Cape Town - Dresses are cool.
I don't mean cool in the sense of cutting edge or trendy (though of course they can be that too). I mean cool in the sense of the opposite of hot.
I know this because I have been wearing a dress every day since December 1, and have another week or so to go. It's a charity challenge in aid of an organisation which collects and provides donated breast milk to premature babies in Cape Town.
When my friend Jenny Wright, who works at Milk Matters, asked me to take part I said yes partly because it is a good cause and partly because I thought it might be interesting. And it has been.
I've been forced out of my sartorial corner, where for many years I have worn a uniform of mix-and-match separates. Shopping in that mode is easy - identify the current need (eg black jeans, or a white shirt), go to the same shop as usual, buy the item in question, go home.
But there I was on December 1 with precisely two dresses to see me through to the end of the month. So shopping had to be done, and not too expensively. I did a Google search: “factory shop dresses Cape Town”. Up popped some fabulous fashion blogs, pointing to two shops in particular in Kenilworth's Access Park.
So, with 12-year-old son in tow, I went to Cotton On and Relabelled. And did the kind of shopping I don't usually do. I feel intimidated by shops and clothes and fitting room mirrors, all my insecurities clamouring to be heard. But I had to have dresses, so I put the insecurities aside and ruthlessly combed the rails. I selected some interesting looking things and tried them on.
I found three dresses in that expedition - one of them being something I wasn't sure about but which my son unexpectedly loved and was insistent I should buy. I ended up wearing that one to his school prizegiving evening.
When I had supper with a friend who has always worn dresses, she laughed outright at my main finding: that in the heat, dresses are way cooler than my usual uniform.
So, thank you to the Dresses for Lives challenge: in the end, giving always ends up helping the giver. I have lost some inhibitions, gained some new clothes and am loving going back to carefree way I used to dress in my twenties and thirties.
I will be wearing a lot of dresses from now on.
IOL
@reneemoodie
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