I’d like to have a word with the woman who bought a fuchsia dress in 2001 for a wedding, wore it once, and then kept it in a garment bag for eleven years like it might come back into fashion the way a coat does. It didn’t come back. It just sat there being the exact same shade of “someone will notice me” pink, waiting for an occasion that was never quite big enough to justify it. That’s the thing about this color, it doesn’t do subtle, and there’s a proper argument to be had about whether that’s the whole point of it or the whole problem.
The argument in question actually happened over my sister’s dress, the one she wore to a christening a few summers back, cut close enough that sitting through the service required a strategy. She swore it was fine.
I sat two pews back watching her negotiate the pew like it owed her money, and when she stood up too fast the whole thing rode up in a way that made the priest’s sermon considerably less relevant than what was happening in row four.
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That dress caused a genuine falling out about whether a fuchsia dress needs to be forgiving in the body or whether the entire appeal is that it isn’t, that you buy it to be looked at, not to bend over gracefully near a car door.
Because that’s the other test, the car door test, and fuchsia dresses fail it at a rate that should embarrass the industry. Getting into a low sedan in something fitted and bright pink is not a private act, everyone on the sidewalk gets a view, and I’ve now made peace with performing a small, undignified crouch every time rather than pretending there’s a graceful version of it.
The ones I actually reach for without thinking are the ones where the pink leans toward the fun end, a proper hot fuchsia that reads like a decision, not the sweeter bubblegum version that always looks like it’s on its way to a christening of its own, sugary in a way that fights with anyone over forty. The fun pink I’ll wear on a random Tuesday and feel like I’ve won something. The sweet pink sits in the closet the way that 2001 dress did, patient and slightly reproachful.
I’ll admit this one’s a gamble for a lot of people, the shade is loud enough that it either makes you or makes you look like you lost a bet, there’s no middle setting. But the good ones earn their keep precisely because they don’t let you disappear into a room, and after enough years of trying to disappear into rooms, I’ve decided that’s worth the awkward exit from a Honda Civic.
