Previously in Part 1 of Dressed to Kill: Princess devotes a week of her life to finding the perfect dress. Unbeknown to her, boyfriend devotes a week of his life to documenting her quest. After whittling 13 dresses down to two, girlfriend prepares to make the biggest decision of her life. But with the wedding looming, she has a sudden change of heart – one that threatens to turn their world upside down. And now, the season finale of Dressed to Kill…
“My dresses arrived.” The words greet me as I log on to Google chat. Three words, five syllables, significance of seismic proportions. It’s Monday, four days since she ordered the dresses. Five days until the wedding. This is it: the moment of truth. The moment that she has been waiting for. Though she doesn’t yet know it, it’s the moment we have all been waiting for: you; me; the internet. But mostly, this moment is for princess, the girl who fearlessly embarked upon a bold quest to find the perfect dress.
In the end, she’d chosen two possible killers – Little Mistress and Reverse Aztec – and ordered them both. Which one would make it to the reception? Which one would look so utterly fabulous as to justify the hours that had been spent procuring it?
And then there were two.
Three words: My dresses arrived.
“What like?” I enquire tentatively.
Actually that’s a lie – I enquire distractedly; disinterestedly even, but for the purposes of building tension, I enquire tentatively. I enquire tentatively as a motherfucker whose weekend is dependent upon the verdict assigned to these strips of fabric that have been assembled in a Lahore sweatshop by a kid named Razul.
What like?
“The bright coloured one is defo not suitable and it was deceiving how the colours looked online” she types. “The one shouldered one is the one I need to try on so gonna have a nice shower and sort myself out.”
Princess disappears to do what princesses do, leaving me to roll a joint or masturbate or whatever it is that boys do when they’re not trolling their girlfriends. A few tokes and a dash of conditioner later and we reconvene on chat. The news isn’t good: Reverse Aztec is definitely out, while Little Mistress looks the part but is too big.
After five days, 13 dresses and umpteen texts, phone calls and emails, we’re back to square one. At this rate, Cinderella won’t be going to the ball – and neither will the handsome prince.
I don’t like the puff ball bottom
It’s Tuesday night, and princess and I are reunited in the same city. We’re here to catch up; to chat, eat, drink and piece; to do all the things that couples do. And to talk dresses of course. Mostly, we’re here to talk dresses.
Little Mistress and Reverse Aztec have been unequivocally given the boot, the former because is it not only too big, but in the words of princess, “I don’t like the puff ball bottom”.
On reflection, this may have been some other dress she was referring to – I have no idea what a puff ball bottom is – but Little Mistress sounds like the sort of dress that should have a puff ball bottom.
We listen to Bang Dirty in my room while princess talks aloud and I slyly type up her chatter. We do this because she’s a girl who talks aloud and because I’m a no-good, bastard boyfriend.
A dress like this would set you back over £100. I know this because I’m a fashion expert.
“You know what? Maybe I should have gone for the £110 one, the big fucking sequined one. So yeah, a big fail all round…If not, I’ll need to go into town tomorrow and buy a dress. But you’ll have to come with me cos I’ve forgotten my bank card and will have to transfer money to your account.”
What? I have to get dragged around the shops because you’ve lost your bank card? I never signed up for this Three Musketeers shit. My protests are in vain however; seemingly we are in this together.
Shoes
The queue for the Next sale.
“Shoes – are these acceptable?” she asks holding up a pair of black Kurt Geigers. I know they’re Kurt Geigers because she’s just told me that they’re Kurt Geigers.
“I need to try these dresses on,” says princess, bustling about the tiny bedroom, which now resembles the aftermath of the Next Christmas sale.
“The problem with me is I should be a size six waist but I’ve got bigger boobs so I’m not really a size six at all…OK, I’m gonna send this back for a smaller size. Right, that needs to be posted back tomorrow morning with the other one that needs to be returned…And then there’s this dress.”
She has produced a third dress which I’ve never seen before; this one wasn’t on the shortlist I previously agonised over, but apparently it’s been granted a wildcard entry and is now an outside contender to become The One.
“Do I look fat in it?” she asks, posing a question that will be featuring in a forthcoming EU blog – Six Occasions When it’s Acceptable to Lie.
I respond using the only monosyllabic reply that it is permissible for a man to use, but princess doesn’t seem to be listening in any case. Wildcard dress #1 has been discarded, and in its place she’s now modelling wildcard #2.
A typical woman’s wardrobe.
“So there’s this one. This could be my back-up. Do you think it’s suitable?”
I nod or grunt or make some sort of noise that can be construed as affirmative.
“So either of those I can get away with,” she continues. “I’m not even gonna try on that other dress, I’m pissed off about that other dress, it’s more of a party dress, though I might try it on just to see how it sits on me.”
The same wardrobe when there’s a wedding to attend.
Girls & boys
As princess chatters away, my thoughts drift back to a week earlier, when the inspiration for this blog had first occurred. We were trying to book a hotel for the wedding weekend, a process which ought to have taken five minutes, but which had turned into an Edinburgh Tram-sized debacle. During the course of an hour, princess had texted me 18 times to discuss the hotel, as well as despatching an email so I could view the amenities.
Three texts in, I replied “Choose a hotel ur happy with but bear in mind that we’ll b out and about most the time”.
During the course of the subsequent text barrage, I found myself wondering Are all girls like this?
I haven’t sampled a large enough cross-section to answer this authoritatively, but I’m going to wager yes. Yes they are.
She’s still talking
“…or I’ve got the one I wore to my mum’s graduation. This one. This with the same Kurt Geiger shoes. What do you think?”
“But which one do you like best out of all of them? I can’t wear this one. It’s a bit slutty. Though my boobs do look bigger in it, don’t they? Or maybe I could get away with…no, no. If it didn’t have these outline bits it might be alright.”
“OK, it’s done, I’ll send one of them back – I’ll send back this one…It’s not till Saturday, so let’s say worst comes to the worst…”
“I’ll return it and speak to them on Saturday and if they don’t return it in time…Should I just open the package and get them to refund me and then pay for another one? Cos it’s gonna get delivered to my uni address.”
[Checking online] “Oh bubba! They don’t have a size six any more. Fuck me, I’m gonna cry…I need to send back that one to get a smaller size, and if they say it’ll take them 3-5 working days they can fuck off and I’ll just go find a smaller dress in the shops.”
Wednesday. Three days before the wedding
Things aren’t going well. Princess has been looking at dresses on Asos again. I’ve been coerced into accompanying her into town. She’ll buy me Wagamama and then I go dress shopping. That’s the deal.
Acting like a gay friend to my girlfriend in return for lunch seems fine with me. At least that’s how it seems as we enter the restaurant. Then we sit down and princess begins talking.
“OK, we’re gonna have to go to Princes Street Mall, and then we’ll go to Topshop etc…Ah, it’s such a stress!”
“You know, at the risk of sounding practical and, well, male” I venture “I’ll say this: It’s natural that you should want to look good for the wedding, but when it gets to the stage where you’re devoting an entire week of your life to finding the perfect dress, you have to ask yourself: is it our clothes that define us, or is it how we are as people that really matters?”
My plea seems to do the trick, and after some deliberation, princess agrees that we’ll eschew dress-shopping in favour of visiting La Senza to look at strapless bras.
The homily I delivered in the restaurant quickly wears off however when she spots House of Fraser en route. “OK, we’ll just pop into La Senza and House of Fraser,” she decrees.
Saturday. Wedding day
Saturday starts off better than expected. The dress debacle has finally been resolved. Princess has settled on two options, both of which have been worn previously – but never in Aberdeen and only on one occasion. This criteria makes them suitable candidates for the big event.
We’ve checked in to our hotel and I’m looking forward to a relaxing afternoon, chilling in our room and streaming the football. But then disaster strikes, as it is apt to do when there are drama-fuelled blogs to be written.
It starts off innocuously enough when I’m asked to accompany princess to Debenhams so she can try on a strapless bra. “You’ll get to see my boobs,” she promises. I’m skeptical. Besides, if I want to see boobs, I can inspect them at my leisure back in the hotel. Nevertheless, I consent to accompany her, for I may write the words in this relationship, but she wears the trousers and chooses the dresses.
We reach the third floor of the department store after taking several detours, first to inspect the Topshop section and then the accessories. I write tweets and listen to the soothing sounds of Debenhams radio while my girlfriend does whatever it is that girls do in changing rooms.
What do girls do in changing rooms? I have no idea, but they clearly don’t use the time to try on clothing, as such a task could be performed in 60 seconds. When I used to work in a clothes shop, I was always amazed at the amount of time women could spend in the changing rooms, and to this day I’ve no idea what they were up to. I’d like to think they were masturbating against the mirror, though I could be wrong.
As I am thinking these blissful thoughts, a text arrives from princess: “I’ll b 2mins baby I swear.xx”
So that’s what girls do in changing rooms – they text their boyfriends.
A Debenhams girl with nice boobs walks past and shoots me a look to say I feel your pain. She knows it and I know it: I’m just another bored guy playing with his phone after being lured here on false pretenses.
There are no boobs. There were never going to be any boobs. Girls like her laugh at guys like me on a daily basis.
Ten minutes have now passed since princess swore she’d be two minutes. When a girl sends you a two minutes text, start panicking. If she was only going to be two minutes, she wouldn’t be texting you.
Srs bsns
On our way out of Debenhams, our talk turns to the fate of Gary McKinnon, and the unfairness of the UK’s extradition treaty with America.
Just kidding. Our conversation actually goes as follows:
“I’ve decided I wanna get implants. I’ve gone down a cup size. If I got implants I could have a bigger cup size…I don’t like the bras in La Senza because they give you a lift but they make your boobs look cone-shaped. My friend Charlotte had a boob job and she’s tiny, but I think she went a bit too far, I wouldn’t get implants that big…There’s no point in getting a nice dress for the wedding if your boobs aren’t going to sit properly. Do you know what the problem is? My ribcage is too small. The girl in the fitting room could fit four fingers behind my bra and you’re only supposed to fit two.”
I switch off, and when I tune back in, it is in time to hear the words I have come to dread:
“Baby I still don’t know what dress to wear.”
That’s a wrap
My girlfriend claims I don’t listen to a word she says, but I’d like to think today’s evidence proves otherwise. I claim my girlfriend doesn’t read a single word I write; so far the evidence supports this. If or when she does stumble across this blog, I’ll post an update here so you can find out whether she dumped me by text or email.
Over the past week, princess has spent an inordinate amount of time chasing down dresses and I’ve spent a similar amount of time documenting her chase. Which of us is sadder? I’m not sure, but I suspect we deserve each other.
Girls – they’re different from us guys. Who knew?
Oh, and one other thing…
If you’ve read this far and are female, you may be curious to know what the perfect dress looks like. For the record, the perfect little dress is black and white. Or is it black and grey? I’m not sure. Either way, it’s quite nice, though I can’t remember the label. Style? Dressy. Pics? I forgot to take any. You’ll just have to take my word for it when I say ‘Yeah, it was pretty alright.’
If you’d like a more detailed analysis, you’ll have to ask someone else; someone with the ability to write 5,000 words on the perfect dress.
Sorry, I’m not that guy.
POSTSCRIPT (07/05/13): It was brought to my attention on Twitter this evening that I never got round to recounting princess’s reaction to her two-part cameo.
Did my gf ever discover the blog? Do I still have a girlfriend? And if so, how much grovelling did it take to win her back?
As expected, princess never did get round to reading EU – not of her own volition anyway. Eventually however, she was forced to read it after some idiot brought it to her attention. The idiot in question? That will have been me then. Why? It was Halloween, I was mandied and I found myself possessed by an uncharacteristic urge to ‘fess up.
The next day, while we were on the train, she remembered our conversation and forced me to pull up the dual blog. I watched nervously as her eyes scanned the page.
At first she raged. Then she raged some more. Then – just as I was bracing myself for a world of pain – a strange thing happened: she laughed. And that was when I knew that I’d gotten away with it.
The moral of the story? Never take MDMA in the company of your girlfriend. In fact, just don’t take it – period.
As for the likelihood of a sequel to the princess diaries, I put the question to my gf a few moments ago:
We’ll file that under ‘maybe’ then.
—★★★—
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