When you hear “the Oscar dress”, you think red carpet. In this case, I’m talking about a different Oscar. I’ve named my dress for Oscar Wilde and stitched my favorite Wilde quote around the hem of the dress. To understand why, I’ve got to tell you a story. I must warn you that some of this post is dark, but if I’ve done my job, hopefully it will make some sense when you get to the end.
Many years ago, I was lucky enough to be able to study at Trinity College in Dublin. Having already earned my BA in psychology, I was at Trinity to do some graduate work. I had this incredible tutor who not only taught me, but also allowed me to shadow him at his job at a children’s clinic. He was working with families who had significant challenges, like a four year old girl who had a metabolic condition that was so severe that if her food intake was not managed to the finest detail, she could die. She was a really smart girl who had learned how to use this situation to her advantage and had become a tyrant worse than Veruca Salt. She cursed like a sailor too!
But by far, my tutor’s favorite client was a nine year old boy named Graeme. He was a sweetheart who had some developmental delays that his family was trying to come to terms with. One afternoon, Graeme’s family dropped him off at a video game arcade. It breaks my heart to tell you that he was taken from the arcade into an alley by a pedophile and molested. Here’s the part where words fail me. How can I possibly describe the utter devastation that followed. After many re-writes, I’ve decided not to even try. For Graeme and his family, their lives became permanently bisected into “before” and “after”. My tutor, well, he was so distraught that he couldn’t even teach me anymore and pretty much told me to stop showing up.
For reasons that are too personal and too complicated to explain here, the whole thing was more than I could handle at the time. And although I didn’t realize it fully then, that event was the end of my pursuit of a career in psychology. I looked for an escape and found it in a literature class that focused on Oscar Wilde. We read everything by Wilde—his novel, his plays, his essays. It was while reading Lady Windermere’s Fan that I encountered one of Wilde’s more famous lines, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”. And like all universal truths, when you hear it, it resonates.
I could write pages and pages on what Lord Darlington was thinking and feeling when he said that line, but the truth is that you don’t need to know the story to understand the sentiment. We are all in this beautiful mess that we call life. And it gets really ugly sometimes. But, we can aspire to be better. We can look outside of ourselves to find answers or to seek solace. We can change our perspective. One of my favorite pieces of advice to give to new parents is this—if your baby keeps crying after you fed them, burped them, and changed their diaper, then change rooms. Or go outside. Most of the time, that is all it takes.
In a way that’s exactly what I did when I stopped studying psychology and jumped into that literature class. I was still grappling with life issues, it’s just that I was doing it through a different lens. Oscar Wilde was certainly no stranger to tragedy and some of the themes we covered were difficult emotional territory. But for whatever reason, I could process what happened to Graeme and what happened to me through the study of literature. So, at a time when I was in a foreign country away from the support of family and friends, it was Oscar Wilde who held me and comforted me. To this day, my favorite photograph of him hangs in my home. And now my favorite quote is stitched on my dress. It’s a reminder that even in the darkest times, I can always look up and be guided by the light of the stars.
Pattern, Alabama Chanin Wrap Dress, Build a Wardrobe 2017
Fabric, Alabama Chanin Medium Weight Organic Cotton Jersey
Photography by Santiago Vanegas
As you can see, we took these photographs in Ireland. We had an amazing time and it was so great to be back there after all this time. The dress is a pattern from Alabama Chanin’s Build a Wardrobe 2017 collection. I had been wanting to stitch the Oscar Wilde quote for quite some time, but needed to find the right garment to do it on. It took a bit of planning to get the scale of the words right, but I’m happy with how it turned out. I used embroidery floss to chain-stitch the words and I used bugle beads, chop beads, and sequins to make the stars. I also stitched smaller stars along the sleeve hem. And as in all Alabama Chanin garments I’ve made, the entire dress is hand sewn.
Next up will be the first garment that I’m making in a little mini-collection that I’ve envisioned. Most of the patterns are going to be drafted by me, so it may take me awhile! Until then, be well everyone!
