NEW YORK - Beautiful, gorgeous and fabulous are words no one has ever used to describe my usual weekend outfit, which consists of a bleach-stained tank top and shorts. But those were some of the comments I got wearing a maxi dress on a recent Saturday.
That's right, a maxi dress, gown of choice for the likes of Stevie Nicks and Queen Guinevere. The $34.50 dress from Old Navy, with cap sleeves, an empire waistline and a swirly floral print of navy blue on white, was much more feminine than my typical attire and seemed a tad too festive to wear to run errands. I longed for a tea party invitation, or a '70s band to sing for.
But the longer I wore the dress, the more normal it seemed. And even though temperatures were above 30 C, I didn't feel hot. The dress is flatteringly silhouetted without being tight. The flowing skirt creates a breeze as it swings around your legs. The slip-on style eliminates pinchy zippers or buttons, and the cotton-blend fabric is light and comfortable. My usual Lycra top and tight-waisted shorts would have felt much stickier in the heat.
The day started with a comment from my fashion-blind husband, who can always be counted on to crash my Cinderella fantasies. As he beheld me at 8 a.m., resplendent in my maxi dress, he said, "New nightgown?"
Ignoring the illogic of donning a new nightgown first thing in the morning, I informed him that I was doing a trend test for my office by wearing a maxi dress. He regarded me with pity, as if I had drawn the short straw in an office pool to clean the coffeepot. "Looks like a housedress," he said.
Just for that, I made him take my picture. In the course of the photo session on our residential Brooklyn street, a neighbour pronounced the dress "beautiful." I told her about the trend test and asked if she would wear one. She said she was not tall enough at 5 feet. My height was in fact why I got nominated for the test-run. At nearly five-foot-10, I wouldn't trip on the hem.
Next I headed to breakfast at a diner on Staten Island with a couple of old friends, who made up for my husband's lack of enthusiasm. "Fabulous!" one gushed. "Gorgeous!" declared the other.
But would they wear it? "For sure," said the five-foot-six suburban mother of three who works as a style editor. The other, an older woman, demurred, saying she found the neckline problematic. I suddenly felt a draft and tugged the round neckline up a few inches while finishing my eggs and coffee.
From there I took the ferry across New York Harbor to Lower Manhattan, scanning the boat and connecting subway for other maxi dresses. Alas, I was a lonely fashionista. Amid hundreds, only a few had hems as long as mine: Two South Asian women in saris and a plus-size tourist in an unfortunate tight pink sundress down to her ankles.
I bought some snacks and toys to send to my 10-year-old son at sleep-away camp, then headed to a post office near Penn Station, where I spotted an elegant woman in a strapless black floor-length summer dress chatting on a cellphone, matching luggage by her side.
Back in my neighbourhood, though, I was the only begowned shopper at Key Food as I picked up some fruit and cheese. Home again, I walked the dog, changed cat litter and did laundry. The dress was surprisingly comfy for chores, bending and carrying. Perhaps my husband's "housedress" label wasn't wrong.
