Okay so I bought my gold pleated skirt in February, told myself it was for “a party I definitely have coming up,” and then wore sweatpants to that party because it got rescheduled to a Tuesday and I panicked. That skirt sat in my closet for six weeks doing absolutely nothing except looking incredible on its own hanger, which is not a metric anyone should be proud of, and yet.
Here’s the actual fight, and it’s not about whether the skirt is good, everyone agrees the skirt is good. It’s about how often “good” translates to “worn.” One camp in my group chat is convinced this is a five times a month piece, brunch, errands, whatever, just throw it on. The other camp, me included some days, thinks that’s insane, that this is a twice a year piece dressed up as a staple because it looked so good in the one video that got saved. Sent a photo of me in it standing in my kitchen doing absolutely nothing, got three fire emojis and one “wait where are you actually WEARING this,” which, fair, I did not have an answer.
The twirl test it passes with an obscene amount of enthusiasm, like it wants to be twirled, like it was born for a slow spin under bad restaurant lighting. The wind test is where it gets complicated, because gold pleats catching a gust outside a coffee shop is either the best three seconds of your day or a moment you will need therapy for depending on what’s underneath, and I learned that one the hard way on a windy Tuesday I will not be describing further. The stairs test, though, this is where it earns its keep, because pleats move with you instead of against you, no death grip on the railing, no weird bunching, actually the most trustworthy part of the whole thing.
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The shine is doing a lot of the emotional labor here. Under any kind of light, camera flash, string lights, even a bathroom mirror with bad bulbs, it throws reflections that make every photo look like it was styled by someone who cares more than me. Daytime is where the argument really lives though, because in direct sun it can read a little bit “I am attending an event you were not invited to,” and I think that’s fine, I think that’s the point actually, but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t feel like a costume on a regular Tuesday.
I’ve landed somewhere in the middle of my own chat’s argument, which is annoying but true, I wear it less than I imagined and more than I admit, and that gap is basically the whole appeal.
