Frock Star

#4

This was one of the few dresses I brought to Hawaii. Here I am, swimsuit straps flopping out, in the bathroom of my vacation rental. It's the perfect easy summer dress - bright, loose; no need for a bra, or - hell! - even underwear. But as it happened, I wore it on a kind of adventure. When visiting Wailua falls, one of the most beautiful waterfalls on Kauai, I remembered a passage in my guidebook about a secret path down to the pool. I found it, too - just beyond where the guardrail ended, like they said - and saw that there were ropes tied from tree to tree down the slope, left there (and maintained) by Kauaian outdoorspeople/guardian angels. You can see pictures here.

Getting down to the pool was completely worth it. The thundering, the mist, the inner silence it created - all worth it. I imagined building a little hut on the shore of the pool, across from the waterfall, and waking up to its roar every morning.

#31

Rajeev's sister Manju was moving to Chicago, and getting rid of a lot of clothes. She gave this one to Rajeev to give to me, because she knows I loved dresses. And I love this one! It seems very Carly Simon to me - in this photo, you can't see, but it ends mid-thigh and so is perfectly complemented by cowboy boots. Though when I first got it, I couldn't quite determine the color, and that turned me off. Is it mint? Pesto? What the hell? Does it look good?

But when searching for an accessory to the dress, my eyes fell on a silver necklace my father gave me a few years ago. Its pendant was a silver sweetpea pod, with three little seeds nestled inside. I thought to myself, "Yes, sweetpea! That is the exact color of this dress!"

#42

 

I wore this beautiful Urban Outfitters dress to the wedding party of our friends, Jay and Dana, the masterminds of Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern. All the guests were invited to either (1) perform something or (2) gift them with a plant of some kind. Most of the evening was taken up with dozens of heartfelt, sweet, silly performances - a creative interpretation of Jay and Dana's courtship, an accordion waltz, a tango, a Mamet monologue. But somehow, the most arresting performance was from a little boy, maybe nine years old, who at the very end of the night got up in front of the microphone and said, "I'm going to explore the body of an old man. Is there an old man in the audience? Okay, come here. Now, I need a place to enter. The ear? Okay."

The little boy mimed popping into Tom Marriott's ear, and then he said, "Okay! I am coming towards the eardrum now!" and walked through everyone, right offstage. We were stunned.

Everyone loved this dress. So did I. I wish Urban Outfitters had done anything worthwhile since, but they haven't.

#5

This is one of only TWO dresses I've bought all spring. For whatever reason, the fashion gods have conspired such that this season's dresses are uniformly ugly - unflattering tent cuts, loud geometric patterns - such that my wallet is considerably fatter than it otherwise would have been. So this lovely little thing was bought at a consignment shop - that rare soft cotton halter top that I can even go braless in. And it looks great. I feel like Mrs. Robinson at a garden party.

#0

Zero!? Yes, zero! This dress is #0 because it's not actually my dress; nevertheless, it'll always be "mine."

We were scavenging for a wedding dress costume for me, for my role as the apoplectic bride Tina in Fistful of Love, an interpretation of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers that takes place on an Italian beach in about, say, 1976. (See Rajeev's yellow ruffles...yeah.) When I first saw this dress - a donation from Jane Holding, another actress in the play, who was such a peaceful, generous presence throughout - I thought, "No way. How would I be able to move in that? Let alone dance?" But one of my fellow brides pointed out that well, that'll be perfect: its being hard to move in would make it all the more hilarious that I was tearing across the stage in it!

It was very bulky and (fashion-speaking) horrific; but it fit me perfectly and somehow became lovely on me. So I tip my champagne glass to #0, my first (or only!?) wedding dress.

#8

Boy, this is sure a favorite. Can you believe I forgot where I even got it? But it's perfect - two shades of red, shaped like a tulip or a shell opening up, with a big tie-able bow at the bust. Gorgeous. In this picture I'm on the couch with Ellie and Cory, two friends I made performing in Sweeney Todd.

But I first wore this dress on a warm July evening. Rajeev and I walked over to the old Campus Y, a building that was blessed with a newly renovated hardwood-floor performance space and high windows that let in the twilight. Our friend Garth Grimball had collected a dozen of his friends - some of them trained dancers, some of them former dancers, some of them complete neophytes - for a modern dance concert titled "The Honeysuckle Shorts Review." Our friends tumbled out in bright bodysuits, colored peacock and mustard and tangerine; one dancer performed an old-fashioned burlesque striptease; one collective piece was completely improvised every night. I was astonished at the natural, easy beauty and talent of all these friends of mine, who just decided to get together and put on a dance concert in midsummer, "experience" be damned.

#46

This is an impulse buy from Victoria's Secretion. I was waiting for a rainy day to wear it, as its navy color would go well with my rubber-ducky-yellow rain boots. Finally a day came, not of rain, but snow! - the only snow Chapel Hill has seen this winter. I wore it to my friend Mike Kiehart's house. Mike's still in high school, but he's worked as a cook at Lantern, one of Chapel Hill's ritziest restaurants; and now he hosts dinners at his own house. That night, I arrived in this dress and my yellow rain boots, which were good protection against the icy wet snow. Mike had baked fresh bread, hot vichyssoise and homemade chocolate fondue, which were the perfect antidotes to the cold. You can see pictures from that dinner here.

#34

This lovely dress is another gem from Roulette, my favorite Carrboro vintage shop. It's the first dress I bought - or wore! - in a long time, as winter tends to slow down dress-y instincts. Here I am on the floor of my sister Clare's Manhattan apartment, next to their lovely minimalist tree. I wore the dress to Christmas Day dinner at a dim sum hub in Chinatown: a caucus of Byrnes, Wieners and friends. I sat next to my dear cousin Elizabeth, and we started talking about boys and relationships and kissing as if no more than a heartbeat had passed since our days on Martha's Vineyard.

#86

After such a LONG hiatus...here is the first dress of the new year! And appropriate, too, because this photo was taken in the wee morning hours of New Years Day, torn fishnets and all. I got it a couple years ago, at a boutique in Atlanta's hip district Little Five Points, where they sold knock-offs of designer brands. This charcoal party dress was characteristic of such: so flimsy, but so well-fitting.

New Years Eve 2007 was wonderful. I went to my friend Kyle Chorpening's house, where he was throwing a party for our whole group of friends, which includes all the people I do theater with, and their associated circle of friends. As my friend Elizabeth Phillips said, looking around the room: "I think all of my favorite people are here." Indeed. I rang in the new year amidst much love and warmth and hugging bodies.

You can see pictures of that night here!

#102

I picked up this dress at a Boscov's holiday sale. It's a very 50s-like style, though the fuchsia tulle under the skirt keeps it sassy!

In the spring of 2003, I wore this dress to a Mark Morris performance in Boston. I'd just started dating someone I really delighted in, D.F., a long-time friend who'd become a lover. On dates, we went out to classy restaurants and hot-ticket performances; all of this I loved - romping around Boston, eating fine food, discussing art. My previous love interests had preferred merely the couch and a DVD, so it was a new thing for me to be romanced this way; to share all this with someone. At Mark Morris, we had two seats in the back right corner, snug up against the wall. I came back from the bathroom where D.F. was bent over the program. I leaned down and kissed him long and hard on the mouth. And then, settled in next to him, both of us very happy.