I was seven when I bought my first fancy dress. Actually, I didn't buy it, my mother did, and it probably wasn't my first, as that would have been my baptism gown, but it is the first formal attire I can remember wearing. Like all First Communion dresses, it was startlingly white and had lots of pretty gauzy layers which stuck out when I spun around in circles.
The first layer was a slip-like type of cloth, and over it lay a sheer silky organza film, embroidered with various cutouts in the shape of flower petals. The sleeves - my favorite part - were puffy little muffins of material, and I had gotten ruffled socks that were of the same lace consistency as the gown.
Even in the second grade I had enough sense to realize that this was a beautiful dress. Sadly, it was probably the last time shopping for a formal event was so stress-free.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those that love to dress up and those who loathe it. I am a dress-up girl. I love the preparation, the anxiety, and the excitement involved in looking formal. As like-minded others will tell you, getting ready for the big event is often more fun than the event itself.
The not-fun part, however, is all the searching and scouring and screaming that comes with shopping for a formal event. This is particularly true when the occasion is family oriented and involves many visiting relatives from out of town, because this means that not only must you like your dress, but that all of your relatives within a 500-mile radius must also approve.
Unfortunately, sometimes the search for a big event yields nothing but big disaster. My most traumatic formal attire event to date would have to be my Confirmation confection.
I say "confection" because there truly is no other word for it. I'll do my best to describe it without the aid of a picture. Again, it was a white dress, and like my First Communion dress, it was layered - but not in the good way.
Lying over a multitude of chiffon slip layers was a sheer veil of white burnt-out velvety flowers which crept along the bodice in strangulating vines, reaching up, up, and out to my shoulders, meeting sleeves that overlapped in tremulous ruffle upon ruffle buoyed by monstrous built-in shoulder pads.
It was appropriate for my infant sister or Betty White, but not for someone in between. The other girls in their silk sheathes were dainty little pettifours, and I was the over-whipped meringue pie.
If I saw it today I would set it on fire. I would have been more comfortable if I had been confirmed while sick with chickenpox, and I bet less people would have stared at me as well.
I have since forgiven my mother (although after this goes to print, I doubt she will forgive me) and the search for formal attire post-Confirmation has been more successful, if not less stressful.
Proms were next on the list of premature-wrinkle causing events, as each one necessitated multiple trips from Maine to Boston or New York as Maine's most famous designer boutique, L.L. Bean, unfortunately did not carry ball gowns.
High school graduation was the same, a whirlwind of shops, dressing rooms, and tailors. By that time and after all that practice, I thought I had it down pat - the routine, the searching, the discovery of the formal outfit.
Which brings us to today. Graduation. As of last week I had nothing to wear. Not a single thing. Of course I have dresses in my closet, clothes in my drawers, skirts and tops and pants heaped over a variety of dorm furniture. But honestly, nothing.
I comfort myself, because nobody else I know has anything to wear either. We are all too busy with our papers, projects, and presentations - not to mention the blossoming spring sun - to worry about an event that will put the stamp of adulthood on our faces forever. So we enjoy being reckless students one last time.
Our parents, knowing our affinity for sunshine and our hatred for added responsibilities, call incessantly to make sure everything will be in order by the time Grandma and Grandpa and Great Aunt Ruth fly into town for the big event.
At least I am not alone. Last week, at least three of my friends were roused at ungodly hours of the morning by their well-meaning mothers and aunts who demanded to know whether "said graduation outfit" had been purchased yet.
Personally, my mother has refrained from hassling me in reality and has instead chosen to haunt my dreams. It usually goes something like this: I stand before my mirror on the morning of graduation close to tears.
The reflection staring back at me is me, but only if I were a 21-year-old high school dropout who had joined the adult film industry. My eyes are rimmed with thick black liner, and my mouth is so blindingly shiny and sticky, it appears to be coated in rubber cement lip-gloss.
The Lilliputian camisole I am wearing is cut to my navel, which is about the same place that the slit going up my skirt ends, and the heels I am teetering on are as high as Kingdom Come. My mother coos.
In my dream, I have bought a perfect pink tea dress, but she is not letting me wear it and believes my post-collegiate porn gear to be perfectly acceptable.
"Nobody wears knee-length for these occasions anymore," she scolds. "You have to look appropriate."
It seems a little silly writing a fashion column for a day when the majority of people will be dressed in matching black polyester robes. As far as commencement is concerned, I'm really glad I've been stressing about what to wear.
For all my effort, I will inevitably end up looking like Judge Judy's kid sister in a sea of identically dressed Wal-Mart wizards. In the game of fashion, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you have to say "screw it".
Congratulations, Class of 2002. We did it, no matter what we're wearing.
