Chic Dress of the Season Falls Flat Once Unwrapped

Mom on the Run

By LIANNE WILKENS

Finally! It came! I’m thrilled, and I’ve got just enough time before starting dinner.

Upstairs I run with the package. Inside should be my new dress, purchased online a few days ago. I’ve been going a little crazy with online shopping this spring. I’m finding adorable clothes on sale, plus extra discounts, plus free shipping and handling. My poor bill-paying husband has been very patient.

In between the sleeveless dresses, sheath dresses, polka-dotted dresses, and floral dresses I’ve been looking for the perfect colorblock dress, the must-have style of the season. Every website offers some, dresses with two or three big zones of color. I have carefully studied pictures, read online reviews, zoomed in for detail and clicked for additional views. I have been very picky.

Until finally I found the one! The dress in this package has a white top, with a black skirt, a khaki belt, and khaki-traced rectangles on the sides. It’s different from all the other colorblock dresses I’ve seen, with a scoop neck and short sleeves, and a slender belt dividing the black and white. Oh, it will be so cute with my strappy black wedge sandals!

So, “Buy now,” I clicked, typed in my address and my credit card number, and began the impatient wait.

And now it’s here! I throw the rest of the mail on the kitchen table and run upstairs with my prize. I’m already thinking about tomorrow’s weather: is it going to be warm enough for my fabulous new dress?

In my room, I rip open the plastic bag, pull out the inner plastic bag. I find the sealed flap, peel it open, and the dress falls out.

Greedily I reach, and … well, the fabric is not at all what I expected. All my other new dresses are this amazing polyester-spandex blend, machine-washable with beautiful, flattering draping. I expected this dress to be the same, but it’s – I take a sleeve between my fingers and rub it experimentally – cotton, like a button-down blouse. Huh.

Well, that’s OK, I decide. I can iron. I don’t like to, but I can. I lift the whole dress, shake it out. Yes! Let’s see it on!

Quickly I unbuckle the belt and unzip the back. Completely disrespectfully I dump my shirt and slacks on the floor. I pull the new dress over my head, slide my arms through the sleeves and reach up-up-up as far as I can, pushing up the zipper, then stretch from the top to pull it the rest of the way.

Excited, I turn and look in the mirror, ready, finally, to see the dress! The flattering trendy on sale-plus-a-discount dress! And – oh. It looks … horrible. Absolutely horrible.

The dress is too big. Much too big, everywhere, hips, waist, torso. And shapeless! The skirt is straight, and ends, squarely, ugly, in right angles at my knees. Um, maybe … hurriedly I buckle the belt, hoping to give it shape, bring the dress together. The belt … well, it’s too big too, but if I add some holes? I pull the belt farther through the end, to simulate where the right hole would be. I turn and look again.

And no. Just no. Even fitted, it’s a bad dress. The fabric is terrible. The khaki rectangles are weird and distracting. The waist is high, the sleeves much shorter than I thought.

Hopefully I turn to the side, regard the dress from another angle. No. Yuck. Eww. I fumble with the belt and the zipper, wanting the dress off just as badly as I wanted it on. Annoyed, I fold the offending garment roughly, stuff it back into its plastic bag, shove that into the shipping package, then study the packing slip for return instructions.

Dang. Dang, dang, dang. I was so excited. But the fantastic dress isn’t, it’s a bad dress. And now it has to go back.

I am sour and frowning, until I realize … hey, I still don’t have a colorblock dress! I grin, realizing I get to try again.