I recently decided I needed some dresses to wear specifically for dancing. I had certain criteria they needed to fulfil:
- they had to be sleeveless – it gets hot
- as it gets hot (and sweaty), they had to be washable
- they couldn’t be too low cut (dancing’s difficult enough without worrying about revealing too much!)
- they had to be comfortable
- they had to be cheap
I decided four dresses would be a good number, but even at £40 each that would be a lot of money and I’m trying to cut down on spending this year. So I headed off to the charity shop. I’m a little bit squeamish about this – charity shops always have a slightly musty smell – but I have a theory: a lot of people buy clothes and then only wear them once or twice, or not at all. Consequently, buying from a charity shop is pretty near to buying new, but at a fraction of the cost.
I was lucky! I found two dresses meeting most of the criteria. They weren’t dresses I would have chosen had I been paying full price, but as they came to a mere 10% of my estimated cost, I wasn’t going to be fussy.
When I got them home and tried them on, I was pleasantly surprised: they looked good. I have another theory: when choosing clothes, we tend to go for the same style, colour and look, disregarding a lot of items that might look good on us. We need to be more experimental.
There was only one problem: one of the dresses had a very low neckline but, undeterred and feeling determined, I brushed the dust off my sewing box and made a few adjustments. Problem solved!
When I wore it for the first time, a stranger complimented my “lovely dress”. I smiled graciously and said “thank you”. It just goes to show…
Let the music play!
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