{"id":608,"date":"2019-07-14T22:08:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T02:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=608"},"modified":"2019-07-14T22:08:59","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T02:08:59","slug":"what-happened-to-the-little-black-dress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=608","title":{"rendered":"WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LITTLE BLACK DRESS?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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1964 with Faye in her homemade black dress\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction, awarded the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction, and awarded the 2016 Frank Yerby Award for Fiction. Available at: NewSouth Books: www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazon.<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

<\/b>It\u2019s been at least twenty years since I owned a real dress.\u00a0 I quit buying dresses when the local tall girl shop went out of business and the one line of nice dresses with a waist long enough to hit my middle in the right place disappeared from the department store racks.\u00a0 The other day, for the umpteenth time, my wonderful husband mentioned how stunning I always was in the black dress I was wearing the night he met me fifty-five years ago this past January 21, and he asked for the umpteenth time, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you wear that dress anymore?\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

There are a number of reasons, but let\u2019s just say the answer is complicated.\u00a0 Number one, that dress would be rotten with old age if it still hung in my closet.\u00a0 Secondly, the waist would never, ever accommodate my present circumference.\u00a0 Though I weigh approximately the same amount in actual pounds, my flesh has decidedly expanded and more of it hangs around my middle.\u00a0 So as the years have gone on, I\u2019ve found a new look\u2014mix and match \u201cseparates.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I didn\u2019t actually purchase that dress my sweetie loved, by the way.\u00a0 What with a beginning teacher\u2019s pay and student loans to pay off, I couldn\u2019t afford store bought clothing.\u00a0 So after college, I took up sewing.\u00a0 I\u2019d never had lessons\u2014had even refused several opportunities for sewing classes.\u00a0 Who needs a class, I thought.\u00a0 I can read patterns.\u00a0 Well, yes, but I didn\u2019t always understand them.\u00a0 Why worry about the \u201cease\u201d designed into a sleeve, when it was much quicker to simply cut off the extra fabric after sewing it into the armhole?\u00a0 Then there was the option of just going sleeveless.\u00a0 Back then, I had trim, firm upper arms, and I wasn\u2019t bothered by chilly air.\u00a0 Many of my dresses were sleeveless.\u00a0 Ain\u2019t youth grand!<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Another saving\u2014I never needed as much fabric as the pattern called for.\u00a0 Simply by ignoring the silly part of the instructions about cutting on the straight of the fabric, and going with the \u201cnap,\u201d I turned those patterns this way and that to best save on yardage.\u00a0 Then there were zippers.\u00a0 I had trouble sewing a straight line, and so my stitching meandered from the standard required half inch from the zipper teeth to so far off that I drifted past the seam allowance entirely.\u00a0 Or, other times got so close to the teeth that the zipper had to be tugged repeatedly past those areas.\u00a0 No problem\u2014if you had matched your thread properly, you simply resewed in the proper place and frequently you didn\u2019t even have to pull out the meandering seam.\u00a0 Who would notice?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

My future mother-in-law, for one\u2014and on our first meeting!\u00a0 A decade later, after I\u2019d had taken sewing lessons and learned all kinds of things, Mama Gibbons said one day, \u201cFaye, you\u2019ve learned so much since you married.\u00a0 Now you make drapery, your sons\u2019 jeans, and nice clothes for yourself.\u00a0 Before you and Benjie married\u2026\u201d She shook her head. \u201cWell, you could cover yourself.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

For a few years, there was a golden time when I was actually able to make a few acceptable dresses for myself and a still better time when it was possible for me to shop the tall girl shop earlier mentioned, and the department store\u2019s Liz Cleiburne dress line.\u00a0 At one point I likely had four or five flattering dresses all at one time.\u00a0 No more.\u00a0 Today stores don\u2019t have what I need, though I have looked and even tried on.\u00a0 Some dresses have the waist up under my armpits.\u00a0 Others strive for the casual A line, reminiscent of maternity attire.\u00a0 None tempted me to pull out my checkbook.\u00a0 So I returned to the fabric stores.\u00a0 Lord, do you realize what good cloth costs these days?\u00a0 Fifteen to twenty dollars per yard and more.\u00a0 Then there are patterns.\u00a0 They run from ten to thirty dollars.\u00a0 And none of them promise to be very flattering.\u00a0 I don\u2019t care for the \u201ccold shoulder\u201d look or the asymmetrical, look and I no longer want to display my knees or my bosom.\u00a0 Oh, and although my legs are one of the better preserved parts of my anatomy, I don\u2019t want to wear skin tight leggings or skinny pants which reveal any cellulite or body hair that happens to be present.\u00a0 I hope the public appreciates this. \u00a0 Not every woman my age is this considerate.\u00a0 Just go to any Sprawl-Mart and see for yourself.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

So I am still left with the problem of finding that little black dress my husband is longing to see.\u00a0 Hmmmmm.\u00a0 Maybe the answer is to hire a hypnotist to convince Benjamin to \u201csee\u201d me in that black outfit from 1964.\u00a0 His fee is almost sure to be less than I\u2019d pay for an actual dress, and I don\u2019t have to dig my sewing machine out of storage!<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  1964 with Faye in her homemade black dress\u00a0 My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction, awarded the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction, and awarded the 2016 Frank Yerby Award for Fiction. Available … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}