So, as I was commenting on Angie's blog post this morning, I remembered the story of the black crushed velvet dress.

It was my second year of university and I was going to some sort of event, a coffee house, or book reading, or something. The women I was going with decided that we should all dress up. I had nothing fun in my closet - just sweatshirts, tees, jeans, and a very sensible long skirt and jacket combo.

So I borrowed something from one of my friends, a black crushed velvet dress with spaghetti straps and a feather boa.

We all got together the night of the event and had a bit of a dressing party. A lot of the women had really fun, retro-inspired dresses and accessories. It was the first time I'd really seen that sort of playfulness in clothes.

I wore the dress without a bra (today I would probably do it with a lacy black bra, but hey, I was 20 and rebellious) and flung the boa artlessly around my neck and shoulders. I think I wore black sandals that had some sort of sparkly adornment.

The dress was stretchy crushed velvet, cut straight and narrow, and ended at my kneecaps. I loved the way it clung to me, the way I could just move with it.

So, the next time I went home I told my mother I wanted to go shopping for exactly this kind of dress.

And, oh dear Universe, that was *not* a good shopping trip. We got into the fitting room and I tried on the dress. I can only imagine the look on my mother's face, and I'm quite sure she hated it on me.

It's mostly irrelevant since I think she would have hated the dress on me no matter what, but I'd gained a fair bit of weight in the previous year, more than I was actually comfortable with and way more than my mother was comfortable with.

Back to the fitting room. My mother started gently explaining to me that my figure would look much better in an outfit like a top and a pair of palazzo (spelling?) pants. I didn't want palazzo pants. I wanted to have a playful dress in my wardrobe the way my peers did. I wanted to use clothes to express myself.

There's a lot I could unpack here about the extra power my mother had to influence my clothing decisions - because I'm blind and (especially pre-Internet days) rely on other people to tell me what clothes are available in a store, what sorts of outfits the world is wearing, and so on. In short, to give me the information I would have if I could see.

But, there's just as much to unpack about what's considered figure-flattering, the way we judge some parts as being unacceptably bumpy and other parts as being attractively curvy, and the ways we value fashion "rules" over the beauty that can come from feeling confident and comfortable in an outfit.

I'm fairly sure that style of dress wasn't the most flattering thing I could have worn, but I'm also pretty sure palazzo pants wouldn't be the most flattering on me either. It's just that they would hide the bumpy bits under fabric and hiding is always considered safer than showing off.

Did I go home with the dress? Yes, after more than a few tears and stage-whispered arguments.

Did I ever wear it? To a Halloween party, for want of any other costume.

Did I ever feel good about the dress? Not at all. It went in a donation bag a few years later.

It also took a lot more years before I felt comfortable in my body or confident about shaping my own style.