That's Just Adulthood

Cosplaying adulthood and getting away with it, unfortunately.

A series that takes a look at dating through a fashion lens. Covering both a love of designer collections and forgotten romantic encounters of the past.

I recently rediscovered my adoration for Marc Jacobs (by Marc Jacobs for Marc Jacobs). Although a longstanding infatuation, his consistency, authenticity in design, and overall marketing rekindled the MJ spark within me. His latest collections, in particular, perfectly portray—to me—the struggle to keep up in adulthood, with its ever-stretching finishing line.

Placing his Fall-Winter 2024 collection on the cover of American Vogue awoke something in me. I immediately sat up from my slouched position on the couch and zoomed in on the purposefully ill-fitting gown modelled by Kaia Gerber. I zoomed in on the exaggerated, cartoonish eyelashes. I then glared at the cover at full bleed to appreciate the 1950s up-do in its entirety. To me, fashion had just made its comeback, softly echoing the words ‘we are so back’ as I flicked through the images of his distinctive designs contrasting against block-coloured backgrounds. It felt like a direct callout to me to appreciate the collection’s narrative, or at least how I interpreted it.

Jacobs said of his most recent show, “With precious freedom, we dream and imagine without limitation… not to escape from reality but to help navigate, understand, and confront it, exploring through curiosity, conviction, compassion, and love.” And I felt that with this collection, he was pointing directly to me and saying, “You might not know what you’re doing, and that’s okay… at least you’re having fun.” With a running theme of oversized, characterful silhouettes, the designer’s Spring-Summer 2025 collection further illustrated what it meant to navigate the unfamiliar terrain of adulthood. Playing dress up in your mother’s wardrobe to convey a sense of adulting know-how. I began thinking about how I could relate to these designs and how I often feel as though I’m faking it—instead, playing dress up with my emotional maturity.

Since reaching my thirties, I’ve learned to distinguish between adulting and being a real adult. The latter is the kind where children approach you with questions, and you actually know the answer—a category I surely do not fit into, as I often take to secretly Googling the answers so as not to appear completely clueless.

Last year, a friend who has a long-term partner asked how I was able to do this alone. By ‘this,’ she, of course, meant bills, panic attacks, tax, living alone, and an inability to say no to cigarettes when offered. When she uttered these words—while on the phone with her person, who helped to calm her down in a moment of angst—it took everything in me not to break down and cry because I didn’t have the answer. “I don’t really have a choice,” I responded, half-laughing at myself in an attempt to lessen the shame and sympathy aimed in my direction.

Up until that point, I regarded myself as Samantha Jones’ single. Fiercely independent, stylish, and thought myself able to weather any torrential rain on my solo island. It hadn’t quite occurred to me that people have help with the long list of added adult taxes, as I was only viewing things from my perspective. Foolishly, I assumed everyone was simply adhering to a monotonous daily routine of reluctantly getting up at the crack of dawn, going to the office, panic paying bills and forgetting to defrost their meats because if they stopped, their economy would crash. Here’s where the tears began to form. How was I able to do it? In that moment, I felt the very opposite of the strong character she was painting me to be.

Once she left, I sat on the floor of my studio apartment in total silence and burst into tears. I didn’t have an answer to her question and couldn’t understand what about me was giving off the impression that I could do it all. It was a reminder that my fakery of knowing what to do was, much like Jacobs’ recent collections, exaggerated and over the top. Until then, I’d never stopped to think about how my strength appeared to others. My mind was constantly running through a schedule of the many things it takes each day just to be a coherent adult, and I had just been sort of winging it and pretending. Convincingly so, apparently.

Following this interaction, I quickly understood celebrities and their disdain for being heralded as role models. Because I too am truly disturbed by people who take my messy portrayal of adulthood as a lesson in what to do. I honestly have no idea what I’m doing. I am simply opting for a method of trial and error, and desperately hoping it works out. Not dissimilar to my Sims and the abundance of mods I’ve accumulated over the years.

Truthfully, this portion of my life has felt like the hardest, most expensive and financially humbling chapter and something I never expected to experience so suddenly in my 30s. I was told of the riches I’d receive, along with a confidence that could not be shaken at this stage in life. However, thus far, the 30s have felt restricting and a lot like being subtly choked out, but by financial responsibilities, not a crush as promised. It appears that my mother was right once again because if it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Looking at his Spring-Summer 2025 collection as something of a safety blanket for my specific brand of faking till I make it, I sought comfort in seeing fabulous fashions disguised as the childlike wonder of my formative years. Perhaps his next collection will further affirm my attempts to make it in my 30s.