The dress survived over a half-century of storage in family attics. My mother inherited it from her aunt, who’d inherited it from her mother, my great grandmother. The dated style speaks for itself, yet, over the years nobody’d had the heart to toss it. “A Halloween costume, maybe,” my mom said, as she handed it to me on its wire hanger. Encased in drycleaner’s plastic, the dress appeared destined for such a come-down. What color did they call that, I wondered? Tan, maybe, or blush.
The handmade silk garment slithered over my head and down my body with ease; its hem touched at mid-calf. Tea-length. Ecru lace and pearl buttons. I checked my image in the mirror. I could baptize a baby or dance a Charleston in it. It bagged in spots, but it could be altered easily. I’d found my wedding dress. Ancestral ghosts stirred and smiled. My great-grandmother carried herself with style: perfect posture, strapping build, and Nordic cheekbones—decidedly aristocratic and a force to be reckoned with. In her wedding photograph she appears heartbreakingly beautiful and she aged with grace. Does spirit inhabit inanimate objects? If it does, my great-grandmother’s dress possessed a karma all its own. It fluttered in the May breeze at our wedding on the deck of our house, a banner and tie to family, present and past. It evoked memories and stories. My people loved it. The effect succeeded beyond my expectation, so I wore my vintage dress to the next wedding I attended and the one after that. The third trip to the drycleaners did it in. The silk disintegrated and my dress came back in three strips. I kept the pieces for a long time in the hope of replicating it. Eventually, I bought a vaguely similar dress in midnight blue. I discarded the remains of my treasure. In this lifetime I get one such dress. Only one. |
Bride and groom cut the wedding cake.
Style icon: Great grandmother's wedding photo.
GREAT GRANDPARENTS AGING WELL.
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