OH DRESS, HOW YOU ARE TEASING ME...

The Phillip Lim dress began teasing me sometime during the autumn of 2007. I was in Paris and popped into AB33 in rue Charlot. I had seen the dress before and had previously dreamed of buying the whole AW 07 collection. I gasped when I saw it; one of those occurrences where the dress was more likely to become an urban dress myth, never to be found in an actual store. I tried it on. Soft fabric, it fell perfectly, was indeed the dress of my dreams.

I retired to the little Japanese lunch place in the red kids market to mull it over. 310 euros, well I didn't actually have any money but it wasn't that bad, certainly cheaper than London. I went back to the shop - looked at the price tag. NOT 310 euros you spanner, easy to get confused when there's the 3.1 of Phillip Lim 3.1 right next to the price. The dress was 500 and something euros. I walked away.

Some months later:
Flipping through Grazia yesterday, scanning for daft errors, I came across a photo of THE DRESS on sale at Browns. Springing into action I logged onto Browns to find it was actually the less nice version with buttons, not THE dress at all. But I had the scent and the chase was on. Matches had it; I bought it without hesitation over the phone after their website clunked out on me three times - 30% off. I had that nervous feeling you get when you've bought something you shouldn't have. But hey, there's got to be some fun purchasing to balance all the drabness out, right? Oh dear, then I looked at Net - a - Porter. Quite a bit cheaper, should have checked there first. So I bought that one as well and cancelled the other one. I expect the glut of dresses available is because plaid must be considered deeply uncool now that it's been "in" for a bit. I, however have a long term commitment to plaid so I don't care. I GOT THE DRESS. Well, unless some kind of freak accident befalls the courier...

*before I read this back to myself I had been labouring under the misapprehension that I wasn't addicted to clothes anymore. I am a lost cause.