On Mother’s Day we met Afsaneh Rahimian at Gethsemane Garden Center on North Clark, adopting basil to nurture alongside her live ratatouille of eggplant and tomatoes. Her pea-in-the-pod look announced ready-to-sprout. But experts from our fashion nursery took a couple of cuttings to determine its family, genus, and species.
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Sign of a healthy pregnancy, the simple maternity dress is delivered complete with capacious gathers, easy-entry side buttons, and let-it-all-stick-out construction. (Traditional prenatal fashion don’ts include knots, which are thought to encourage an entanglement between child and umbilical cord.) The material–black velvet–speaks to the general inconvenience of a third trimester that stretches between seasons.
Rahimian solves the three-dress/nine-month problem by accessorizing. “You wear more jewelry to lift your spirits,” she explains. And to ward off spirits. Before jewelry was pretty, it was protective. And the main assets cavefolks had to guard were the family jewels. Early fashion plates hung a variety of talismans from a waist-tied string, close to the source of life.
