Spying On Suburbia: Big Girl’s Dress-Up Too

By Elizabeth James

A recent not shop experience reminded me of a special occasion experience.  The occasion all women dream about, well I don’t know if I ever dreamed about it.  But I know T did and a lot of woman do.  This special day I speak of is our wedding day and this creates many shopping experiences but the ultimate shopping for a dress experience.  I experienced this only three short years ago with two of my closest friends, Rina and Demi.  Yes, I have been married for ten, going on eleven years but some times in life you get a call for drastic measures and in our case retail espionage. 

We needed to secret shop a few bridal boutiques in a well known (by us) mid-size city.  We all lived in other major cities and flew in to meet for the weekend.  The day of our big dress search was a Sunday.  We had done a lot of research on Saturday but as we downed mimosa after mimosa it was decided that there was more work needed.  We needed an insider look. 

Now, I was just laughing and agreeing and enjoying my early morning buzz as it washed away my late night hangover.  The next thing I know it had been decided that I was to be “a bride” and them, my maids of honor.  I was like, no way, at first but the champagne started to talk to me it started to say “this will be fun, you can make up a life, a new husband, a new city, job, identity” then the adrenaline started and it was saying “yes, yes, do it, do it, more, more” I took a xanax to shut up adrenaline. 

But anyway, we ate something to sober up a bit and went to pick our target. We found a high end boutique that had a reputation for being very customer service focused.  I was flipping out a bit but Rina was drilling me on the details: my wedding date, September 15th, the place, my parent’s farm down south, out door all white theme.  My husband to be, proposed to me last weekend at a friend’s cabin….and Demi was running down her list of what she wanted to observe.  It is always me doing this crap for these bitches. 

When we were 12 and on Rina’s farm she would drive her Willy and Demi would be in the front seat and I would be running behind it begging them to stop so I could get in. We would all be laughing, I mean it as funny.  Even when I was six weeks pregnant with my daughter we were on Demi’s family farm and they had an ATV and they had some cocktails, and were HARRASSSING me to get on…not even pregnancy can give you an excuse when you are dealing with your closest friends.  You know what I mean!  So, who sits on the RACK in the back??? Yeah me

We arrived to the shop and popped through the door.  I started to browse. A cute brunette came up to us and I got through the entire engagement, what I was looking for in a dress, did she have any advice for an outdoor affair. She was so excited as I told her my price range was no more than $5,000 for the dress.  I gave her my favorite fake name and I was whisked away to the back room. 

My girls where seated outside my changing room being served water and I tried on beautiful dress after dress. The sales girl would parade me up on to the round stage and I would twirl and we would ask questions about the fabric and special order items…espionage.  She was asking me where I lived and I told her NYC.  She admired the Italian hand crafted yellow gold flower ring with sapphire center that my fiancé had given me.  (It was Rina’s gift to herself and she wore my wedding ring, she had insisted that I wear it right before entering the store.) We started to get friendly, I am chatty and I just got deeper into character. 

She put this Vera Wang on me and it was breath taking.  I was suddenly someone else.  I was getting married that following September. I looked at myself in the mirror in my private room.  I walked out onto the platform.  My girls were truly admiring the scene.  The dress really did make people beautiful.  Demi even got up and grabbed the tag and looked up at me as if to say this is the one even though we both knew I never planned to buy it.  I rotated around the mirrors and then just started to tell the sales girl that this was perfect, that I was a writer for the Post and was kind of famous, I didn’t want to sound conceited but everyone would be attending who was anyone and I had to have the perfect dress and I was thinking that this was that dress. 

My girls were silent.  They later would say that they could not even look at each other because they thought they would pee their pants or roll on the floor with hysterical laughter.  Rina was stunned. She said she actually believed me.  I believed me.  The sales girl definitely believed me.  I took her card and told her I was in town only for the weekend and out of excitement of my new dress, my wonderful fiancé who had made for me the most beautiful ring in the world, my fab life as a writer for the Post, well, I gave her my real home phone number and insisted she call me next week.

We walked out and put on my Gucci sunglasses and said let’s go to that new French place in town to celebrate my fabulous new life and my pending Emmy nomination…and so we did.

PS

She did call me the next week and left a message voiced by Mr. James and the James family…I never heard back from her and I sometimes feel sad for the sale she never had.