The dress I wear Sunday will be a custom design by Stacy Quackenbush, the sculptor, stylist, and designer who understands that every color, texture, detail and line makes a statement. She puts a pair of shoes on you and watches how you stand. Some shoes make you stand like a warrior and others like a deer in headlights. She shows you a piece of jewelry and she watches to see if your eyes light up. She shops like a Navy seal on a special op. She asks you, “When you walk down the red carpet, what do you want to say with your look?” She will tell you that a hair-do can say innocent while a hemline can say vixen. She can tell you that one pump says sophisticated and another one says fun. She can tell you what one accessory does to another one when you wear them together. Sometimes the dress and the accessory do not speak to each other at all. Other times, they fight each other. It’s about as simple as putting together a band. And then she will ask again, what do you want to say? There is only one certainty. This will be the dress.
and every object has invisible strings running from it attached to memories that come to life when you touch it. This will be the dress. (this is a thread to a memory)
I ask myself what I want to say, and an arrow spins on a board of adjectives in my mind, landing on a different one each time or pointing all ways at once. But I must decide, a few big decisions and a million small ones each taking us one beat closer. This will be the dress.
And one by one we make them, Stacy and me. Stacy knows the difference between vintage inspired and just plain old. She knows the importance of trying a bunch of wrong things to be sure the right choice is right. She knows it’s best not to have a set destination, so that when you finally get there, what you are wearing is a spectacular surprise. She knows how to look at me like I’m crazy without making me feel bad. I wonder about people who’s job it is to be looked at. I think, if I had to do this all this time I would be exhausted and insane. I long to be in jeans and so engrossed in writing that I lose all sense of myself. I am more comfortable with that discomfort.
But for now it’s life in front of a mirror. And every flaw is magnified. And Stacy tells me some of them are completely fictional but I don’t believe her on the inside. And every inch is scrutinized and it’s day after day of reckoning. And I want to hide and I can’t. I have industrial strength undergarments overriding nature, defying gravity and creating an illusion based on the truth but taking some creative license. I step into the first fitting of the second version of the dress and am transformed. I start to feel pretty. At moments I feel fierce. Stacy is right about everything. I think, I wish I could do this all the time. I wish every weekend was a red carpet and every day was a creation of another shot in pretty magazine cover life. This is the dress.
Karen, the master seamstress, can pin material around your curves with just one hand and isn’t afraid to laugh at the same time. The first version was made in muslin, this is the second version in polyester, and the final version will be in the satin and silk. It’s so it can be just right. She seems to take the same amount of care as God must when making a tree or a flower. Karen works all day and worries at night. I am learning a lot. Mostly, I cannot believe the love that is going into it. I am the princess at the happily ever after end of a fairy tale. This will be the dress.
And I’m going to wear it on a particular Sunday night. And I’m going to walk down the red carpet. And maybe everyone will be looking and maybe no one will care. And maybe I will win and maybe I will lose. And maybe my whole life will change and maybe it won’t, but I’m not the same. I hope I feel as beautiful as the feeling the song was born out of. I hope I am shining from the inside. Whatever happens, and however it feels, it will happen in this dress.
It is midnight blue.
Every object has invisible strings running from it attached to memories that come to life when you touch it. The longer you have it the more strings there are. This will be the dress.