HER EDGE

THE WEDDING DRESS

I have not been invited to an out-oftown wedding in years. My girlfriend’s daughter was getting married and she invited me and another friend to come as guests. She did not say it, but it was implied; significant others are staying home so us girls can have some fun.

My married friend jumped at the idea. The three of us spend hours on FaceTime laughing and talking about fashion. Both of my friends work in retail, and it is what bonded us from the beginning.

I would shop and they would sell. One night, we decided to meet in the mall after work for a glass of wine (another common denominator) to talk about cloths. We have been buddies ever since.

The wedding was in Delaware in an affluent area with upscale venues, restaurants, and hotels so my friend and I saw this as a girls get-away weekend and a chance to up our shopping game.

I had six-weeks to get ready for the three-day extravaganza, and I could not find anything to wear.

I attempted to order from my go-to shops first, but sizes and styles were limited. I perused every store at the mall, stalked Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube nightly looking for inspiration. Desperate orders on Amazon left me heading to the UPS Store each week with returns.

With proms and weddings already underway, I was about three weeks too late. This was supposed to be fun, but I felt like Goldilocks; everything was too

BY ROBIN DEWIND

tight, too short, too tacky. Would I have to resort to wearing the boing black jumpsuit that was hanging in my closet from the last “event” I attended?

Why was shopping suddenly so hard? I have two large closets full of jeans, blouses, blazers, and work dresses. Have I forgotten how to get really dressed up?

It was my last stop with a week to go before the event and I found myself back at Von Maur; not in the younger trendy section downstairs, but up upstairs, where the ladies shop. In the last week I had morphed into “mother-of-the-bride” mode and convinced myself that my days were numbered when it came to feeling stylish ever again.

With a half-an-hour to go until closing, a salesperson who was at least ten years my senior said she liked one dress of the five dresses I tried on. “That dress fits you like a glove and it’s so appropriate.”

I flinched.

My inner voice was telling me to run as fast as I could to get away from this woman who offered no real fashion sense of her own but was trying to convince me that that my dress was good enough. I felt so beaten down by own thoughts of feeling too old for sexy and trendy that I took her compliment right to the register. The dress was comfortable, and I did not even have to contort my body to get into shapewear to camouflage my middle-age middle. It was simple, safe and on sale.

Maybe I was growing.

With my remaining time, I bought jewelry, shoes and decided not to spend the money on a purse, I knew I had an old one in my closet. The task was over, and I headed home. My 17-year-old fashionista daughter who is hip, cool, and effortless took one look at my decisions and simply said “no.”

I replied, “it’s classic.”

She quipped back, “it’s frumpy.”

The “F” word; boring, drab, the opposite of fabulous.

I was stuck at a style crossroads, and I did not even know it until I saw myself in the mirror looking like I was heading to a press conference rather than a swanky country club wedding with a cocktail in hand.

Maintaining your sense of self and style is tricky after age 50. Our bodies do not always cooperate, daily responsibilities stack up and our self-confidence gets diminished every time we pull on a pair of exercise tights to go to Wegmans.

We do not even realize we have gotten retail lazy until we are taking advice from strangers who clearly do not see staying current as anything beyond being ‘age appropriate’.

While I was shopping all those weeks, all I could think about was what I ‘couldn’t’

“Instead of dressing my age, I am choosing to celebrate the years it took me to finally get to a place where I am quietly confident with myself.”

or ‘shouldn’t’ wear rather than celebrating the chance to feel comfortable in my own skin.

In every mirror I saw the flaws and not the beauty. For the first time my age was bothering me more than my dress size, and it had to stop.

The next day my daughter and I found a small boutique that was not bridal, formal or a department store. It was upscale, unique, and elevated. Six items hung in my dressing room, all fit, all were stylish but one, made me feel like I was myself again.

No sucking in, special bras or Spanx needed for this colorful, flowing dress that indeed, fit me like a glove.

Instead of dressing my age, I am choosing to celebrate the years it took me to finally get to a place where I am quietly confident with myself.

Someday I will have to thank my daughter for her vision; she saw me more clearly than I did.

And yes, I am grateful for the woman in the department store, who reminded me that age is just a number, and you do not have to settle or be safe or worse, appropriate when it comes to your own personal style.