I saw it six months ago, glowing cranberry and cute from the pages of the catalog, like something I would have made but 10 times more expensive. (The catalog, which I am trying not to look at because it only makes me want and want, with its shiny perfect clothes and carefully arranged carelessness.)

So I bought it. Because then it was on sale, 50% off! Because then I had an excuse to buy it -- I had been looking for one, an excuse, since the day I saw it -- because why not? I deserve it I haven't bought anything for myself in like a month I have a new job I can afford it.

And now I have it. Now it glows cranberry and cute from my closet, sometimes my hips. The first time I unwrapped it, I saw with dismay that it was made in the Philippines. I imagined rows and rows of women in a sweaty gray-metal room, hunched over woolen maroon piles of skirts. It was on sale, I said feebly to myself, so at least I am not giving as much money to the company that exploits these women. Feeble.

The skirt binds. It's the right size, it fits, but I can't move my legs as much as I'd like. I can't walk as fast as I usually do; the skirt holds me in. It still hangs in my closet, it's still cute. But there is something about it that is not quite right, something inauthentic. The compliments it receives do not feel like mine, leave me slightly embarrassed. Not like the clothes I buy at thrift stores, which are more mine, even though they were once someone else's. To find them, I battled racks of smelly polyester, burrowed through piles of limp t-shirts, risked fungus, scabies, lice. I can claim them because I worked for them, because it took more than a phone call and a credit card, because I am not ashamed they are mine.

My new skirt. It's not mine yet. And I'm not sure if I want it to be.