Dilemma.

Help! Friday night is the cocktail party at my daughter's school and I'm struggling with what to wear. As Polly says to Fanny in Love in A Cold Climate 'Do you think about dresses and hats all the time, even in church? I do too'. Me too......in those brief moments when I'm not thinking about who needs to pack what into their school bag, the precise timing of school pick ups and after school activities and of course the eternal what's for dinner.....etc etc etc. And maybe not in church.

So here are the choices.

1. The By Malene Birger ostrich feather skirt:

My immediate inclination is to dig this out of the wardrobe again for yet ANOTHER wear.....although so far this year it has already had outings to an 18th:

To the Glover Prize opening:

and to my friend's birthday:

Yet I'm still trying to convince myself that I could possibly get away with it just one more time as Friday night will be a totally different audience. And after all, two of the outings were in Launceston.....which is more than 200kms away in the north of the state. Hmm.

Then there's the predicament of what to wear with it? Maybe the transparent black Wheels and Dollbaby shirt and the fishnet tights might be a bit too much? Fine for a naughty 40th but on this occasion do I really want the headmistress to see my bra?  Although I could always wear a jacket.....

2. The By Malene Birger bronze strapless dress:

It too has recently been out and about in Hobart:

and was exposed in the local paper:

......yet you can't really  see the dress. The main problem is that I wore the exact same outfit to the mother's night.....at the same daughter's school. Again, it was accessorised with a black skivvy, black jeans and black jacket. So, I'm thinking that if the weather is warmer I could ditch the jeans and the skivvy which would make the dress unrecognisable. I'd have to keep the jacket....because it's not quite strapless weather down here just yet....honestly, it was snowing last weekend.

3. And then there's the sentimental choice. The Armand Ventilo beaded dress:

This was my birthday present the year that I turned 37.....in Paris. Sigh. It was hanging in the shop window just around the corner from our apartment. It was love at first sight. Most days we'd walk past and I'd draw my husband and children's attention to the fact that THIS was what I would like for my birthday. The problem was that in Paris they put the prices in the shop window and back then our exchange rate was dismal. One day Mimi and I ventured inside and tried the dress on. The shop assistant told us that I looked 'comme une princesse'....of course Mimi told her father who then had no choice other than to buy the dress. Here I am wearing it, on my birthday, in the Place Vendome:

After we had eaten this for breakfast, washed down with champagne:

And before we went to Le Grand Vefour for lunch. We had organised the babysitter months before....our regular babysitter, who lived just around the corner from us in Hobart, was conveniently going to be on her gap year and in Paris at the same time. Serendipity. Although in the days leading up to our reservation she wasn't answering her phone or emails. Panic.....even though we had literally bumped into her on the Rialto Bridge in Venice just weeks before and reminded her. Luckily she materialised and we swanned off to a sublime lunch:

I sat in the seat with the Josephine de Beauharnais plaque. She, of course, once had a dress made out of real rose petals. I don't. I have to make do with what's in the wardrobe, so do I go with the feathers, the sequins or the beads?

Rx