Yves St. Laurent said that ‘…what is important about the dress is the woman who is wearing it.’ I agree, but sometimes it’s the dress that takes on a life of it’s own and transforms the woman. In fact, the yellow dress below did just that to me. I was a freshman at Columbia and at a Black Tie affair at St. Anthony Hall. Everything was intimidating from the older girls clinking their champagne glasses to the boys sitting lazily on the dark green leather club chairs smoking cigars. I was in this yellow dress.
I was a girl who’d just left the womb of all girls boarding school until I zipped it up… and then miraculously…amid the sophisticated boning and layers of yellow chiffon, I became a woman. It took a couple compliments for the confidence to take hold – I know, it’s strange, but don’t you remember the first outfit that made you all of the sudden grown up?
While I was in the Newport warehouse getting inspired by dresses that have been handed down to me and collected for most of my life, I came across this one. Color’s a bit dull, and it nearly disintegrated in my hand, but I will forever remember this dress for its lessons it gave me ‘in attention to detail.’
This dress will never be worn again unless I’m looking to streak at a moments notice, but it reminds me that a dress may have many incarnations – from transforming a girl to a woman, or reminding a designer that its what’s inside that counts.
