June 16, 2012 - Written by: Yazmin Joy

Girl in the Red Dress

Don’t you hate it when you turn up to a party and someone else is wearing the same thing!??!!

I went to my uni ball the other week and not only was someone in the same dress as me, but I kept bloody bumping into her didn’t I! I mean despite my efforts to avoid the girl, she even managed to get in my photographs!!! WHAT THE HELL!

I mean, I wish I was one of those people who didn’t give a monkeys. Shrug it off – whatever sister! But I just can’t OKAY. Someone turns up with same dress as me I just want to run in the opposite direction.

The girl in (MY!!) dress even approached me at one point. I tried, desperately, not to make eye contact as she barged her way drunkenly across a crowded corridor getting right up in my grill.

‘Hey YOU’.

I pretended to look into my clutch bag

‘HEY,’ she said, calling up my attention, ‘you and I have the same dress!!’ she spluttered obliterating my Cinderella fantasy with every drawl from her Lambrini stained lips. She swayed to and fro a few moments before being carried off by some friends.

I pretended to laugh but all I could think was RUN YAZ RUN FOR THE HILLS.

You see this just wasn’t how I envisioned my final ball turning out…

I have always believed there is something sacred shared between a girl and her prom dress. I really wanted some photo’s my grandkids would look upon and sigh ‘Damn, granny YOU had GAME!’ (In those precise words – that is if P-Diddy and I can make it work).

I ordered THE dress 5 weeks early. After days of trawling websites looking for the perfect ensemble I finally found it; red, lacy, original, fabulous cut and detailing, open back (a bit pricey – but hey who needs food anyway). It wasn’t a well recognized website or anything but it all looked kosher to me so I went for it and ordered it. It was even made to fit my measurements! I was pumped and often spent several moments each day drifting into the fantasy of wearing it adoringly to applauding fans.

A week before the ball I unwrapped the postal package like a hungry lioness ripping open a gazelle – just replace lioness with undergrad and gazelle with prom dress – and you’ll begin to get an idea of my keenness to see my- OMFG –

I was speechless.

It was HORRIBLE…

GHASTLY…

NEON (why ohhhh whyy) red flashed before my eyes… Loose stiching sprouting from the hem like tiny scarlet dress pubes. A stark white body mesh that WAS SUPPOSED TO BE NUDE DAMNIT glared back at me! My hands went clammy. Face turned red. My dress looked as though an exploited child in Thailand had made it during a nightshift. Then my flat mate came in and did the worst thing someone could do at that moment. She laughed.

I could feel my eyes watering. Dahl and rice for a month for THIS??!?

‘It might make a good hat!’ My flat mate piped up, placing the bundled tack-fest mess on her head.

I know she was trying to cheer me up but it was just too soon.

‘Just put it down,’ I hissed.

She backed away towards the door, sensing I was in a dangerous place, and left me to dramatically sob over the fact I had spent all my budget on this catastrophe… and even worse I had nothing to wear to the ball. I could already here my grandkids: ‘Aw granma. Why you look so dowdy??’

QUE – ASS KICKING MUSIC

That’s when I put my game face on, took some man-up pills and hit the shops. This wasn’t for me… this was for my future grandchildren.

That was when I found the dress I ended up wearing. And funnily enough it looked uncannily simular to my orginal dress I had ordered. Still red, also lacy, not backless but we can work with it.

I guess the irony of the whole fiasco was that ultimately I set out to find a dress that was original and ironically it ended being the very opposite. The day after the ball I felt a lil disappointed if I’ll be honest but then I was reminded of this SATC Movie moment…

I realized I had spent so much time fussing about this chick who had ‘stolen my dress’, that it was only a few days later, as I spoke to various people, did I realise that I was not the only person in this situation. There were tonnes of girls walking around in the same outfit! I was just too blinded by my own self-centeredness to see it.

I guess the competitive streak in you will probe you to question: ‘Did I wear it better than her?’

You speculate that everyone is thinking the same thing, questioning, judging… OH MY GOSH SHE’S GOT THE SAME DRESS AS YOU… DID YOU SEE? They whisper… feeding some deep insecurity that makes you doubt your choices.

From being in this situation my advice would be: don’t even go there sister… tell yourself: I like this dress, I bought this dress and I am going to bloody well love wearing it!

If I had had any sense I should have strided up to her and asked her to take a picture with me myself, instead of doing everything in my power to avoid her and ending up with a picture with her anyway.

I realised maybe I was getting too caught up in this whole “trying to be original thing”. Yes every girl wants to look pretty and feel special on these momentous occasions, but the reality is, no-one can make you feel inadequate except yourself.

A store can make hundreds if not thousands of the same dress but every human being is unique, and maybe, being on crazy mode, I kinda lost sight of that. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I learnt that day that it’s not the dress that’s important; it’s the girl wearing it. And I guess if I carry this ethos with me in the future I will never let something as silly as a lil red dress come in between my self-confidence and me just having a jolly good time.