"The Passing Dazzle of Each Face"

Eternal vigilance is the price of more context for Sylvia Plath and her mother Aurelia Schober Plath. In March came up for sale a set of college yearbooks for 1926, 1927, and 1928, for the college Aurelia attended, the years she was there, and I bought them. Yes, Aurelia Plath went to college. Her college yearbook was called the Sivad.

Although not Aurelia's personal copies, Aurelia inscribed in them personal notes to owner Muriel Brigham, fellow 1928 graduate of Boston University's College of Practical Arts and Letters, called by its students "P.A.L." Muriel Brigham (1898-1983) majored in English. She and Aurelia were both members of the college's Writers Club.

The 1928 Sivad -- Aurelia Schober, editor-in-chief -- is scarce and insanely priced when auctioned. A blurry, faulty scan costs $99; I would not pay that. I secured all three yearbooks for less. Star and valedictorian of her class, Aurelia appears in each volume. How instructive to see Aurelia's face among those of a few hundred of her peers (sadly, none interviewed while it was possible) and good photos of the campus and dorm rooms as she knew them. I learned that not only Aurelia but some classmates staffed Camp Maqua in Maine in summer 1927 -- when Aurelia invited her 43-year-old boyfriend for a week and sneaked around. Will present Aurelia's inscriptions next week.

The yearbook had to go to press in early spring, so Aurelia's late-spring honors are published in the 1929 Sivad, in which Aurelia is called "Daughter of the Dawn." Think you that I am joking? Here it is:

The Junior year in many ways was the most active of the lot, filled as it was with college work, a wonderful SIVAD and a Prom that has glittered as only Betelgeuse has glittered on the shoulder of Orion. In the midst of this radiance that Daughter of the Dawn, Aurelia Schober, shone as editor-in-chief of SIVAD, adding many new features . . .

I'm seeking a copy of Aurelia Schober's 1928 valedictory speech, delivered June 6, 1928. Do you know where I can find it? It's not in the yearbooks or the Winthrop, Mass. newspapers.

On Sylvia's Ugliest Clothes

New York City, June 1953

Sylvia Plath wore some very unflattering things, and besides photos of her in swimsuits, only the wool-coat-and-knee-socks photo taken by Jane Baltzell at Newnham College shows Sylvia wearing her clothes with panache. "Panache" originally meant "ornamental feathers on a helmet." It came to mean "with confidence," that one looks as good as one feels. And Sylvia's readers know Sylvia rarely felt good.

"Chic," meaning elegant or sophisticated, Sylvia never was. The "May Week" clothes Sylvia modeled while at Newnham don't suit her. They don't even fit. The suit and hat worn at Mademoiselle in June 1953 looks "put-together," but without "flair" (meaning "originality"). They are someone else's idea of put-together. Sylvia in her ugliest Mademoiselle photo, with the rose [above], was either about to cry her eyes out or had just finished doing so, The Bell Jar says, and the Peter Pan collar on the dress could not have helped.

Cape Cod, 1957

Eliminated from "ugliest clothes" consideration are things Sylvia did not choose for herself (such as in childhood) or expect to be photographed in (bathrobe, gym suit). Sylvia sported her coolie hat on her Aurelia-paid-for-it seven-week honeymoon on the Cape, where both Sylvia and husband Ted Hughes were miserable.

Smith College, Nov. 1954

Aurelia Plath wore some awful clothes too, but as signifiers her clothes operate differently. (An "Aurelia's Ugliest Clothes" post is forthcoming.) Sylvia's sense of style -- as well as her sense of how life should be lived -- came from glossy magazines, so never would she reach the perfection she longed for, because even name-brand clothing and following Look Books to the letter cannot render anyone stylish. Fashion is not style. Bermuda shorts with wool sweaters were the fashion for 1950s college girls. In no other outfit did Sylvia Plath look so two-dimensional. This was one of the happier times in her life.

Rome, April 1956

Sylvia was taller than average, and former classmates remember that Sylvia often slumped, as in the color photo taken in Rome. Her polka-dotted hairband recalls not Brigitte Bardot but Rosie the Riveter. She wore it in Venice to ride a gondola, clutching her brown handbag and hating her travel-mate Gordon Lameyer every minute of their trip.

When Sylvia and Ted married and Aurelia wanted "wedding" photos to show relatives and friends, for spite the couple sent spiritless studio photos with Sylvia wearing what I fear is the "pink knitted dress" she appropriated from Aurelia and had been married in. 

Emphatically not a wedding dress, in the photos its top appears stretched out and the worse for wear. Sylvia had described Aurelia's item as a "suit," so maybe the photo shows a mere sweater. In that case it means not only "buzz off, Mom" but "send money."

Some photos of Sylvia (1950, 1962) show oversized skirt suits she might have hoped to "grow into," vertically, horizontally, or otherwise. I had mercy and do not show them here. I think that like all new clothes, they signified expectations. When I buy clothes a size up, it means I want more power in my life. 

1956

As much as it's said "Sylvia loved clothes," it is our good fortune that she valued other things more highly.