The dawn of the dresses.

If it wasn't clear before, dresses is what I do. I sell, buy, wear dresses. And today, I have been given a mission by a Northern Irelander to track down an expensive cocktail dress in America, and then have it delivered to her door in 2 weeks. Not for the faint-hearted, I assure you. It's these kind of tasks that make me wonder about the people in this world. I've had to track down someone that can inform me of the final cost of the dress, which she'll have to cover fully, as well as the postage. I also have to let her know that we don't do refunds. Could turn out to be a costly mistake. That leads me to question the judgement that people have - is it worth shelling out £500 odd for the "perfect" dress, which you've only seen in a picture, worn by a 6 foot tall stunning American? You've yet to try it on, you don't know if the style works for you, the colour, or indeed the fit. Americans aren't the same body shape as us British. And the most important, you haven't even felt the dress! The picture which you look at on a website has all the appeal in the world, because it's been staged to look that way. The dress could have been made from the shoddiest material in the world, with sequins glued on, yet looks incredible because of the lighting and photographic direction. If only people realised that things are never what they seem. I've even heard of companies that use completely different dresses in their photographs than their collection, and what you see is without a doubt a totally different dress, perhaps vaguely similar in style but nevertheless bearing little similarity. I had this experience personally when I was given the honoured role of picking prom dresses for the previous season. There they were, a rail of beautiful gowns, ripe and ready for the choice. I went through them all, chose carefully, but my eye suddenly descended on the last dress. The epitome of the prom dress. Short, beautiful, pink and tiered in ruffles. It was gorgeous. I realise that from my description it sounds like something only Barbie's love child would wear to a function, but take my word - it was a stunner. Anyway, having ordered a couple of the dresses, I awaited their delivery with great expectation. And then the box arrived. Imagine combining Christmas with your 21st birthday, thrown in with a silver wedding anniversary of some sort, and that was the excitement felt. Maybe not quite, it was just a box with a dress in it, after all, but I have to convey my emotion with some certain exaggeration or it won't work. In the words of Holden Caulfield, "anyway..." The box was opened, and the dress pulled out. Such disappointment cannot be expressed with mere words. I'd have to make some kind of collage bound together with the glue from my tears. The dress was most certainly not the dress that I had ordered. It bore some resemblence to it, but it certainly didn't have the same oomph that I had felt with the other one, and what's more, they added an extra tier to the dress. An extra ruffle of cheap taffeta, positioned to make the dress completely useless. Only the 6 foot girls can wear this dress now, and for some reason, they're not so into short dresses. God knows why, leggy biatches. So the dress is null and void for us British midgets. It would make Celine Dion look gangly, for heavens' sake. But enough about the dress. It'll find its perfect partner and all will be well in the world.

So the ocean of dresses isn't as calm as one might expect. You may think that the art of selling eveningwear is one of the easiest. It's like selling knickers; you just pick out your size and voila! Not a chance, mate. If I had a pound for every complaint, every wobble or slight inclination of cellulite, well, I'd be at the nearest cosmetic surgeon, obviously. Just joking. Say no to the knife, as Gok Wan says. The best advice I can offer is to buy a pair of Spanx, throw off your inhibitions, and bloody try the dresses on! They can look awful on a hanger and brilliant on, or vice versa! Trust me, finding the dress that fits you perfectly and makes you feel like a million dollars is hard, but achievable. And when you find that dress, sure, you'll probably pay with a Mastercard, but it's going to make you feel priceless. Cheesy, I know, but hell, I don't care.