dark green velvet dress

Number 2.

Bought for the senior school dance. I was 15. I bought it in New Look (I think - I could check but then I'd have to get up).

Not quite sure how to tell this story. So I'll start with buying it. If it gets boring I might stop writing.

I remember shopping for this dress. I was with my two friends. Really my only two friends from secondary school. I was aware that my finding my dress was much less important that their finding their dresses and that this was how it should be. I'm not sure if that is how they felt, or it was just me. While they tried on revealing clothes, well appropriate clothes really, I found something that showed neither leg nor breast. Though it is pretty figure hugging.

I got "dumped" in this dress.

I was very excited about the senior dance. I had been asked out by a boy, 17, and this was the first social event we'd be attending together. My brothers teased me as I got ready for it, asked if he would be there- I think I may have blushed, I remember being embarrassed.

When the slow dance began his friend (best friend) started walking towards me. I grinned stupidly thinking he was coming to ask for a dance on behalf of his friend. He came over to say-
"Barrie says he just wants to be mates, aye?"
I was crushed, but my initial response was that I was being mocked, and that I must not reveal any emotion. At the time I was often mocked in ways I didn't understand, sometimes they only became apparent, to me later. So I smiled and said OK. Then retreated to the toilets.

We didn't talk again for years*. But sometimes I would wander into a line of thought wondering if he had even rejected me or if it was just his friend who disapproved of him dating someone so low in the school hierarchy. (He was pretty low himself). Interesting now as we would probably have been in communication. Mobile phones & social media might have led to a different outcome.

The next time I remember it being worn was when I was around 21, Halloween. I lent it to a friend to be a witch. I was a fairy in a pink tutu dress and blond wig. We took photos on slide film and cross processed for c41. It was fun. I can't remember where we went.

The Halloween seems closer to now than it does to the school dance: 9 and 6 years.

* I was taking photos from a golf course and he wolf whisted at me out of a car, perhaps not realising it was me (?). We met, walked along a beach, talked, got sunburnt, and later drunk. I was 19.