Frock Star

#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.