blazer is at this point nearly 40 years old), and it also just feels very neat to share with my mother.
Do you have any style icons?
Most of my style icons happen to be fictional characters! When I first watched Funny Face, I was so taken by the outfit Audrey Hepburn's character Jo Stockton wears while she is working in the "Embryo Concepts Book Shop," which is the "before" portion of her journey in the film. Black turtleneck, tweedy shift top, and a plummy-brown skirt? An outfit that is functional for putting books away and climbing ladders? Sign me up! While the later looks in Funny Face are absolutely iconic, Jo's original form was the look for me. It's basically the inspiration for my shift dress and turtleneck winter uniform. Another fictional character who I think is being held near and dear in many of our hearts right now is Jessica Fletcher, our brilliant writer and sleuth played by Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote. In my book, Jessica never missed a beat in showing up in her best and in the clothes that made her feel at home (unless of course she was in disguise)! I think it would be a shame if her style was put solely into the newly trendy box of "coastal grandma" because I think it was so much more. That fictional wardrobe of Jessica's told the story of the rich life she had led and the jaunty and colorful sense of academic-adjacent style that was so playful yet tailored. I do also think that in my life I am building to a trajectory where I can have the same drama-inclined librarian-ish wardrobe that Katharine Hepburn modeled as Bunny Watson in Desk Set. I'm really drawn to the trapeze coats, voluminous skirts, and fitted jackets she wore.
Bunny’s red and green swing coat in that film is unforgettable. Do you have a penchant for a particular clothing item or accessory?
This is a recent development, but as someone that works in public services, I find that I gravitate toward acquiring shirt-dresses as my workplace uniform. They are usually semi-structured garments that are less susceptible to wrinkling or losing their luster throughout the day and they often are made with large and accommodating pockets for all the post-it notes, pencils, and keys I end up carrying on my person. It's also one of the most re-mixable seasonally agnostic items in my wardrobe: you can layer it with a sweater, wear it unbuttoned like a duster, or use it as a beach-side cover-up! If there was an item of clothing I would ever want to do a Mad Men-style advertising pitch for, it is the shirt-dress.
Would you like to share a book, film, or cultural heritage object with readers of Luxe Libris?
I admire anyone who responds to this generous question with restraint and thoughtful curation to this question. I suppose in some ways you can find other versions of my answer to this in some of my other responses, but I'll try to keep my cool here to offer only a few things. One of the best parts of my job working as the Reference and Outreach Archivist at Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections is having access and awareness of the rich photographic collections we hold, so instead of going for any novel or film that I might have the urge to suggest, I hope my scope in answer to this question will mean those reading this will really check these records out. They are from two collections: the Charles Bruce photographs and the Winifred Irish Hall photographs from the Lower Roxbury Black History Project records. What's special about both of these collections is the way they document people living life in Boston, specifically Boston's Black community. Both show off incredible fashions of the time (early 1900s) but also act as such a contrast to some of the other more formal photographic collections we have from the Boston Globe Library or event photographers for Freedom House. These photos are special because many of them are photos where the subject knows it's a friend or family behind the camera. Both Bruce and Hall were expert photographers and their work is such a rich documentation of Boston.
When I show these photos to classes, either of Boston youth or Northeastern students, these are usually what draw people into investing in the class and really considering what archival material and archival work can do (and not do!), as well as how different archival materials contribute to telling a story. Charles Bruce documented people dancing in their yard, family portraits, a day at the beach, and work at the Navy Yard to name only a few of his subjects. Winifred Irish Hall documented running errands, playing, and going to school while living in Roxbury, and many of her subjects were friends, family, and classmates. There's so much to say about these collections, but also, everyone is so stylish! They are just really fun, even for those that don't live in Boston, to travel through time and see.
Thank you so much for chatting with Luxe Libris Molly! You can find her on Twitter at @msmollyebrown, or running Northeastern’s Archives & Special Collections socials (@NU_Archives on Twitter / @nu_archives on Instagram).
Sundry
Speaking of rad Boston-area archivists who love sustainable clothing, my wonderful colleague Betts Coup was recently featured over on the Pyne & Smith Blog (with photos by yours truly).
Every year the New York City Ballet collaborates with fashion designers for its “fashion gala ballets,” an endeavor founded by Sarah Jessica Parker that pairs designers with choreographers and raises millions of dollars for the company annually. This year, NYCB commissioned Alejandro Gómez Palomo to design costumes for a work choreographed by Gianna Reisen with music by Solange. I caught the last performance of the season and it was stunning. The New York Times covered it and even though they didn’t give it a rave review, click through for photos of Palomo’s swarovski-studded costumes and this year’s other collabs.
While in New York, I saw the Met’s Kimono exhibition and the Museum at FIT’s Dior + Balenciaga exhibition. Both are knockouts—don’t miss them before they’re gone.
As long as there is war in Ukraine, Luxe Libris will ask readers to consider donating to ForPeace, an on-the-ground non-profit delivering crucial aid to displaced Ukrainian and soldiers in need.