Seven Dresses - Day Seven

Of all the seven days of this project, today proved the most difficult in terms of outfit selection. Not that I was even close to exhausting my supply of dresses (in fact, I discovered earlier in the week that I could carry on with this project for almost another full week without repeating myself), but because I was torn between two dresses. There was an adorable, very casual dress that had been sitting in my closet over a year without ever having been worn, and which would have been appropriate for the only activity on my agenda for the day, meeting Lauren for ice cream at the Turkish Festival. Then there was also a new dress, which I had already worn the weekend before to meet Lauren for brunch, and Zac for a date afterwards. It was a little much for so casual an occasion, but it was overwhelmingly cute, and still had that "new dress" aura that made it hard to resist sharing with all of you. Can you guess which one won out?

Nobody ever said fashion was practical -- of course I had to wear the new dress! At the store, I had tried this on on somewhat of a whim; usually I can never pull off wrap dresses. Every fashion authority that has ever written has extolled the figure-flattering virtues of wrap dresses and surplice necklines, but I have never been able to find one that worked for me, not without a lot of pins at least. My girls, it seems, don't like to be contained, and without a fully-stitched neckline, they are apt to make a break for it. Something about the material and the fit of this particular dress helps the neckline stay put and work its bust-enhancing, figure-flattering magic. I honestly can't get over how great my girls look in this dress, so much so that after trying it on, I went home, grabbed a coupon, and went back the next day to snatch it up before it sold out in my size. I simply had to have it.

Then again, that's how I felt about all the dresses that I wore this week. I just had to have them, and then I let them languish in my closet. But, if there is one thing I've learned this week, it is that I should bring them out more often and show them some love. I wouldn't want to wear a dress every day indefinitely (and goodness knows, I can't fathom how women did it for all those centuries), but doing it for a week wasn't as bad as I expected. The worst consequence of the Seven Dresses project was all the sleep I lost from having to get up early in the morning to shave my legs before work. Even so, I could definitely boost the dress-wearing to a couple days a week, instead of once every one to two weeks.

With all seven dresses under my belt, and the project successfully completed, I still lack an answer to the question that I raised on Day 3: why do I get so much more positive attention in a dress? Do I genuinely look better than usual? Is it because it's unexpected? Or do I just exude more confidence in clothes that I love? Perhaps I shouldn't over-analyze it. Maybe I should just accept the compliments, put forth the extra effort, and get more mileage out of my wardrobe. It might not be a very exciting finding for my experiment, but I suppose the answer truly is as simple as, just wear more dresses and you'll look good doing it.