dressSTORY: The Tartan One

The blog post I wrote about hoarding made me think harder about stories and histories and all the ones that go unrecorded and disappear. Combine this with my urge to catalogue and the fact I'm wanting to have some running threads on here to help me back into this 'being a good blogger' lark and dressSTORY was born. The deal is - for each dress I own I will catalogue it with a story/history/something creative involving words. I'd love to know the history of some of my dresses before they got to me - and maybe, though it may never be this, these stories might pass on with my dresses.

The Tartan One
The Facts: 1980's M&S.
Purchased: £10 from Armstrongs in Edinburgh during August 2011

It was 48 hours before the end of my Edinburgh Fringe, I'd been existing on somewhere between four and six hours sleep a night for the past month, the rain was torrential, I was full of the impotent rage of the morning after a first falling out, my brogues had developed a hole, and I had two hours to appease myself with a dress for the following night's party.

And then I found this dress nestled in the midst of oversized 1980's kitsch. First thought: would it be too horribly cliche to comemorate my month in Edinburgh by buying a tartan dress? Answer: Probably but I suspected I was about to do it anyway. And then when I tried it on and it pretty much fit (as ever with 1980's vintage it's slightly too broad of back and long of arms, but nothing that some clever placing and artfully rolled up sleves doesn't disguise) I knew I wasn't leaving it, even though I knew it most definitely was not a dress for a slighty very sweaty drunken goodbye party. But that's probably in its favour rather than against.

So excited was I with this dress I promptly wore it the next day (okay, yes, I do normally wash vintage first but, hey, it was Edinburgh Fringe and I was excited to have something to wear that I hadn't worn seven times already in the past month. Hopefully I didn't smell too badly of old lady.). As I was walking through the meadows a Chugger caught my eye:

"You're from Scotland, right?"

BECAUSE PEOPLE FROM SCOTLAND WEAR TARTAN ON A DAILY BASIS.

"Oddly - no."

I can't say this dress has led to further confusion over my nationality but it is destined to forever be a reminder of the damp feet, sore throat, full heart of Edinburgh in August 2011.