Say No, Then Yes, To The Dress
Shopping for a Mother of the Bride dress is a fraught exercise
Buying a new frock is not an activity I relish. I wish it were. I want to be one of those women who catches a glimpse of a something shiny on a rack on the far side of the store, tries it on, loves it and whips out her credit card, all within the space of five minutes. Me? I prowl the floor like a hungry snow leopard, and after much deliberation, grab an armful of frocks that seem promising, try them on, hate them and repeat the process until I end up hating myself.
At 57, I blame my ageing body. While I like my body ninety per cent of the time and believe it’s a perfectly serviceable, and even attractive, container for my soul, purchasing a frock reduces me to an anger ball of self-loathing. My large breasts and smallish hips ensure that buying a dress is a challenging, nay almost impossible, quest. Nothing fits. If a dress fits my boobs, the the skirt balloons on my hips. If a frock fits my hips, my breasts are all squashed up into a shapeless mass of mono-boob. It’s even worse trying to find a bathing costume, which also explains why I have not bought a new one of those for 10 years.
This quest, however, needed me to be brave. To dig deep. To drown out the inner voice of the ten per cent. My daughter was getting married and she…
