elegantly dressed little black dresses, and what to do with them*

mine isn't as good as this one anyway

I intended to wear a little black dress to my friend Annie's wedding last week; I'm delighted to be able to fit into this dress again, after three years or so when I didn't fit it. In the end I wore a silver satin strappy smock top with a thin black tie-front cardi over; a slim black skirt, and silver flats, with big fat silvery jewels. It was great, and felt a bit more sparkly and weddingy in the event, & loads of people complimented. (Hurrah!) (The bride was in mauve Ghost and pretty as a picture. Unfortunately I don't have a picture, because I think my flash must have been turned off. Damn the idiot who did that.)

However, I'm still overjoyed to fit into my LBD again, and will look forward to wearing it soon. Even more so, in light of something I've just read on my newly-discovered new-fave** blog, Woman of Experience.

She writes:

"Neophilia**** is of course the default position of editors on women's publications; women who shriek at dresses, drool over handbags and have the attention spans of goldfish. Their mania for all things new has meant that, in past seasons, we have been persuaded to cast aside our Little Black Dresses. On their advice we have instead attempted to seduce our menfolk in Little Grey or Little Sort of Purplish Dresses; aka the New Blacks.

Needless to say nobody got laid because legions of boyfriends and husbands could not work out how to react to these strange colour signals. Where a black dress quite seriously says, "I don't want dessert. I want you to take me home and fuck my brains out," these other shades seemed to be saying, "I might want to be kind of teased but then again I might want to watch a DVD, or just talk and have cheese on toast. Aren't I whimsical?" Thus, confused men could do little else but drop their women off home and head for the pub. There they sat with their mates, leafing through fashion magazines in a desperate attempt to work out what was going on."

Now, I think this is right: I've never really trusted the idea of a Little Purple Dress (though once I had a Little Brown Dress I loved. It came from Dorothy Perkins, of all things, but actually looked as if I had gone back to 1958, bought it, and spirited it back to the present day in my time pod. When it got two sizes too small I gave it away, and I don't regret it because the dress would probably be the wrong length now anyway. You just have to be really hard).*** Little black ones are the way to go, and many's the occasion I have started out getting dressed for, tried to be adventurous, and ended up realising that it just had to be black.

(Though this season, silver also works.)

(Oops.)


* I know this looks strange after my previous post: you will think that one one count or the other I must lack conviction. But no...

** This is true in a way, though nothing can supplant those I already dote on, as I hope all my dotees realise.

*** And while I would love a Little Grey Dress, it would always remind me of Little Grey Rabbit And Her Friends, and would also not be any use for anything in the evening without some pretty serious jewels.

**** Not necrophilia! I read this wrong the first time, to my cost.