To re-wear or not to re-wear?

Last weekend I had a fashion dilemma. We’ve all been there girls, that big looming question that none of us quite know the answer to, and often don’t want to admit we are questioning, can you wear the same dress or outfit more than once to different special occasions? Recycling if you like?

I was in the midst of this catastrophe in the lead up to my friend’s wedding last weekend. I had bought a dusky pink chiffon layered sweetheart shaped strapless maxi dress ( enough description?) to wear from H and M that I just hearted and i felt like a flowy fairy. When I showed it to my boyfriend he said he thought maxi dresses look like duvets and he doesn’t like them. Good start. Then when it came to the day of the wedding, it had been raining and the floor was too soggy to be dragging my fairy dress through. Quelle probleme. Now you might think the real problem here would be that I was more concerned about what I was going to wear than the fact that the poor bride didn’t have the best weather on what’s meant to be the best day of her life, but that’s not what we are talking about here. Back to my outfit. ( was a fab day though).

Short of being late to the wedding ‘sorry I just haaaad to go shopping’ and buying another dress, my only option was recycling the dress I had worn to a wedding a few months previous. I was scared. What if people had browsed through Facebook pictures and seen that dress had been partying before? It screams ‘your wedding isn’t as important as the last one so I didn’t buy a new dress, sorry!’ Doesn’t it?
Now this attitude can get very expensive, especially with the amount of weddings I go to in a year, never mind the waste of a dress that sits dusty in the wardrobe for eternity afterwards. So I dusted down my old dress, altered some accessories and off I went on my merry way. No one was any the wiser.

Enter Kate Middleton. All hail Kate with her recycling techniques and being proud to wear the same dress one, two, three times! Kate does exactly this, changes her hair and a few key accessories and gives the dress an new lease of life (see her official engagement picture). As with my past blogs, the sweat and toil that goes into making clothes, even designer clothes shows that we shouldn’t waste clothes, and (i’ll speak for myself) my wallet does not like this buying a new dress for every event although there is a perfectly good one at home.

Being the first person in the public eye to say ‘hey its ok to wear this again’ I take my hat off to her (and then I’ll wear it again) because she knows full well the amount of inspired eyes are looking on her and want to emulate her lifestyle and this is in by no way an accident or coincidence.

So thank you Kate for giving us a valid reason for recycling our beloved dresses, and changing the future of our wardrobes. Hip hip hurrah.