27 (or more) Dresses and the Rule of Three

 Idly flipping TV channels before the footie yesterday afternoon, I caught part of the start of the romcom movie  27 Dresses just at the point where the wedding journalist Kevin Doyle (James Marsden) interviews Jane (Katherine Heigl) who has been a 27 times bridesmaid for her friends, and discovers she still has all the bridesmaids dresses crammed into a closet in her small apartment. 

Kevin declares that they are all uniformly terrible, and the main point of a bridesmaids' dress is to be so awful that even the plainest bride looks good in comparison, and dismisses even the least offensive that Jane picks out in defence as being "vomit coloured". In a scene that will be very familiar to those of us who have far too many frocks and too little opportunity to wear them, Jane models each of the outfits one after the other during a hilarious impromptu photoshoot. (Which only goes to prove Kevin's point - although I will admit to a slight envy for the floaty peach/orange number.)Naturally, afterwards I had to go and count just how many dresses I had crammed in my own closet. Which turned out to be more than 27 and nearer 32 or 33. And that's just those hanging in the closet, ignoring another 10-12 in the spare room - or  skirts, suits and tops. Is that too many? How many is too many?

L hasn't worn a dress since 1988, so there was no help there. 
Google AI suggests women have around 18  dresses on average,  ranging from 2 to 30+, which puts a figure of 30-50 in the "I may have a dress problem"* range. 
[* Well, yes, rather obviously  I do have a dress problem, certainly as far as L is concerned even if I don't see in the same way, but that's a whole other conversation that we won't go into here.]
Google AI also suggests that most women have between 70-100 items of clothing overall. I suspect, if I dared add them up, I could easily double that. 

The sheer amount of stuff that has accumulated in 40 odd years of browsing charity shops presents a more practical problem of storage. When we first moved here, 30 something years ago, I could hide all my girl stuff into a small suitcase. Now, I probably have more (and certainly nicer) girl clothes than boy clothes, and certainly more than I have opportunity to wear. From being able to  hide Susie's undies discreetly beneath my socks, pants and t shirts in the bedside dresser, Susie's stuff has now taken over two bottom drawers of the dresser and evicted 'his' t-shirts, socks and pants to an untidy pile on the chair at the foot of the bed.

I guess 50-odd dresses is too many, which led me to think about a Rule of Three. A third could be likely donated or recycled, as either unflattering, too short even for Stana's  fingertip test, or bought as retail therapy and worn only once or twice. Another third are definite keepers, practical or favourites that  I keep going back to; and maybe another third that fall between the two, that are pretty or make me feel good but I probably wouldn't want to wear outside the house. 
As a case in point, I picked up two 'new' dresses in the last couple of weeks, lured by 'everything £3 or less' sale in one of the charity shops. 
   

The one on the left is probably a keeper: it's a nice fit, decent length and feels comfortable. 

The one is the middle looked lovely in the window display during the week and I took a punt on it when it went back on the rack. But while it feel lovely and floaty, it's way too short and probably a size too small. (I can still squeeze a 10, but sometimes it really is a squeeze.) 

The third picture is one of those in-betweens that falls into that third rule, as an old favourite that is still a bit tight and only just passes the fingertip test for being too short.

I'm a bit undecided about this one. I keep moving it between the donate/recycle pile and the keep pile. Having worn it again, I think I might put it back on the reserve pile, at least for summer.

***

I was looking forward to attending Witney Pride again this weekend, as this year would likely be my last chance to take part in the march and help run the stall with my company, and I wanted to be able to go again as Susie this year. Unfortunately there was a email at work at the beginning of this week that said there had been too few volunteers to justify a place in the march or to run run a stall this year, although a few people might still attend. 

I might still have gone, except I was relying on using the stall as somewhere convenient to leave my bulky bag of boy clothes, shoes and makeup after finding somewhere to change, rather than having to cart it around all day. So regretfully, I'll probably pass this year and go to the Saturday lunch and bring and buy sale at the church instead.

xx

S
 

Back out the box.

It seems I can't even be trusted to go out to pick up some bread and not come back with a new petticoat (or pair of shoes).

"You can always return it with the receipt if it doesn't fit" said the lady in the charity shop. "That's OK", it'll probably go straight into her dressing up box.", leaving it open whether said box belonged to a daughter, partner or me. And anyway at just £2, I'll more likely just donate it back.

But it was a keeper. And then I had an unexpected day to myself on Friday while L went to London.

 .

I'm definitely channelling my inner 1950s housewife here.

Then, because it been a long time since I had the opportunity, I'm afraid I got a bit carried away.

Probably overdoing the '50s look a bit. Or even forties from the style of the favourite red frock below. This was one of the first dresses I ever bought for myself some 40 years ago, and had been taken in and let out so many times there's almost none of the original stitching left. I love the slight puffed sleeves and flared skirt. I've loved to have worn this to the VE Day anniversary lunch party.

Amazing how a grey wig ages you (or reveals my true age).

I'll keep that one in reserve in case I get invited to the WI. (Who have, to their credit, re-stated that they are open to all women, regardless of why might be on their birth certificate.)

The red/ginger wig below left came from from Lynn, bless her.

 

And then, sadly, she has to go back in the box until next time.

xx

S