The Dress: As a southern WASP, raised by opinionated women who rarely raise their voice, I learned pretty early on how to discern the difference between a compliment and criticism especially when they are expressed with the exact same words. Like, “That dress is so cute” can be an earnest expression of admiration or a obliterating putdown, and just about everything in between. It’s all about minute, almost undetectable shifts expression and tone of voice and context. Trying to discern meaning and intention is exhausting and often demoralizing, especially if you’re the sort of person inclined to self-consciousness and character analysis. The ones that survive the gauntlet unscathed are either too overconfident or too oblivious to pick up on the cues (maybe both). She might not have discerned that Mrs. Montague’s “You are so fashion forward to pull off that leopard print. And with that figure. You’re just so carefree!” means that she’s been deemed a fat redneck with zero sense of decency and quite possibly a mental disorder, and that every other woman in the room is dying a little on the inside with the cringe of it all. Or maybe she just doesn’t care. We all have to burn at the hands of the Mrs. Montagues of the world so we may be rise from the ashes without any fucks left to give about clashing with someone’s beige monogrammed hand towels.
I mention this because I’m predisposed hear “you’re so brave to wear that whimsical unicorn dress, I could never pull it off” style of compliment as a dig, even if I respond by telling you exactly where you can get a whimsical unicorn dress (Samantha Pleet) and honestly this is princess-cut cotton knit dress. It’s flattering on a wide variety of body types.
Am I the sort of woman facing middle-age who decides buys a unicorn dress that reminds her of getting wine-drunk at the Cloisters and finding all sorts of medieval fashion mistakes worth giggling about on the tapestries? Evidently I am. Are you the sort of person who finds that sort of thing distasteful? Well, I hope those beige monogrammed hand towels bring you much joy.
I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. You know, be less judgy. Be more accepting of things that I like, even if they are a little bit embarrassing. I was never a big unicorn person but I’m a big fan of Scotland (where I have, in fact, worn this dress) and know a lot more about the late middle ages that I’m apt to admit in mixed company. I’m probably not ever going to a Renaissance Faire, but have you ever seen me geek out in a cathedral? Because holy shit, will I ever geek out in a cathedral. Or a castle. Or at, like, Magdalen College.
So yeah. This dress. This dress is pretty purely me at the core. I paid more money for it than strictly necessary, but it always makes me happy, as happy as that thing that you love but think is too weird or too youthful or too sexy or whatever to wear would make you feel if you’d just let yourself be yourself. Sometimes to be the unicorn in your heart, you have to wear it.
Outfit: I took my parents to dinner in Pittsboro with one my dearest friends who I haven’t caught up with in a while. We had a lovely and hilarious waiter who introduced himself as Handsome and then offered up a long, witty, improbably believable story about how that was his given name. Dinner was delicious. We laughed extensively and slipped back up the road to the Fearrington, where I drank a dram of Macallan and ended up spending the night in a room that had a bed like a theater set.
Dress: Samantha Pleet, 2022
Earrings: Minx, 2021?
Shoes: Madewell, 2023,
Tiny Commotions 