A dress and memories

I was unpacking some things that had been in my Mum's storage before she moved house. Amongst them were some clothes, in particular my dressy dresses, the ones I wear for formal dinners (black tie) and more dressy weddings.

And I came across it. A dress that brings back so many memories from when it was purchased to every time I wore it, a dress that so has its own personality. Normally I'm not like this with clothes, I abhor clothes shopping unless I'm in the mood (and weirdly if I'm in the US, perhaps as I suddenly become 2 sizes smaller and tops are long enough).

So I brought this dress at what is now Topshops flagship Oxford Street store in June 1997. I'd been to an open day at the college in London where I would start my undergraduate career in Chemistry (I switched to Geography somewhere else after two years but thats another story). After looking around the place and deciding that it was really where I wanted to go (above Oxford or Cambridge) I decided to go shopping for a dress for the upcoming sixth form party.

In the basement where there were concessions for other small designers. I found it, a floor length, pretty much backless dress, that clung in the right places, fairly high necked and strapless, with a slit up the back so you can walk. Basically the first dress I brought that flaunted my femininity but not too much that I was out of my comfort zone. It was reasonably priced and with a student discount under thirty pounds (my maximum budget). I remember showing the dress to friends when I got back home and them being slightly shocked, it was me but not expected.

I wore the dress to multiple compliments, for me the geek of the year this was unusual. I think I enjoyed challenging people's opinions of me. I got a kiss from the boy I liked (another chapter in our long drawn out relationship) and got scared. I got asked whether I was engaged to a good friend of mine that night, something that shocked my and my supposed fiance so much we laughed for about five minutes. (He was the first of my friends from home to get married though). I had an amazing night at that sixth form party, partially because it was after a summer concert at the local theatre in which I had played in several groups, had a couple of solos go well and sing in the chamber choir finale. Going from the natural post-concert high to a party meant everyone thought we'd been drinking already.

I wore the dress to a post-production party a couple of weeks later. The english class had adapted "Room with a View". I had ended up getting involved with stage crew, partially to manage a good friend who is a designer not a stage management person. We thought we invented the idea of a prop table! It may have played a part in my most short lived dating episode (dating someone to make someone else jealous, very silly and not worth it, particularly when the object of your desire is doing the same thing!).

I wore the dress to a couple of freshers balls (along with my very plain black dress, which has a history associated with it). It became my clubbing dress in London being worn to Turnmills (now sadly closed), Ministry of Sound, Fabric, Heaven amongst other places (it shocked my most recent ex that I once was into the club scene). I wore the dress to my new college freshers event two years after my first experience of starting a degree course.

I hadn't worn the dress in years. So when I found it I wondered did it still fit. My weight went up when I first started university and has fluctuated since. However, I knew from another dinner dress I'm about the same size as I was as a 17 year old (I don't know how but I'm not complaining). The dress still fits, it still makes me feel good and I would feel fine wearing it on a night out. Not to a formal dinner but for something else.

Normally my memories are so lucid when associated with place and landscape (I'm a geographer it figures), this is one of the few pieces of clothing that I can remember vividly the experiences each time I wore it.