By the time women get to be real Grandmas, they've likely already been through it. My own grandmother had lived through a lot — a house burning down, five major wars, one stillbirth, the Depression, living with my Grandfather who smoked cigars with the windows closed in their tiny apartment and then dropped dead of kidney failure. She couldn't drive, had no money of her own, and therefore had extreme limits on her freedom. So, when it came to how my grandmother dressed, she wore what she damn well wanted. And for whatever reason, from a very early age, this is what I loved most about her, and it's what I always remember: her powerful sense of self and how she expressed it, in the only way she could — limits and all — through the things she wore and how she wore them.