When Life Gives You Lululemons

Emily, Miriam, and Karolina’s ongoing personal and professional challenges introduce the novel’s theme of How Age Changes Ideals and Outlook. The three main characters are all unique individuals; however, the women, who are all in their mid-thirties, face constant questions about their roles in society. Emily is married without children, Miriam is married with three biological children, and Karolina is married with one stepson. They have also all had unique vocational experiences that began in New York City: Emily working for the high-powered fashion editor Miranda Priestley, Miriam finding success in law, and Karolina establishing a reputation as a famous model. In the narrative present, the women find themselves pushed to the margins of their society. They aren’t old, but they are aging. With their changing bodies, they fear they are losing their desirability and, therefore, their social relevance. As a result, their senses of self begin to falter as their identities begin to change. The novel uses their overlapping experiences of aging to convey the difficulties women face to prove their worth as they grow older.

All three women’s experiences of aging impact their romantic and sexual, professional and social lives. For Emily, sex and romance feel less exciting now that she is settled down with Miles. This is why she feels so exhilarated when she meets Alistair on the train. Her response to the charming stranger underscores her longing to be seen and noticed. She is “intent on studying his eyes, examining his teeth, breathing in his smell” (94); she can’t “help but smile back” and feels “like she’d do anything to make him laugh again” (95). This scene charges the narrative atmosphere and introduces a new relational conflict while also adding humor to the narrative. However, the scene rides the line between harmless sexual tension and outdated reinforcement of patriarchal notions of beauty and power. Normally sarcastic and no-tolerance, Emily immediately falters when she is placed in contact with an attractive man. Her response implies that all attractive, intelligent, and capable women are susceptible to men’s attention and eager to satisfy the male gaze. Emily lets herself flirt with Alistair because she is looking for reassurance, fearing that her age renders her invisible to men. Her worth suddenly appears limited to how Alistair regards her and whether he will ask to see her again.

The same sexual, gender, and social stereotypes crop up in Miriam and Karolina’s portions of the narrative. Miriam is terrified that her perfect husband Paul is cheating on her because she has put on an “extra fifteen pounds” and has “frizzy hair and the vile suburban-mommy addiction to athleisurewear” (98). She quickly falls sway to the other Greenwich women’s obsession with manipulating their bodies to ensure their husbands’ fidelity. The scene at the sex party underscores the notion that women must maintain a youthful facade to remain attractive, relevant, and desirable to their husbands, community, and society. Miriam’s mood does not improve at this event until after she literally buys into Claire and her comrades’ game; she purchases the sex canvas under the illusion that it is her responsibility to keep Paul engaged in her, their sex life, and their marriage in general.

Karolina similarly fears that Graham’s infidelity, betrayal, and abandonment are evidence of her irrelevance and undesirability. In one scene, she googles Graham’s new lover and compares herself to Regan Whitney, “the closest thing to real live political royalty in this generation” (83). Although Karolina “still turn[s] heads each and every time she step[s] outside,” she is a “high-school-dropout lingerie model” and an older stepmother, as opposed to an “Ivy League humanitarian” with “All-American privilege” (83). Her depression throughout this excerpt directly relates to her belief that she has become socially irrelevant. She struggles to remain grounded in herself because her entire identity is in question. Graham has not only made her insecure about her appearance but also about her mothering capabilities, her intelligence, and her morality.

In these chapters, all three of the main characters must confront what their insecurity about their appearances and identities means for their future. Emily has to decide if it’s right for her to return to Runway—a job that now feels emblematic of her old self. Miriam must decide if she should confront Paul about his potential cheating, and Karolina must weigh Graham’s betrayals against her future with her son. The women feel as if society is rejecting them but must learn to redefine their ideals according to their new life circumstances. Their relationships with each other—depicted in this section via repeated scenes of them sharing space, time, and conversation—promise to sustain and offer them guidance as they navigate this new stage of life together.