Bring Back Dresses

Over this past winter break, I devoted the majority of my time not to applying to internships or having a job, but to watching television and movies. Among these were The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. 

While I enjoyed the former primarily for its niche relatability of being about a Jewish woman in New York who does not have her sh*t together, and the latter for Timothee Chalamet’s excessively lopey walk and Saoirse Ronan being Saorise Ronan, something that stood out to me from both were all the dresses.

There was Meg’s (Emma Watson) frilly pink ball gown, full-skirted with matching gloves, hair accessories, and a ribbon choker. There were Amy’s (Florence Pugh) blue numbers, including one with a distinctive matching cape. There were Jo’s (Saoirse Ronan) “tomboy” outfits, with loose blouses, vests, scarves, and skirts. As for Mrs. Maisel, set a whole 90 years later and yet with strikingly similar costumes, there’s at least three resplendent, color-coordinated ensembles per episode. Here are some of my favorites from both Little Women and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel:

While I realize that both of these works of fiction took place in centuries past, and that corsets and petticoats were tools of oppression, and that the pressure to exclusively wear dresses or skirts should not be revitalized, I have to wonder–what happened?

I find the fanciful aspect of dresses and color-themed ensembles to be fun, and aesthetically speaking, they look great. I appreciate and own my fair share of whites, blacks, and jeans, but at times it feels like they’re all there is that’s left to wear, and I’m bored. If I were to start traipsing over to the library on a Tuesday in a bell-skirted dress with matching shoes, people would think that I had a weird Lolita fetish or was a theatre kid (sorry).

From the modern age, Euphoria’s Maddy agrees:

I don’t think it has to be this way forever. Fashion has cycled through just about every iteration of jeans there is in the past fifty years, and it’s beginning to repeat itself. This is my official appeal to bring back dresses as a viable option outside the narrow window of summer sundresses and formal events.

Consider the plus side: you won’t have to take off anything to pee. 

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