I’m one of those people who’s pretty bad for encouraging others to buy the extravagant evening dress even when they don’t have a special event on the horizon. The way I see it, life is too short not to do the things that make you happy, and if one of those things occasionally is buying a fancy dress that actually made you gasp or groan or swoon a little bit when you saw it, that can’t really be a bad thing. Putting on a special dress that is too fancy for every day life has a certain kind of feeling that comes with it, a grandness, a fizz of excitement, a bubbling of childlike wondrous joy that you get to wear something so wonderful and look great in it.

Even if, like me, you own far too many dresses, there’s still something extra special about putting on an evening dress that makes you feel like a princess, a lady, or an old Hollywood screen siren. The latter is the realm of fancy we’re entering into today, with a floor length velvet gown from Dolly & Dotty that makes me feel like laying atop a piano and pouting my way through a breathy solo number.

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