Fashion Nerd: You Shall Go to the Ball

I’m telling you now, it is an absolute miracle that this blog is up, on time, looking half decent. I have, this last week been a hermit either serving ice creams in the rain at my parents ice cream parlour or sat at my very sick little lap top typing up an essay about gay bars, so typing anything on top of that is practically torture. On top of this, my usual space in the kitchen for banging out blogs is currently under siege by a burly group of grubby builders drilling and banging so that the cogs in my mind are whirring even harder to try and make sense of anything while I sit awkwardly on the edge of my fold out bed, with my lap top balanced on my knees and a dog, with a bucket collar on his head for company.

My only refuge this week has been dipping into ELLE and VOGUE in the evenings which is where this week’s botched together blog subject has emerged from.

(I really want this dress in my life)

Ball gowns. I’m sure this sentiment has got several of you smiling already. Do you remember when you were younger and your only aspiration for the future was a ball gown? I used to sit for hour after hour talking to myself in my room, envisaging myself walking slowly down a large carpeted stair case, wearing a dress made by mice out of magical fairy wings, with one curl of hair that’s slipped out of place brushing against my perfectly powered neck. Whilst Daniel Radcliffe waited at the bottom of the stairs (yes you heard me right, luckily that obsession has passed on to made in Chelsea pastures.)

(The amount of times I prayed that a nana from Genovia would show up in my life)

I am now 20 years old and I can quite safely say that nothing of that sort has remotely ever happened to me, I do have several holes in my clothes from gerbils, but not quite Cinderella. And yet I have not gotten over this notion as I still walk slowly down stairs in stately homes, and neither it seems has the rest of the world. ELLE and VOGUE both announced the opening of the V&A’s ball gown exhibition this summer and VOGUE did a whole feature on it, with pictures of glorious gowns, spectacular enough to make you cry, (I know I did, the combination of too much work and a glass of wine and I was hysterical.)

(This, this needs no introduction)

Now this is all very lovely, and yes I was really pleased to be relieved from by gay bar duties to look at some ball gowns, but by the end of it I was just feeling sadder because I was sat there in a dressing gown and not a ball gown. Why don’t ball gowns have a place in modern society? I think my whole life would be improved if I could hop and skip off to uni each day wearing Valentino, or at least something similar that Primark’s reproduced.

OK it’s not entirely accurate to say that ball gowns are completely obsolete. Katie Price did a pretty good job of wearing an outrageous ball gown to her wedding to poor old Pete (don’t get mixed up with my very similar looking father Pete Cliff.) And let’s not forget those Gypsies; they crack out identical reproductions of our favourite fairy tale dresses, something the Disney shop would produce only bigger and better and with more plastic on it. So when did ball gowns become trash culture? And more importantly why?

(That she can keep)

If we think about our modern day princesses, you know heroines in movies and society, a ball gown is no longer the compulsory uniform. Society would argue that if Lorraine Candy (editor of ELLE) or Meryl Streep started popping to the corner shop or turning up at meetings in ball gowns, they might not evoke the kick ass attitude that we love them for. This emerged with power dressing in the 80’s, women wanted to be taken seriously in both the work place and life in general so a more androgynous look emerged. Those of you who know me will know I sport both a big purple power blazer and a women’s rights attitude (mentally, I don’t where a badge or anything) but androgyny isn’t always the prettiest peach in the picnic.

This season we have seen a re-emergence of the ‘pretty.’ Meadham Kirchhoff sent flurries of tulle and pastels down the runway and Louis Vuitton displayed lavish lace and princess tiaras. As you can imagine I was delighted and was soon rummaging through my dressing up box in search of a plastic tiara. But of course the critics followed arguing that by dressing like a girl we were harping back to an age when women were objects and by being pretty we were concentrating on aesthetic rather than brains.

(I feel pretty- Meadham Kirchhoff s/s 12)

Myself and fellow style blogger Susie Bubble disagree. Why should women apologise for looking like women? Why should I have to dress like a man to get myself taken seriously? If anything this girly trend is a step forward, we’re making the point that you don’t have to dress like a hard core lesbian to get your voice heard, were pretty and we’re political.

So yes, that is my argument for the reinstatement of ball gowns into everyday life. That and the fact that no one looks ugly in a ball gown. I hope that next time I knock back a jager bomb I will be wearing a full skirted Dior number and have glass slippers on my feet. I understand that this is quite unlikely seeing as I am unfortunately not Lorraine Candy so my gospel is perhaps not quite so influential. But if you think about it they are just a trend, if plastic clothes can come back into fashion then why can’t ball gowns?

I also feel a little like jeans have had their day. I can hear people saying ‘but they’re so easy!’ Wrong ball gowns are easy; you only have to wear one item of clothing. Jeans are lazy, just something to go with an outfit (says she who’s wearing a pair with a hole in the crotch right now.)

And so to end, here is a gallery of some gowns to oooh and ahhhh at. Shall we dance?