The Magic of a Pretty Mermaid Dress

How a cheap thrift store find brought me out of a fashion coma and physical tailspin

I didn’t think much of the dress when it caught my eye either — but just wait for it. (Photo by author, dress by a magical fairy somewhere, probably)

The other day I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror that I generally avoid gazing directly into. Who on earth was that old troll under a bridge staring back at me?

The shoddy t-shirt I was wearing was baggy on me two sizes ago. My subequatorial other half wasn’t much better. My ‘Yoga pants’, which have never been in a downward dog, looked equally as derelict. I joke that I have Cheeto dust in my hair, but that isn’t far from the truth. Technically it’s ketchup chip dust.

Ugh, even the most starving of writers aren’t supposed to look homeless. I didn’t even look hobo chic; I wasn’t even a model in Zoolander’s Derelicte fashion line. I was work-at-home-writer-in-a-slump dishevelled.

I needed some fresh threads.

Preferably ones that aren’t baggier than a hairnet in a hurricane and have fewer holes than the cheese grater it looks like they were scraped through.

My ‘I’m a writer’ budget skews more towards broke than Balenciaga, so I headed to a local boutique thrift shop that I adore. It’s the brick-and-mortar equivalent of Poshmark, for my old-school brick-and-mortar soul. Not to mention prices that won’t make me actually homeless at the end of the month (because it’s so much easier to run out of money before you run out of month).

I was moseying through the racks looking for my typically practical fashion purchases when I was nearly blinded by a barrage of light refracting off of purple sequins. I saw the dress and immediately thought, ‘Gawd, how ostentatious, who’d wear that gaudy dress?’

Ahem. Well, I have time. My brain was being a petulant toddler about writing that day and needed a distraction to reset it. A movie-like montage of tacky thrift store finds should do the job nicely.

The dress is ridiculous though. It’s not my style. I told myself it probably wouldn’t fit anyway. I’d embarrass myself trying it on in front of the 20-something store clerks, all of whom were probably named Makayla or Skylar.

Screw it. For funsies, let’s try it on.

So I did.

Holy fucksickles Batman, I looked like a god-damned mermaid Disney princess. I’m a pretty pretty princess. I felt like Cinderella and some thrift-shop Fairy Godmother had waved her wand over my frumpy arse.

If there were a hinged velvet jewelry box and a salesman that looked anything vaguely resembling Richard Gere I’d have reenacted my favorite scene from Pretty Woman.

Now, I’m no Julia Roberts, but I felt like a pretty woman that day. And I hadn’t felt pretty, or like a woman, in a while now. That’s sadly not uncommon for those experiencing chronic health issues. It’s hard to feel like a sexy woman when the only thing you’ve been pricked with lately are needles.

As a chronic illness patient, sometimes you feel more like a pin cushion than a person.

You become an array of broken body parts; you’re a mere meat sack, and I mean that in the least sexy way possible.

I’ve lost weight, and not just due to the blood loss from the vampires (nurses) sucking it out of me on the reg. I regularly look (and feel) more tired than an owl on a meth bender. And the only ‘glow’ I have is from the refrigerator light at 3 am.

My fashion reflects my reality. In a way, I’ve been living to a label — ill.

Mothers of young children can probably relate. It’s that first glimpse in the mirror after your 87th sleepless night and you finally notice the three-day-old mushed peas and bananas in your hair. Are you even momming hard enough if there isn’t a Cheerio stuck to your pant leg?

I’ve been feeling ‘medical’, and quite frankly, old.

I turned 40 last year. I’ve noticed a few more ‘smile lines’, because I refuse to call them wrinkles; my mouth parentheses are a little more pronounced each day. My chesticles are slowly migrating into my armpits — and my ass is on a mission to hang out with my knees.

Are you turned on yet?

Yeah, me neither.

Well, I wasn’t until I saw the shimmery sequined mermaid dress on me. Yowza — my Pretty Woman moment was quickly turning into a Shania Twain video because man, I felt like a woman.

Me, looking like a scrub with hair full of ketchup chip dust, but now in a purdy dress

The dress is still ridiculous though. I have nowhere to wear it. I also told myself that I’d look like a desperate older woman trying to look young. They say you should dress your age. But who are ‘they’ anyway? ‘They’ have terrible advice.

I made up every reason in the book to put it back on the shelf.

The dress is second-hand. It’s missing a few sequins here and there, including a couple that I left on the changeroom floor after miscalculating how to put the dang thing on. But these days I’m missing more than a few sequins myself. So it feels fitting. And if anyone is looking at it closely enough to notice that it’s like a Monet up close — I suppose they aren’t my target audience.

But that dress was like me these days, a Monet. From far, a nice picture — but get too close and you see a hot mess. A hot mess missing some shiny sequins.

The dress was also on clearance. So, meat sack meet sale rack.

The dress that nobody wanted was $18, and I bought it. Even though I may never wear it.

My creative side immediately began inventing places to wear it. I’m envisioning a ball, that for some reason has all my exes at it. Or maybe Antonio Banderas will see the dress and invite me to his villa in Spain. Perhaps Kate McKinnon will see me in it, invite me to New York City, we fall in love and become the next power couple on the humor-writing circuit.

Saner minds have prevailed and now I’m thinking about taking a vacation, or looking out for a fancy dress party to wear it to. It’ll be my Field of Dreams dress.

Quite frankly though — I don’t care if I wear it to clean the house.

We all have that piece in our wardrobe. We’ve never worn it but for some reason, we’re still elated that it’s there. It represents hope for good days and excitement still to come. The dresses for the rockstar days still ahead of us, and the magic and wonder they’ll bring.

This dress makes me feel beautiful after years of feeling increasingly, frumpily, medical. Years of being a shrinking violet in my baggy clothing, so that my outside felt like my inside (the physical organs in my meat sack, not my glittery personality, obviously).

It may sound vapid to miss feeling pretty in a pretty dress. But, it’s where I’m at. It’s real — and reality bites sometimes, and you need to bite back (with sequined teeth). You need to do whatever it takes to feel like the rockstar of your life. Or the Disney princess.

I took another picture at home for this article — look, I already found another reason to wear the dress!

All this came from a dress that I initially thought was tacky and gaudy. Sometimes we all just need to shake things up a bit and try new (and possibly ridiculous) things on for size. If you don’t, you’ll never get your Little Mermaid moment.

Life’s too short, buy the damned dress.

---

Do you want to support me but those $5+ per month subscriptions add up? Fair.

I’d absolutely love your support at any level that’s comfortable for you…

$1 per month (would picking the lowest option make you cheap? Nope, I’d love you)

$2 per month (equal love here)

$3 per month (ditto)

$4 per month (you rebel)

$5 per month (full price because I’d be dumb not to include it)

Don’t have any money? Don’t worry, me neither, and I still love you.