Seven Dresses - Day One

Every time I wear a dress, one of two things happens: inevitably, somebody asks me why I am so dressed up, as if I go around looking crappy every other day, and somebody says to me, "Aw, you look nice today; you should wear more dresses." I do have quite a collection of dresses in my closet, in fact, I have difficulty resisting them when I'm shopping, because I think I look good in dresses. Frankly, I have nice legs (they're my second-favorite physical feature), but I rarely seem to be able to work up the energy to showcase them by actually wearing the dresses I own. Wearing a dress takes effort -- you have to shave your legs or else wear tights and other uncomfortable foundational garments, and, to complete the look, schlep around in high heels all day. It's much easier to throw on a pair of trousers and forget about it.

But, as I was surveying the contents of my wardrobe last week, longingly looking at the beloved dresses languishing in the back of my closet, I decided it was time to bring them out to play. So this week, I will be chronicling my experiment in wearing a dress every day for seven days. At the very least, my wallet will feel better about getting better usage out of my clothing investments. In the best-case scenario, I will learn something about myself, and my self-image. With that, I give you the first dress in my line-up:

I really love this dress, so much so that it is the only item of clothing I have voluntarily acquired that is even partially orange. I had spotted it at the store when it first came in last year, and I loved it so much I was even willing to fork over the $90 listed on the price tag, but alas, it was already sold out in my size at that store, and online. I assumed it simply wasn't meant to be. Flash forward to a couple months later, when I was at a different location of the same store, perusing the clearance rack, when I found the dress, marked down to $15, and in my size! It was a minor shopping miracle!

Since I usually reserve my dresses for special occasions, most of them have some sort of story or memory attached to them. In the case of this dress, the occasion was seeing the President of the United States. Although I failed to get a photo of it because my camera battery died, this was the dress I wore to last summer's Obama fundraiser. I skipped the heels on that occasion though, knowing that I would be standing for long periods of time. Today, however, I pulled out the fancy shoes because I had to coordinate an oral history with former Congressman William O. Lipinski at work. There's something about the officious clickety-clack of heels on the museum's terrazzo floors that makes me feel like a mature, responsible adult, and that is precisely the kind of confidence I need to do my job. My feet might have been killing me by the end of the day, but nobody ever said fashion was practical.