I did something wild and completely crazy this week. So unlike me. I know. Sensible and restrained middle-aged woman that I am. I bought a dress. And I bought this dress with a clear purpose in mind. I dubbed it my "date dress".
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Wild and crazy because a) I haven't worn a dress since we went into that first lockdown in March and b) I haven't been on a date for about four years.
I feel so frivolous.
It's a beautiful dress. I fell in love with it the moment the algorithm popped it into my Instagram feed. It's the Tippy dress, from Melbourne-based designer Pablo and Kat, in black. It hugs my curves like I'd like whoever took me on that non-existent date to, and makes me feel dead sexy. Although I do wonder if dead sexy is a wasted sense of being at the moment. The only men I see regularly are the delivery guys dropping off books and the builders across the road ... no, don't go giving me ideas.
Kat, from Pablo and Kat, grew up in the fashion industry, her Italian parents immigrated to Australia and started a small clothing business. At 18 she joined the family business, working in all different areas, but it was her love of design that was the strongest. And that's led her to Pablo and Kat, which specialises in plus-size fashion.
I love her whole philosophy. The little black dress, since its first incarnations in the 1920s, has been a staple - for little women. It's fabulous to see designers such as Kat turning that whole idea on its head. This dress is chic and stylish and timeless. A little like me.
Which makes it equally surprising that I haven't been on a date.
But back to dresses ... when I rang Kat to talk we were joking about lockdown fashion choices. Poor thing's in Melbourne so is really feeling it, spending a lot of time dressed from the waist up. She told me, however, that the other day she had a Zoom meeting with customers but couldn't face another session with slippers and just a touch of lippy. She got completely dressed up, in a dress, did her hair and her make-up and even put on some proper high heels. And it made her feel fabulous.
Which I totally get, after months of schlepping about in my house pants. (I was quite offended the other day when someone asked if I was still in my pyjamas at 3pm. How dare they utter such slanderous words.)
Back in April, lord that seems so long ago, we spoke to fashion stylists about how we should be dressing for what we thought was going to be a month or so of working from home. We also spoke to Nicola Palfrey, a clinical psychologist at the ANU School of Medicine, who had some wise words about the benefits of not schlepping, even in very fashionable house pants.
"One of the challenges of being at home is the delineation of being at work and at home. Maybe putting a blouse on, even if we have comfy pants on, can to some extent help us to put those boundaries in place so we're not completely merging them," she said. She said it was too easy, when your laptop's on the dining room table, to just keep working. It's important for our mental health that we do set those boundaries so we have time and energy for ourselves and family members.
Taking off the "work" clothes and slipping back into your tracksuit and slippers indicates you're back in home mode and available to whoever needs you.
Another crucial part of the discussion involves self-esteem and body issues, she said. "For some people it is a really important part of their identity, taking pride in what they wear."
She said to think back to the days at home with a newborn baby, "and all of that coalescing in body shape and hormones and nothing to dress up for, it can be quite depressing at times".
The danger comes when we feel there is nothing to dress up for, there is no point in even having a shower. "It can have really negative impacts on our self esteem if we slip into a place where it starts to affect us."
I wonder, then, if perhaps this is the reason where not worrying too much about a) has led to the situation of b).
Which is why I'm going to endeavour to take part in Frocktober, the campaign which sees people dressing up to raise funds for Ovarian cancer research.
But I also want to see what effect it has on me. Time to frock up.