Thursday, August 16, 2012

From the Dress Archives

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.

-Awaiting my Next Transformation,
Bradley





















6 comments:

  1. I went to Newport for the FIRST TIME EVER this past weekend and was meandering down a side street and saw your CK Bradley suburban. If you heard a girl shrieking at 4 am on Sunday: UH SHE ONLY INVENTED THE RIBBON BELT! I apologize. I can be so obnoxious.

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  2. Wow. Well you can come on back! Hope you were salty from a late night swim....

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  3. Has anyone ever told you that you tell a fine story... The story of you and the life that you live... this is inspired, and lives side by side with the soul of CKB and fashion melts into the times and expreiances you share.
    the daily notes of your life over these last many years that you place from creative mind, with pen and laid down on paper ,should become your first Book... keep writing, sharing... and telling your story... the best is yet to come....

    JSG

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  4. CK is a storyteller like her dad! Lol

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