Eric Gaskins Vol 21: The Dress with 9 Lives
The night of Perseid, a spectacular meteor shower that was visible to many of us last Friday brought back a memory of a memorable dress. It was as unexpected as the 10 shooting stars I watched on a beach in Amagansett that night. The details of that night are as curious as the forgotten lives of the dress. Our architect, Bruce and his wife Jan, who happened to have done the landscape design of the property, related a story of another client of theirs whom they’d befriended. At dinner one night the woman, Barbara, told them the story of a dress she’d bought 10 years prior that she wore again and again to every major function over the years. Bruce’s curiosity compelled him to ask to see it. Barbara went up to her room, quickly changed and came down to show it off. Bruce recounted how he kept circling her admiring its line, color and the effect it had on her. According to him, he exclaimed it was one of the greatest dresses he’d seen. He said it was the simplicity of it matched with its unexpected color combination that drew him to it. Finally, he and Jan asked Barbara where she’d found it and who had designed it. It turned out to be mine; something I’d done and forgotten. I was of course flattered by the story but unable to remember what it looked like. A week later, I received an invitation to dinner at Barbara’s house where Bruce and Jan and Freema, my attorney of the last 30 years, would all be. It was to be a chance to bring all of these connecting dots into one clear line. I accepted but was a bit dubious as to how much fun it would be with different friends from different corners of my life all together at one table. My hesitancy lost out to my curiosity.
When I arrived, I met Barbara, her husband and family and was reunited with Freema and her husband, whom I’d not seen for close to 2 years. Immediately, Barbara took me to her library and showed me 6 pictures of weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and graduations she’d attended and all of them in a one shouldered silk crepe column. The color was royal blue with chartreuse charmeuse piping that framed the edged and created the shoulder straps. Her husband thanked me for designing a dress that saved him thousands because she chose to wear it again and again. Looking at those pictures reminded me of all of the times that dress served so many others for so many different occasions. You forget sometimes how good you are. Not only in this case, but in many areas of our lives.
At dinner, I was asked about that particular dress and if it had been a hit with other women as well. That’s when the many lives of that style started rushing back. The first one was Angela Bassett wearing it for the premiere of “How Stella got her Groove Back”. Hers was green with orange piping. Then there was the cover of Glamour Magazine with it in solid silver crepe satin, like a film of ice on the model. Probably the most memorable image I recalled of that dress was when Dionne Warwick wore it on the cover of her album, Greatest Hits. There were lots of different women that saw something in that dress that resonated. When a dress is chosen for really important events in a person’s life it possesses something greater than just the sum of its parts. It has to be something that makes a woman feel more confident, more beautiful, more essentially herself. That’s all I can attribute to the power of a good design.
Standing out under that huge sky, with waves crashing and the Milky Way so close I felt I could touch it, I made several wishes with each falling star. The one I will share with you is my wish to continue to find ways to make a difference in people’s lives. Being a designer is a very unique and special opportunity to contribute to a person’s confidence. It’s like being a doctor and making lives better from the inside out. It’s what we don’t see but feel and express that can be the greatest beauty.
Eric Gaskins ….. The Emperors Old Clothes
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