This second hand dress, with its tiny tear along the hemline and extra threads where the hook and eye have been reinforced more than once, fits me perfectly in size and character. A new dress with this many details and such beautiful but delicate material would go around and around in circles from my closet to a test-fitting in front of the mirror and back again, destined to never be worn for fear of damaging it. But I can slide into an already used dress, with its gifts of imperfection, on the same day it comes home with me. I can take it for a gentle walk in the woods, wear it while practicing harmonium sitting cross legged on the floor, stuff it into a knapsack and fly it across the world. It’s the fear of the first fluff ball, the first pull, the first hint of a sweat stain that relegates a dress to life in my cupboard. But a second hand dress is already free. Already beautiful in it’s own unique way. Already broken in. Like me.
— heidi kalyani, 2018
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line