Meet Ref Hunter Harris
October 9th 2021
Issue 1
October 9th 2021, Issue 1
First impressions
with Hunter Harris
WHAT IF OUR CLOTHES TALKED BACK TO US? — My favorite jeans know everything I’ve ever done, and who I’ve done it with. They’ve overheard my gossip, my dramas, my opinions, good and bad — every hot girl on IG has slime-green nails and Deuxmoi has not properly codified her ideas about A- and B-list! But what does my favorite titty top have to say about all this; who else has the dress I’m wearing to a wedding next month been entangled with? If Ref was taken to the Red Table, what would she have to say? Let’s find out.
Julius
I’m elegant, meaning I will have three drinks and tell the waiter with the pigs in a blanket plate to “keep ‘em coming.” I’m sophisticated, meaning I learned a lot of geography from playing “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” I’m worldly, too — meaning I’ve watched Casino Royale enough times to make the Eva Green character my entire personality. I’m chic, meaning my nails match my Doritos Nacho Cheese bag. And I have good taste! Meaning my Raya song is “Good Wife” by Kacey Musgraves.
Contractually, I am only available for occasions where there’s mayhem scheduled: a getaway car, a heist, a mid-ceremony objection, tense words exchanged with an ex, sneaking into a Bowery Hotel party. I’ve given up on being wholesome;
“I’m sucking this vape outside and walking in high-slit first.”
Lawrence
“I’m not your grandma’s titty top; I am, rather specifically, your great-great aunt’s titty top.”
The one who eloped under mysterious circumstances and inherited a lot of money under even more mysterious circumstances. I was pulled from the back of her closet, passed down generations, and arriving just in time for that day when you have plans both uptown and downtown, when you need to impress and be impressed, but more importantly when you need to let Ian McEwan know that if there’s a bodice to be ripped in a sweeping historical fiction romance it will be me, mine, this body-ody-ody-ody-odice.
Maybe you’re meeting the parents and also meeting the improbably glamorous, artfully disheveled older sister. Maybe you don’t know if it’s a date. Are you wiggling out of a prenup and into a large lump sum? Are you doing that whole renovating a Victorian mansion with a wraparound porch, turning it into a quaint hotel, and falling in love with someone down the street-thing? I’m the top to signal this, a titty top with Age of Adaline ambitions. Yes, fine, pair me with jeans. Sure, whatever, wear me with a skirt. I’m glamorously passed down, dressed up, and ready to be taken off.
Juliette
What you’ve heard about me — the thing with the groom and the thrown drink — isn’t what it sounds like. And yes I was late to Friday night’s date, but in my defense, it was unrealistic to imagine I’d arrive on time. I’m not defined by my past! Including and especially what happened between me and [redacted because of an NDA] in the summer of 2014. And, while we’re talking about it, the nanny from 409 knows what she did. There are so many versions of the truth, so many conflicting accounts, so much outright slander: lawsuits have aggrieved parties, but I just have dramatic ones.
So there’s a wedding, or a birthday, or a reunion, or an ever-amorphous work thing, or a particularly Real Housewives-y group dinner. I’m so there. My therapist says I have a need to shapeshift, that I have a problem with boundaries. I say there are just so many varieties of trouble to cause: in Emerald I’m classic, in Moray I’m loud, no one looks away from me in Tropique.
“Whatever, call the Uber — tonight we’re having a Lottie fun.”
Mountain + Earl
My dad was the power suit-power lunch combo. My Mom was in the costume closet of The Aviator. I ’m the outfit for your most official — and/or technically your “only” — meeting of the week. Market research over spicy margs, or maybe a 1:1 with soft pant-bottoms just out of the video chat’s frame.
“Yes, I had a breakdown in the bathroom five minutes ago; no, you won’t get the brief by 6.”
I’m a woman wearing many hats: My unique and uncanny ability to not wave at the end of a Zoom meeting actually does qualify me as a woman in STEM. I’m scrolling through Instagram while I’m muted on a call, but that’s really me being social media manager for a client who happens to be myself. I’m a momager to a 19-pound dog and to a very specific corner of my apartment that photographs well, and those are both full time jobs.
→ Meet Mountain + Earl
Hunter Harris is a writer who is still trying to figure out how to do eyeliner at her big age. She’s also the author of the Hung Up newsletter, where you can hear from her every week.