You are what you wear.

There are some clothes that need to come with diagrams that show how they should be worn, and Entry and Exit signs.
Trust me on this one.
Today I tried on a dress in Marks and Spencer's that had been designed by Zandra Rhodes.
Ever since I was a teen, I have LOVED Zandra Rhodes clothes.
The colours.The fabrics.The pink hair.The zaniness.The total impracticality of it.
God knows I know about as much about fashion as your average Christian Brother Headmaster knows about celibacy.
But in terms of sheer fantasy, Rhodes has my number.
For the record, I WEAR mostly black, in fabrics that suit my size and workplace.
But I BUY the occasional piece of whimsy in fabrics of layered rayon silkiness and caress their hot pink and turquoise petals in the privacy of my own Bedroom.
It's a girl thing.
Today's Object of Desire was a peach and orange creation with sleeves that looked like the wings of CGI butterfly.
It was beautiful. It was in my size. It was marked down by 70%.
I was in love.
I deftly- but reverently- grabbed it from the rack before anyone else saw it and bolted to the changing room.
And here, my friends, is where it all went terribly awry.
The dress itself weighed less than a postcard.
All delicacy and flutter, it slipped across my fingers like a well lubed jelly bean.
It had an inner slip, and an outer shell, like the casing of an expensive salami.....and lets just leave the sausage references at that shall we?
Dressing rooms are dignity black holes at the best of times- as every woman knows- but M & S do an OK job of them, so space, lighting and mirror position were not at fault here.
It was the dress.
In terms of possible confusing design detours , Rhodes had outdone herself.
That the slip was firmly attached to the shoulders of the outer dress was issue enough, but the fact that the arm holes were the same size as the neckline, all three of which were covered in approximately 500,000 gossamer orange and black leaves, and that there was a wrap around belt that crossed the body at three places and that the dress looked EXACTLY the same inside out and back to front was a recipe for potential dress trying disaster.
The first attempt saw me standing in front of the mirror with the slip halfway up my neck, and my head coming out from the right sleeve.
It took me 5 minutes to get out of that combo.
Next effort was better, until I saw that I had it on back to front, and had managed to turn the slip inside out. The belt now did up at the back, and the zip was useless as it was on my left hand side, just out of reach.
I didn't panic.
I have learned not to panic when trying on expensive, delicate things.
Nothing alerts a shop girl faster than the sound of ripping material and the words " Oh Fuck".
I quietly worked back along the path I had travelled and reversed all the steps.
I was naked again, but I wasn't crying, so that was good.
I looked down at this expression of femininity that was slowly becoming my nemesis and thought "There is a perfectly easy way to wear this dress, you just have to see it".
(That's right Wendy, when you can no longer dress yourself, try using your 'inner eye'....Jesus wept,won't my dotage be a fun time?)
A third, and forth- yes really- attempt fared no better. I just couldn't get the slip and the dress to match in terms of them both pointing in the same direction, and both being the right way out.
I was doing something wrong, I refused to believe a designer would create an unwearable dress and sell it to a chain store, so I knew it was me.
I had become dress dyslexic.
On a fifth and final try I cracked it.
I managed to get everything where it was supposed to be, and I stood in front of the mirror triumphant.
It looked lovely. I WAS the fairy princess.
I was also in a full blown sweat, and I had a headache that had crept from the nape of my spine and encircled my head.
The only way I would ever attempt to put on that dress again was if I had a support staff of 14 and a therapist on speed dial.
The dress was in one piece ( per se) but I was in tatters.
So back to the rack it went.
I am sorry Zandra. I still love you, but the older I get, the less time I have to negotiate exit strategies with inanimate objects.
Give me underwear with tags in the back, and necklines that show me where my head goes. That way if I am seen walking down the street with my clothes on inside out, at least people will know it is an active choice, and not the sign of a losing battle.