Fashion is My Friend

I am now the proud owner of this Tory Burch top, and my life is transformed.

Style is more than a flirty skirt or a neckerchief--it's how that skirt or neckerchief makes you feel when you wear it, what it's made of, how it hangs.

Today I received a very, very special plain brown box via UPS. Last Friday night, I ordered the Tory Burch Copper Top I'd been lusting after for months. I got it in white, the color that had been featured in the May issue of Glamour. [I don't read Glamour much anymore, but that info was posted at http://www.toryburch.com/. To find the top, search Sale category, then Tops & Sweaters.]

The price had dropped by almost one-third [by $50, from $165 to $115.50] and I was afraid if I waited for a deeper sale, they'd run out of size XL. It isn't always easy to find bigger sizes from the designers I love.

I slipped it on at 5:30, just before we went out to Kinchley's Tavern in Ramsey for thin-crust pizza and wine to celebrate Moey's birthday. I felt hip and pretty. Someone else may have seen a woman who looked plump in her white denim Talbots skirt but I saw myself in the nicely cut Copper Top, with its fancy gold-beaded cap sleeves. I love it. And Figgy [next to me in the car], H. [on my right at the table] and Moey's mom [on my left] all said they liked it, too.

One thing I don't love is that the tag says Dry Clean Only. I won't be doing that, not with a white cotton tee. I will turn it inside out and wash it on gentle cycle in cold water, with Woolite, and lay it flat to dry on a towel. [And the Tory site says hand wash and hang to dry.]

I am transformed. And that is the power of fashion. I may have a terrible cold that won't quit, some troubling personal problems to iron out, and a beloved, beleaguered Dad who now has a stage 4 [the worst] bedsore and little hope for walking after six weeks in a hospital bed, but I have the Tory Copper Top. Sweet dream come true. I plan to wear it well over the next week, when working on my article interviews and deadlines. And to wear it to press events, parties, evenings out. There is no end to how far this fashion dough will go.

P.S. This is the same top I blogged about on July 20: http://insearchoftruthandbeauty.blogspot.com/2010/07/latest-object-of-my-affection.html. At that point, I wanted black, but I changed my mind. There's something fresh and free about white.