Tuesday, May 28, 2013

a long story about a short dress



On Friday night, Minneapolis's hottest club was Forever Young Prom.

This club had everything: bananas wearing fanny packs, the music of the late, great Aaliyah, hundreds of 20-somethings simultaneously singing along to Blink 182's What's My Age Again and crying because they used to think the song's 23 year old protagonist was SO OLD. (or was that just me crying?)

Before I could be among the hundreds of people jumping along to Bye Bye Bye, I had to decide what to wear. 

It was a tough call: scrunchies, overalls, floppy Blossom hats, sunflowers -- the 90s had so much amazing fashion. But before I bought a pack of $5 scrunchies at Target (yes, they still sell them, and is it just me, or is that WAY too expensive for an extinct trend?), I realized I had the perfect outfit. 

I'm a bit of a clothes hoarder, and stuffed behind a shirt from my trip to Israel in 2000, a Guster t-shirt, and the dress I was wearing when Y proposed, was the ONLY thing I could possibly wear to this event: the dress I wore to my bat mitzvah, purchased at The Limited Too in 1997. 





If this dress could talk, it would tell you about how I invited my Girl Scout troop and my Sunday School class to my big bat mitzvah party at a hotel, and then begged them to invite anyone they knew, because they were my only friends. 

It would tell you how all of these people slow danced along to the Spice Girls and Toni Braxton, while I played on the floor with my niece (it would be awhile -- like, 300 years in teenage girl time -- before anyone slow danced with me). 

And it would tell you how one girl from my Girl Scout troop got to my party really, really early and we wandered around the hotel aimlessly -- a bonding experience that would be the beginning of a 15+ year friendship. 




And then the dress would tell you how it was stuffed into a closet, doomed for obscurity, until the fateful day in 2013 when it became the perfect costume for a 28 year old acting like a 13 year old. 



(girl power.)

5 comments:

  1. HOW did I not hear a bout this party. Sounds like a blast!! Did you have fun? And more importantly, when are they having a party like this again?

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  2. can i come live with you & Y in minneapolis for a little while? back-in-time clubs & designer mini golf... you've pretty much sold me on this place.

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  3. there are so many amazing things in this post. my favorite 3:

    3. Bye Bye Bye
    2. sunflowers
    1. Limited Too

    also, I want to remind you that Cher was 16 in Clueless. SIXTEEN.

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  4. I cannot believe that you could fit into a dress that many years later. I sort of hate you.

    OK I don't even know you and I adored your wedding dress (perhaps bc it reminds me of mine).

    So this is how I found you. I was searching pinterest for book swap ideas for a Facebook book club I have called The Bibliophile Support Group and came upon a blogger book exchange which I scanned for ideas when I saw a very cute pictures of cute heels perched on a stack of books and clicked on her website and while scanning her daily reads I saw Just Dandy which of course I had to click on since I go by Dandy and have a few sites with the word dandy in the titles. ~deep breath~

    Have I totally weirded you out? Anyway, I loved your I believe page and though I'd say hello.

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  5. So 1) I actually had the same dress! OMG! And 2) You triggered my memory and I, too, remember thinking the singer of Blink 182 was sooooo old for being 23. And now I'm crying.

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