I have nothing to wear. I gaze into my wardrobe, across the variegated landscape of peach chiffon Prada, white silk MiuMiu, and fragile wisps of vintage Nothing, deeming them one by one too slutty, not slutty enough, too fashiony, too blowzily overblown, too fattening and generally inappropriate for the task at hand. It's a familiar cry for most every woman, which I admit that most days I self-servingly relish when my company is sought on the adventure of what-shall-i-wear, but not today, when the dilemma is mine.
Whatever new and unforeseen event presents itself in my own life -- a date, an important meeting, anything where denim is considered inappropriate -- something outside the realm of everyday where the rules aren't composed by moi, it throws me for a loop. I start seeing the frock in question through the eyes of the potential beholder and metaphorically picking it apart thread by thread.
My existing wardrobe is tarnished by memories of past events and wearings. The black Alessandro Dell' Acqua empire-line dress with lace insets and covered buttons that I've never worn again after having an argument with my best friend because it all comes flooding back every time I look at it. The sleek Dior, gaspingly expensive and dangerously red -- that symbolized taking control of my own success - lost its power as holes started appearing, as if all that the dress stood for came unraveled as the fabric frayed. And then there are the good memories. The stretchy black Zara t-shirt dress that I was wearing when the boy I secretly loved kissed me late one evening in the kitchen at a party, smearing red lipstick over both our faces as telling evidence. They say that muscle has memory, but so I would argue has crepe de chine, double face wool or silk mousseline.
So it's hardly surprising that a new dress always seems like the answer to all life's questions. What is this unquenchable lust for the new? Does a dress really only have a life expectancy of one or two wears? Wearing a new dress is like putting on somebody else's skin for a day, an actor's costume to make you feel the part. The confidence of a crisp new dress brings flooding back the first-day-of-school excitement and just-so perfection that it brings.
We all want your clothes to make us feel good, to feel pretty and special, as if it were ourselves that we unfold from sheets of tissue, new with tags. It's the opportunity to recreate ourselves, a new persona each time we get dressed. We want a blank canvas to create a new memory, as written and costumed by ourselves, shot in glorious Technicolor or grainy black-and-white. A new dress is a chance to be somebody else, or just a better version of ourselves, a hope of a positive outcome -- to be hired, revered, complimented or kissed.
Alexandra Shulman, in her essay 'The Wow Factor' from the ode to frocks 'My Favourite Dress', compares the fish to the bait "When you find the right one it is like a new lover -- the world just seems a better place". To which I would like to add -- if you choose the right dress, perhaps you can have both.