First, The Rant:
90% of “ball gowns” in shops in this town are absolute bloody rubbish.
Almost everything I see in stores here seems to be made for school balls or strippers. If I had a dollar for every shiny-shiny, polyester, halter-neck, plunging, sequinned, backless, bumless, see-through, WAG-inspired, excessively-ruched monstrosity in this town, I would have enough to ring Mr. Armani and ask for something one-off.
You all know the type of stuff I’m talking about. Yeeeerrrrrccchhhhh….
Apart from embarrassingly poor taste, one thing is that most of these overpriced synthetic skank-scraps have in common is the absence of any type of sleeve. If your arms aren’t your best feature, sleevelessness is not on. Piss-farting around with a wrap all evening is also not going to work, so don’t even think about it. And when a dress does happen to have sleeves, the sleeves seem to exert some sort of irresistable, magical force on the dressmaker, such that they cannot help but create some horror that screams “discount 80’s bridesmaid!”
An elegant, interesting, tasteful evening gown is obviously a very difficult thing to make, and obviously not very popular.
And I’m not talking about cocktail dresses. I don’t give a rat’s what some people think, “black tie” and “cocktail” are two different things, and Black Tie means an evening gown. Full length. The Real Deal. No pissing about.
Now, the Rationale:
I think the search for an evening gown is going to be never-ending for me :-( I might have to design something of my own. The closest thing I’ve seen which could have been OK was a silk Carla Zampatti number, but it was sold out in my size and is no longer available:
A lovely woman called Suzie Wilkes wears an equally lovely Carla Zampatti gown.
Yes, Nina. A real, proper evening gown is an absolute must-have. I just need to find one, maybe like the one above, or this Erdem one below?
Edited to add: Have recently seen some lovely gowns in Lisa Ho, but they're not quite what I'm looking for. Still bloody nice, though.
Posts
Yes, a ball gown and a cocktail dress are two different things. I have no need of a ballgown, sadly, but I think if I did, I'd get one made.
ReplyDeleteOne day, you will get The Invitation to a black tie event. Then all hell will break loose and all those lovely things you've seen in shops will instantly disappear and you will find NOTHING. I've even been invited to a "White Tie" function. I thought only the Queen did white tie! Madness.
ReplyDelete