There’s a running joke in my group chat that I own the burgundy dress in a way that’s slightly medical. Three of them, currently. Two thrifted, one bought full price in a moment of weakness I still haven’t fully forgiven myself for, and every single time brunch gets mentioned, somebody sends the crying laughing emoji and asks which one I’m bringing, like I’m packing for a trip instead of getting a mimosa at 11am on a Saturday.
Here’s the thing about brunch as a dress code. Nobody tells you the rules but everyone’s phone comes out the second the food arrives, so you’re dressing for a occasion that’s technically “just breakfast” and technically also going to be documented from four angles with weird restaurant lighting. Burgundy handles that better than almost anything else in my closet.
It photographs warm indoors, it doesn’t wash you out under those amber bulbs every brunch spot seems contractually obligated to install, and it reads a little more put together than jeans without anybody clocking that you tried.
The eight dollar one from my thrift store, the one I’ve decided is mine on principle at this point, has a midi length that is a genuine friend in photos and a genuine enemy the second you’re walking somewhere. I found this out the hard way outside a place on Alberta, six blocks from parking, hem doing this thing where it wraps around your ankle like it’s trying to trip you personally. Wore it eleven times since, cost per wear currently at seventy two cents, and I did that math twice because the first number felt too good to trust. Still recalculating a little. Still keeping it.
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The color does something genuinely funny depending on when you catch it. Daylight, brunch lighting, it’s soft, almost dusty, borderline modest.
Same dress at 8pm under any kind of string lights and it goes practically black cherry, moodier, like it changed its whole personality between meals. My coworker who thinks she knows resale value insisted this meant the dye was cheap. It’s not, I checked the tag, it’s just what burgundy does, and she was wrong about that the same way she’s wrong about most vintage Pyrex, but that’s a different post.
I’ll say the honest thing, because pretending otherwise would be dishonest bookkeeping. The full price one, the “weakness” purchase, is a gamble on anyone who isn’t already comfortable being the most dressed up person at a table of people in hoodies. It looks incredible in the mirror and slightly like a costume next to somebody’s Sunday sweatpants. I wear it anyway. That’s buy number two for the good column this month, and given what buy number one was, I’ll take it.
