The Green Chiffon Dress, The Bow Ties and Feeling Good Elita Sohmer Clayman

Drew Barrymore said “I think happiness is what makes you pretty. Happy people are beautiful. They become like a mirror and they reflect that happiness.”

When I was a young woman and working and earning a good salary, I would go to different ladies’ dress shops. I frequented one called The French Shoppe here in Baltimore located on North Charles Street. That street had several other expensive dress stores. The first time I went in there, they greeted me in a friendly manner and a salesperson came up and said her name was Miss Ruby. There were no Ms. Titles in those days yet. She said she would be my sales associate and she took me into her own private dressing room, where I was to try on any dresses I liked. I found that amazing, because in department stores, you went to individual dressing rooms and some even had the doors taken off due to a lot of stealing of the clothing even in those days of the 1950’s and l960’s. She helped me to select several dresses that I thought I may like and then she left and let me have privacy to try them on myself. She said to call her when I was ready for her opinion or to have it fitted or shortened or lengthened etc.

I found this to give one a feeling of really being like the rich ladies, perhaps in Hollywood or other ritzy spots. On the door way, there was a sign that said Miss Ruby’s Dressing Room. The mirrors in these dressing rooms always were three way so you could see yourself front, back and sideways. In some department stores, some of the mirrors made you look heavier, those were my thoughts. I was very slim then so the mirrors were OK either way. When you finally made the purchase and if it did not need to be altered, you took it home in a fancy box and the dress was packed in tissue paper, folded over so as not to crease and the box had a carrying handle and it said in big letters The French Shoppe. That way when you came home, the whole neighborhood saw you carrying a box from that fancy and expensive store.

I only shopped there about two times and that was for a dancing dress in 1977 which was almost over ten years or so from my last visit as a single girl. When as a married woman, I shopped there almost not at all, because my priorities changed from expensive clothing for myself to clothing for my children, which was more important.

When I came back in 1977, it was to search for a lovely dinner cocktail type dress to wear when I did my first dance showcase at the dance studio and to be worn there dancing before my studio friends and fellow dancers. I bought a green chiffon dress that was quite lovely and very sexy for a forty-three year old mommie. They altered it and when I wore it the night of the dance showcase and I danced a Foxtrot for my initial and official dance; I was Ginger Rogers and my teacher was Fred Astaire, though his real name was Laurence E. Miller.

So Ginger and Fred danced and this lovely dress that cost one hundred seventy-seven dollars plus a few alteration charges; that had been brought home in a big box with The French Shoppe name on it became my partner too. The dress made me stand tall, shoulders held up, a smile on my face and my dancing feet moved quite well. I attributed the success of the dance that night, fifty-percent to feeling beautiful in the chiffon green dress and fifty percent to my learning well from my teacher and my ability to love this first show-off dance.

All of us ladies and young girls too, know that when you dress up, you feel differently than when you are clothed casually. My own Dad would sit all night wearing his regular tie or a bow tie which he had worn all day to work or for leisure. He never sat and read or watched television, without having his tie on. That was the way of the old timers then, my father-in-law was the same way. He came to work at our pharmacy all dressed up wearing a tie or bow tie too. This was the way they were brought up and even if times were tight financially, they dressed up and the ties and shirts need not be designer brands. No one knew the difference; there were no logos on the shirts telling the name of the manufacturer, no one was snobby about their clothing then.

The green chiffon dress still hangs in my closet covered by a cloth protector cover and I have many photos of me in that dress, dancing that night for my first dance presentation.

Once my mom’s aunt and uncle came from Chicago to visit all of the family. She was my grandmom’s sister and her name was Aunt Lena. She always visited about every five years and as they grew older, they came less often. This time was for my wedding and they were up in years. Uncle Jack wanted to take out the whole bridal family and we went to a restaurant where the men all had to wear jackets and ties. He did not have a tie on, he had a jacket and they gave him a tie to wear there for the dinner and when we left, he gave it back to them. Everyone who went there to eat knew of their rules. There are very few now that have those regulations.

The green chiffon dress made me feel like a princess and sometimes it is wonderful to dress up and feel that way. Drew said  happiness makes you pretty; that is true, but so does dressing up in a pretty dress and it need not come from an expensive store. It can be from anywhere that you can afford, and if that dress enables you to feel pretty as a princess, than, now and then, do it.  There is another saying that states “if truth and honesty are written across a woman’s face, she will be beautiful.”

Actually, both will make her pretty and beautiful.If you put on a lovely dress, it makes you feel so good and if you have truth, honesty and happiness, all of them combined, will even make you more beautiful. However, you can still be lovely wearing other clothing, the happiness and beauty comes from within your mind and beliefs.

I still look at the green chiffon dress and I know that the feeling I had way back in 1977 can be had anytime I desire it, even as a senior, active adult, because beauty comes from inner actions too and these happy thoughts shine on our faces.

The French Shoppe was a luxury and a fine one; but I can still attain those feelings even if I buy a dress from a catalogue, as it is easier now than shopping in person.  It is beauty which captures our attention, but as the saying goes, “it is personality which captures our hearts’’