Yesterday I wore a dress. It was a very nice dress.
I have not worn this dress for quite some time because, well...it's a very hot dress, and when I go out into the world in it I can't quite handle what happens.
A few notes about the dress for context: It's plain navy blue. It doesn't show a lot of skin. It's not low cut. I wore it with sneakers and no jewelry. It's extremely comfortable, like I could run a 5K in it if I were the type to enjoy running (I am not). But it huuuuuuuugs. It hugs just right, in all the right places. And it lifts and maximizes and minimizes...basically it's a magic dress is what I'm saying. A magical warm hug of a dress.
After watching Homecoming, the Beyonce movie*, I am left wondering about a lot of things. For example, how is it possible to choreograph 200 people on stage? How much were those dancers and musicians paid? How does a human female perform at the top of her game after just giving birth to twins? And then the question that stuck with me the most: Has Beyonce proven the irrelevance of pants? We know what it means to “wear the pants,” but what does it mean when you decide to take them off?
Having worked in fashion-related businesses for more than a decade, I have had the opportunity to talk to many different women about clothes. But anytime you start talking about clothes, the conversation will almost immediately shift to talking about bodies. It’s not weird that this happens - clothes cover our bodies after all - but it is noticeable in the way that it happens…