On the Practicality of Women's Dress Designs

Today's Wednesday Ramblings will be a rant.  About fashion.  Because dammit, all I want is a stupid cute black dress that I can put on my damn self.  Is that so much to ask?!

I've been keeping my eye out for a nice little black dress for some time now.  It's one of those things that every woman should just have in her closet, you know?  But I have rather specific tastes in dresses -- I'm pickier than most, and so my closet has not yet acquired this essential item.  Anyway, I ducked into a (way more expensive than I realized) little boutique the other day when I saw signs in the windows announcing a sale.  There were cute dresses on display, so I figured I might as well see what their black dresses looked like.

And lo and behold, I found the perfect dress!  It was my size!  It was just the style I had imagined!  It was... way more expensive than I thought a simple black dress would be, but I decided I might be willing to eat the cost for the perfect dress.  After all, I've long since stopped growing and my weight is pretty stable, so I might be able to wear that thing for years, if not decades.  So I snatched it off the rack and headed back to dressing rooms that, for the record, were ridiculously pathetic for a place that expensive.  Dang people, if you're going to charge hundreds of dollars for a single dress, funnel some of that money back into proper dressing rooms, with an actual bench and more than one mirror.

Filled with anticipation, I wriggled my way into the dress.  It seemed to fit just right, offering a lovely silhouette, with just the right length and coverage.  But, of course, I had to get it all the way on.  So I reached behind my back to begin the age-old struggle to catch whatever little ribbon or dangling decoration was on the zipper to wrench it up.  And I could not reach it.  Finally, I took the dress all the way off, turned it over, and saw... nothing.  There was nothing attached to the zipper.  There was not even a little hole in the head of the zipper for a person to attach a piece of ribbon themselves.  There was nothing but a miniscule, smoothly rounded zipper head that was entirely hidden by the fabric once it was completely zipped up.

What. The.  Hell.

What IDIOT designed this?!  Listen, stupid dress manufacturers: your stupid worthless dresses need to have a stupid goddamn ribbon or SOMETHING attached to the zipper in order to allow us to fucking zip up the FUCKING dress ourselves.  At the very least, if you're too snotty to put a ribbon on it yourself, put a goddamn fucking hole in the zipper so WE can do it for you!!

😡  😡  😡

I'm so ticked off right now.  After so many years, I finally found the perfect dress, and it's unwearable.  I can't even put in a ribbon myself to make it wearable.  Listen designers, I don't care how pretty, expensive, artistic, or sexy your fucking dress is -- if I can't put it on by myself, or if I need to go hunting for equipment (ribbons, hangers, etc.) to get it on myself, IT IS A POORLY DESIGNED DRESS.  I get it, fashion is supposed to be wearable art.  But if it's not wearable, it may be art, but it ain't fashion.

My wallet thanks you, though.  I did actually feel it quietly sobbing in my purse when I told it we were going to splurge this much.  But I put that beautiful, sexy piece of garbage back on the rack, and walked out, yet again, black dress-less.  The search continues.

⚞  SnapDragon ⚟