When I was little I didn’t much like dresses. Christmas and Easter would inevitably come round and with it the pink tulle monstrosity that I had to wear for the entire day. Even though I was only about six or seven, when being stylish wasn’t high on my priority list, I thought the thing was hideous -- because it was absolutely hideous. It would usually be white, baby pink or powder blue. Sometimes it would be embellished with a striped, polka dot or flower print, occasionally a mixture of each. It had puffy sleeves, a satin bow at the back and a huge skirt which jutted out at the waist. It was one of those creations where neither the comfort nor pride of the wearer was taken into consideration by the creator - an adult clearly suffering from a deranged sense of what cute was.
Worst of all the tulle made me itch and there being copious amounts of tulle meant there would be itching throughout the day. Add to this the fact that I wasn’t even allowed to be original in my misery because my mother had decided to buy my older sister the exact same outfit. Perhaps she was having a joke at our expense, but she probably thought this all very cute and adorable, and this is why I swallowed the bitter pill with nothing more than a plaintive smile. It was always a great relief to remove the dress, although this was not the end of my torment. It managed to torture me throughout the year -- poofy dresses are malicious like that.
As I mentioned, I was only six or seven, I didn’t have many clothes and therefore did not need much cupboard space, but the bane of my seven year old existence demanded more space than my poor little wardrobe could offer. In order to fit this thing into the cupboard, my other clothes, the ones I actually liked wearing, had to be compressed into an unfairly small amount of space. As if this was not enough, when I had finally completed the process of oppressing my other clothes, the impertinent dress made it difficult to close the cupboard. This became a daily chore and a constant reminder of one of the itchiest days of my life. My poor little heart sank with this reminder and would sink even lower as the dress seemed to say, “ It’s almost Christmas time again”.
