Six days until I fly out to see my sister for a wedding shower, and I still have not decided if the forest green dress in my closet counts as “something I own” or “something I bought once for a rehearsal dinner and now feel guilty walking past.” That’s basically the whole argument on the shop floor too. Half of us swear this color gets worn constantly, everyday, grocery store, dentist, whatever. The other half thinks it was bought for exactly one wedding season, wore twice, and has been hanging there since like a very expensive promise nobody kept.
I fall somewhere in the middle, which is the least useful place to fall in an argument but here we are. I had a customer in a couple weeks back who bought a forest green wrap dress for a rehearsal dinner in Key West, told me she’d “definitely wear it again,” and I believed her the way I believe everyone who says that, which is not very much. That’s not a knock on her.
That’s just what this color does to people. It photographs like a decision. It gets worn like an event.
Here’s what I will say for it, because I don’t want to talk you out of the whole category. Forest green does something warm undertones and cool undertones both, which almost never happens, and it makes gold jewelry look like it was made for the dress instead of just tossed on. It goes with camel, it goes with black, it goes with almost nothing that’s already loud, which is the actual problem, everything in most people’s closets is already loud.
Pockets.
You Might Also Like
I need to talk about pockets because the dress I almost returned had these decorative flap things sewn shut, purely for looks, and I did not notice until I was standing in a parking lot with my phone, my keys, and nowhere to put either of them. Phone went down my bra. Not glamorous. The one I should have returned and didn’t, out of pure laziness, has a side seam pocket so shallow my phone falls out if I bend over, which I found out at a baby shower, bending over, in front of people.
The gamble pick, the one I’ll be honest about, is the deep V forest green slip with the low back. Gorgeous on the right person, and by right person I mean someone with somewhere actual to wear it, because on a Tuesday it just reads like you’re overdressed for your own life.
So six days out, still not packed, still staring at this dress. I think the honest answer is it earns its spot if you already have three places to wear it before you buy it, not after.
