A dress by no one
I was reading Elaine Welteroth’s account of her wedding on Vogue. Welteroth had to redo her wedding plans because of the pandemic, and this bit about the dress she ended up wearing really struck me:
They cheered as the bride walked down her “Soul Train” sidewalk aisle in a label-less white dress from her own closet. “I hadn’t worn it in over three years,” she says. “But it was the first idea that came to mind when I envisioned us getting married on my stoop. And since the mantra we set for our stoop wedding was, ‘Do the best you can with what you have,’ I decided to not overthink it. My mom mailed me her wedding dress from California to try on, and I loved it, but didn’t quite feel like me in it. I still wanted a piece of my mom with me that day, though, so I decided to wear her veil. It ended up matching the dress perfectly.”
It reminded me of the scene from the SATC movie [the first, obviously, the second is one of the worst things ever conceived], when Carrie picks a vintage dress to wear to her wedding, much to the horror of Charlotte and Anthony. [“The bride wore a dress by… no one?!”]
It got me to thinking about the significance of label-less, bought on a whim, repurposed dresses that somehow seem like the right choice. I’d originally thought I would wear one of my mother’s saris - a midnight indigo/blue - when I got married. But my heart was never really in it — it seemed too much, too suited to a big wedding, too elaborate, too night-time. Instead, when it came down to it, it was a dress by… no one. I had a white cotton sari [mixed with some kind of silk] that I’d bought on a whim and still hadn’t worn. I figured it was the only piece in my closet that looked formal but was actually light enough to withstand a heatwave. It wouldn’t crumple instantly, and I would probably be able to breathe. I wore it with a malai lawn blouse, and my mother’s wedding dupatta, an onion-pink tissue dupatta with a gota border, and old flats because who was going to look at my feet? I didn’t care that the hem got soaked just as I was leaving the venue (someone had decided it was the best time to clean and flood the courtyard with water.) I am very glad that I have no grand story to tell about this dress, no ridiculous bill to pay off, and that I will not cringe when I see a photo of myself in it.
I started thinking about the dresses I did buy for ‘occasions’ — in one of my previous lives when I had to go out for work — and how often those would not turn out to be the thing I wanted. Like the black halter neck dress I wore to a work event because I could barely afford anything else — I’d barely had any time to do my makeup or hair, I’d had to spend money on a strapless bra, and while I was probably comfortable [maybe?] it wasn’t the best choice. A few years later, I bought a really expensive tunic that I thought I’d wear at a fashion show. I spent so much money on it — at the time, it was the most money I’d ever spent on a single item of clothing — that I nearly returned it within seven seconds of buying it. I looked awful. I didn’t have the right trousers to go with it, and it just didn’t fit right, even after I had it altered. It hung untouched in my closet for years, and then I gave it away. [Thank you, Marie Kondo. It did not spark joy.]
Instead, the memories of things I’ve bought on a whim, or bought because they were beautifully constructed, have stayed with me —like the Daaman dress that my friend Amna and I owned in different colors. We wore it out to birthdays and dinners, and talked about it endlessly — it was so utterly chic and comfortable and just us. [Mine sadly ripped beyond repair at a birthday thanks to tripping and falling in a pair of extremely ridiculous heels, she lost hers, we’ll always have the memories]
This week, I wore one of my Uniqlo x Marimekko dresses after a long time. And I felt so happy all day, cheered by the print, the swingy dress, and the fact that it has POCKETS. But mostly, that it is not earmarked for some event in the future. It’s for today.