In 1983, I began each day by putting on what my mother called “The Uniform”: I wore my father’s orange and white striped mess shirt; a red and pink flowered skirt; and a pair of white Converse high tops. The shirt smelled like my father, who was still sometimes at sea, and who I longed to get to know. The skirt was a protest, because another little girl had told me redheads can’t wear pink or red. The Converse were my first experience of haute couture – or snake oil salesm