Roots. Part Two: The Wicked Stepmother. 1987-1996.

after my parents got divorced, my father moved my brother and i to an ottawa suburb and life changed dramatically. i went from living in a rosemont duplex, raised by my parents, my grandmother and my aunt and playing with dirty, poor kids in the back alley to living in a townhouse with my father, my uncle, their friend and my brother, playing with slightly less dirty kids in our backyard and on the lane and suddenly being able to afford outings and take-out and a huge, ninth birthday party. as far as my brother and i were concerned, we missed our mom but we were completely wooed by this new lifestyle and, to this day, we agree that it was the happiest year of our childhoods. a few unorthodox events took place while we lived there but we were used to that beat and none of it scarred us in any way.

the school we attended wasn't so understanding. my dad was called in for a meeting and was informed that our home situation was unacceptable, given that i was living with a boy and at least two men (the friend left after a few months but because he owed the brothers money, they confiscated  his bedroom set and gave it to me until the funds were reimbursed) and that the stories we were telling our friends might seem rather interesting to a child services worker. my father decided that the best way to have the hounds called off would be to ask the female accountant they'd just hired to work a bit of overtime and pick his children up from school so that they could be made aware that such a presence existed in our lives. 

in what seemed like no time at all, my brother and i were sitting in the backseat of my dad's truck, parked in the driveway of an unsightly duplex with aluminum siding in gatineau, quebec, with my father having gone inside the building and his accountant-turned-lover sitting in the front seat. she turned to us and asked us if it would be okay if she moved in with us and we all lived in the home we saw before us. we hesitated and then said yes, knowing we didn't really have a choice. the had already purchased the duplex. our year of fun was over. 

on the very first day we crammed ourselves into the two-bedroom, basement apartment (they took over the living room and my brother and i each had a bedroom), she told us that we should call her "mom" and that, from then on, my mother was to be referred to by her first name when she was not present. 

what ensued was eight years of verbal and occasionally, for my brother, physical abuse. that's why it took so long for me to come to terms with the fact that one of my greatest style influences was the stepmother that had raised me for the second half of my childhood. i've come to terms with everything and so i am free, now, to discuss this woman's fierce sense of aesthetics, without conjuring up any ill feelings.

one of my stepmother's own style icons was elvira, mistress of the dark. we'd occasionally stay up late and watch her on television and a certain spooky seed was planted at the back of mind at this time. around this time, so nineteen-ninety-three or the year after, she took on a part-time job as a barmaid on the hull strip to help with the bills and to finance her car, while she also studied at algonquin college. i absolutely loved watching her get dressed and made up for this job! she had layered the top half of her dyed-black hair and backcombed the hell out of it so that it stood up in a dome of sorts, much like elvira's. she wore one green contact lens and one yellow one, purple eye shadow, lots of black eyeliner and blood-red lipstick. from her closet, she pulled out all sorts of interesting outfits i'd never seen the likes of before, all outfits she'd bought at flash cadillac, on rideau, in ottawa (part of this shop then became savannah deville's, when it had to shut down due to marital conflict between the owenrs). my favourite one was this crazy, off-white, denim, sleeveless catsuit with small gold zippers at the ankles and one wide, gold zipper starting at one knee and going all the way up to its bust line. there were suede booties and studded catsuits and skinny jeans with zippers. there were gold stilettos, wide, studded belts and itty bitty mini skirts with corsets and bustiers. my stepmother shopped at the same store the ottawa punks shopped at and styled her hair in a manner that would make most goth girls of the time quite envious. 

she drove around in a silver, souped up, 1987 audi gt coup, leather racer gloves boasting audi's famous rings on their wrist straps, her left hand resting on the wheel, with a du maurier cigarette usually held between its index and middle finger and her right hand busy shifting gears. she loved classic rock but also played the cult, the cure and the clash when driving around. her absolute favourite band was ac/dc and i can remember "highway to hell", "hell's bells" and "back in black" playing loudly as she gunned down ottawa's highways.

once i started peeling back the layers of anger and bitterness and was able to remember these details, a lot of the fashion paths i've walked began making a whole lot more sense and, as i like to extract and retain the positive from any situation, i guess that's one thing i have to be thankful for. 

Posted in: childhood,elvira,fashion,flash cadillac,gatineau,horror,influences,ottawa,rideau street,roots,style,the clash,the cult,the cure