Everyone Needs A Mood Ring
the agony, the ecstasy, auralescence, David Lynch
Happy glorious Wednesday…we meet again, about mood and costuming.
I was sick for 17 days in January. On my best days, I’m tempestuous, melancholic, and prone to dramatics, so to rot in one presentation for days on end really does me in. I do nonsense things like taking art off the walls and hiding decor under my bed, so the room reflects my barren listlessness. I usually watch the 1951 Alice in Wonderland when I start to feel better, as returning to my life and closet after a major disruption always feels wonderfully curious, but with the intimidation of having eight keys with no corresponding doors, and the weepy disorientation of one’s legs having broken through the windows of their house.
I’ve spoken before about the idea of the wardrobe as a toolbox. I think (and Rottenberg’s models of affective science would agree) mood functions similarly. Instead of a binary of achievement or something to be “figured out”, it can serve to shift between an aspiration, a life raft, a play place, and a salve for the burn of life’s whims. It’s an adaptive sieve for what’s presently important. While I can appreciate a steadfast temperament, my greatest inspirations are champions of the moody and ephemeral, and we’re going to discuss them today!!!!
David Lynch, a master at crafting moods so layered that our best societal attempt at description is self-defined (“Lynchian”), was a champion of Transcendental Meditation. Pierre Cardin said of his garments, “My favorite…is the one I invent for a life that does not yet exist, the world of tomorrow.” The great Catherine O’Hara (may she rest) was credited with saying, “There are actresses who want to stick to one certain way, and there are actors like me who want to do a bunch of different characters. Don't fence me in! Don't lock me down! I want to do different things! I don't know who I am!”
Brian Eno refused every pitch for a documentary about himself until Gary Hustwit proposed a format that would exist generatively, with no two screenings told the same way. Eno, the end product, was my favorite film, or perhaps films, of 2024; I saw it 5 times. The one line from Eno I noted more than once (paraphrased): “Is creating a feeling too small an aspiration?”
I think not, and costume designer Heidi Bivens would agree. She’s known most for costuming in Euphoria, Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, and Mid-90s, and broke through with her work on David Lynch’s 2006 feature, Inland Empire. I stumbled upon Heidi’s work last year via Mubi’s “Ladies Who Lynch” podcast season, celebrating the women who shaped Lynch’s films. She emphasized that what she learned most from Lynch was the importance of being able to evoke a feeling. Appropriately, she just designed a beautifully eerie collection for Catbird.
Thank you to Catbird for the jewelry for this letter. In celebration of Heidi’s collection, the Catbird Giving Fund donated $5,000 to the David Lynch Foundation, which provides meditation access and education to at-risk groups.
I find this collection most appropriate, as gemstones are among the most enduring material symbols of affecting mood. The connection between mood and material can be traced back as early as 3000 BC: lapis for health in ancient Egypt, stones associated with chakra health in ancient India, and jade for healing in traditional Chinese medicine.
In 450 BCE, Hippocrates’ school of medicine continued to use gemstones for healing. In his earlier practice, he was said to have students swallow stones to treat epilepsy. He surmised that disease and moods were based on four “humors”: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. Feelings of sadness were associated with black bile, and impulsivity or anger associated with yellow bile. Hippocrates prescription beyond the stones? Go on a walk. If that didn’t work, he recommended going on a longer walk.
Fast-forwarding a good bit…mood rings, introduced in 1975, were initially marketed not just as a fun accessory, but more seriously, as a “biofeedback tool”. Of course, we know the rings just reacted to heat, so you could warm your hands to ignite a color change, indicating a “change in mood”. Nevertheless, upon their launch, hundreds of consumers rushed to jewelry counters, eager to be perceived as happy and at peace.
Moonstone, Heidi’s choice of gem in her collection, is particularly captivating thanks to adularescence, the phenomenon that gives moonstone its glowing halo when light moves between microscopic layers of minerals.
The moon has also long held moody and material significance to humans. The word “lunatic” has roots in the old belief that the moon was responsible for mental illness. Luna, meaning moon, and the Latin word “Lunaticus” meaning “moon-struck”. As of 1970, moonstone is also the state gem of Florida, in commemoration of the moon landing!
Explore the Heidi Bivens X Catbird collection here.
EVOKING MOOD!!!
These are a few more moody things this year that made me feel something: the tension between surprise and expectation, and between comfort, continuity, and chaos.
RED GLOVES
I bought a pair of elbow-length red leather gloves two winters ago. Gloves were once an accessory a woman would never be seen without. Different gloves indicated different elements of status; it would be most unthinkable not to have the appropriate pair for every occasion.
To this day, I feel the image of a bracelet over an opera glove is the ultimate symbol of glamour…think Marilyn Monroe in Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend. On glove etiquette, however, Elizabeth Taylor was said to have detested such a foul thing as a ring placed over a glove!! BRACELETS ONLY!!!
Alas, I was recently inspired by an Instagram story (as all great modern minds are…) to style a ring over my gloves. Witchy Moonstone over a red leather-gloved pinky feels delightfully naughty, more like something out of Spinal Tap. PERVERSE!!! SMELL IT!!!!
THE SWIMMING POOL CAKE
Speaking of Lynchian…before attending a friend-of-a-friend’s birthday last month, I was briefed that each year, the host makes a swimming pool-themed cake, revealing the year’s interpretation at her party. This year was a Jell-O shot cake by the luxury-party-treat-du-jour company Solid Wiggles. The miniature swimmers lounged in a landscape comprised of non-alcoholic yuzu grass, espresso martini pool tiles, and French 75/Blue Hawaiian pool water.
The cake, categorically splashy, bordering on Barbie Dream House, was unexpectedly staged in a most Twin Peaks Black Lodge Waiting Room fashion, floating in fog upon red velvet drapes, highlighted by a single spotlight. A most satisfying lesson in mood.
This remix …
David Lynch’s book on meditation
THE MOON!!! (again)
My mom dutifully texts me about the moon. I don’t know that she believes in its powers so much as the comfort of community in witnessing the phases together. I’d have missed the SNOW MOON on the first, if not for her updates.
TIL NEXT TIME!!!
Ugh I love how the did the moon out of clay or something.