When Not to Where Linen
We get by with a little help from our friends...
At dinner with a few pickleball gals, I pull out my phone and ask if I can wear the turquoise linen dress in the photo to an upcoming wedding calling for cocktail attire.
“Absolutely not,” Tina replies, with a certainty I both admire and suspect I will never possess.
I’m relieved that I have avoided a social blunder, sheepish that I didn’t know any better—and grateful that I’m teachable.
Tina and I are polar opposites. It’s a Ruth-Bader-Ginsberg-and-Antony-Scalia friendship—diametrically opposed political views but an abiding affection and respect for one another. Ideological foes, the liberal and conservative Justices found common ground over a shared love for opera. I’m not sure what hatched the bond between Tina and me— perhaps it was her remarkable personal warmth; she’s Southern, sassy, inquisitive, and immeasurably kind. In politics and sartorial choices we are dissimilar, but if not her politics, I do admire her taste. Bottom line: If Tina says I can’t wear a particular dress to a wedding, I believe her.
Sheri, who’s also at the pickleball pals’ dinner, immediately offers to outfit me for the wedding and invites me to come shopping in her closet. (I guess this is what some girlfriends do for one another, but up until a wedding last autumn, it’s not something I ever did.)
Sheri shares my liberal politics and has my mother’s eye for thrift shop finds. For my friend’s daughter’s wedding, she loaned me a pair of sparkly earrings she bought off of a drag queen.
A column of fourteen-karat-gold bangles permanently adorns one of Sheri’s arms, the clasps welded together—a measure taken after she once lost a bracelet in the ocean. Turning eighty in a few months, she’s been working her style for decades. I’m not sure I can pull off any of the outfits in her closet, but I will try some on, if only for the experience.
It’s my Mississippi friend, my style guru, who gently explains to me that linen is too casual for a wedding. Of course it is. (She later explains it would be fine for an afternoon wedding.
(Noted and understood.)
How is it that I never knew that—never even thought about it— (and wait: Did I wear linen to my former husband’s son’s wedding in Grenada; to one of my bestie’s in Manhattan many moons ago? While I want to say yes, I did, photographic evidence suggests I had more sense than my memory gives me credit for.)
My Mississippi friend worked in the fashion world for a long time. Hers was a world of fabrics, cuts, palettes. Maybe she knew that linen was inappropriate for a wedding because she grew up in the South. Maybe she knew because that was part of her job. It’s okay that I didn’t know. Now I do.
It’s never too late to learn.
Here’s to a future fashion faux pas averted.
Yay, team.
Readers, what say you? Unexpected friendships, wardrobe errors, life-skills deficits?
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It's always good to have a friend who can give honest feedback! I think she was right, and the earrings and black blouse you wore (even though only part of it is showing) look great and elegant. I love fashion stories. This was fun.
Funny — my reaction to being told I can’t wear linen to a wedding would probably be to go out of my way to wear it. 🤣 that’s a great dress and I think you could totally wear it to a wedding!