What We Wear Wednesdays: What Women Want

In this, "What Women Want," the fifth and final installment of What We Wear Wednesdays, I'll finally be discussing the thing that I was trying to say when I started writing about the question of performance attire.  How women dress in general is a major question and a huge industry.  How women dress for formal occasions is even bigger.

I have already bemoaned the wedding gown as an aberration from the old, standard, traditional rules of dress.  The wedding gown is most women's only chance, besides a prom dress, to dress truly formally.  And prom dresses are wasted on eighteen-year-olds who are more interested in a dress that reinforces their identity than actually wearing a gown that is a well-made piece of formalwear.  Prom dresses are made to be disposable, and they make me kind of sad.  It also makes me sad to see wedding gowns going the same way.  Young women, especially, in the final throes of adolescence, tend to put a lot of stock in their wedding gowns as expressions of their identity rather than something pretty that flatters their figures and is a nice article of clothing to wear on a special occasion.  This isn't taking over weddings yet, but all those bride shows on t.v. seem to be exploiting this trend.  It worries me.

Anyway.

For those of us who perform, formal attire is part of our wardrobe, not a once-in-a-lifetime concern. Being such, it has sparked some conversation.  My friend Allegra and I have been discussing this for years, and here, at last, is the conversation we've always threatened to have.  What should a woman conductor wear?

I'll just say here that I object to women in tuxedos.  I think it's a sop to old school feminism where women have to be masculine to appear professional and powerful.  Since it's not 1983 any more, I won't wear trousers as formal wear.  I prefer the traditional nature of skirts; and, I like to think my femininity is, itself, professional and authoritative.

All these strong opinions mean I need to put my money where my blog is.

Oy.

History of my wardrobe choices for occasions black tie and up.

1995: my prom dress--the black empire style with silver beads.  It was from Goodwill and cost, I believe, $7.  (My sister is in green.  The pose is a very long story, kind of a family joke.)

Another real-life formal dress.  When I was a bridesmaid, I bought a cocktail dress from Ann Taylor I actually could wear again.  On sale, of course.  Magically, it matched the bride's chosen David's Bridal "Apple Red" exactly and has the benefit of being made of silk instead of the stiff polyester of all the David's Bridal options.  I wore again it at Christmas for church, and I've conducted a performance in it with a fitted black cashmere cardigan over top.

On to some performance attire.  2005, in grad school, when performance attire for the choir was "jewel tone gown," I got a prom dress--cheap to suit a grad school budget.  The poverty of a professional artist is another barrier to quality performance attire.  Ironic.  And, last year, when the requirement was "all black," and it was a summer matinee, I wore a black cotton maxi dress.  I'm so glad they're trendy now.

 

Neither of these is conducting attire, though.  What do all of the above have in common?  No sleeves!  Have you ever tried to find a formal dress with sleeves that actually looks like someone under sixty would wear it?  Usually, all you get are grandmother-of-the-bride-looking boxy beaded jackets over frumpy polyester.  Yuck.

My first solution was, like the cardigan over the bridesmaid dress, a beaded chiffon bolero over a sleeveless black taffeta gown that was already in my closet.  I think it worked pretty well.  Pretty high-end black tie, leaning towards white tie because my compatriot conductor was in tails.

Last year, I bought a white-tie gown.  A real one.  Silk lined in silk.  The picture below doesn't look as good as it does in real life--the seamstress took it in her shop while I was trying it on to make sure the hem was the right length, very amused and telling me to pose when she discovered I was a conductor.  Also, she had tucked up the portrait collar type wrap-across thingy to experiment with being able to move my arms best.  I decided later that it was better with the collar all the way out, which is more flattering and didn't reduce the movement at all. 

Anyway.  

Sorry the picture stinks, but it lets you know the basics: it's a real gown, made well enough to be seen by grown-ups at close range and not look like a costume, it has sleeves and a floor-length skirt (shoe-length, according to the seamstress, but we'll call it floor-length) that's not poofy, and both the skirt and bodice have tailored construction.  Nothing flowy or billowy.  These were the main requirements.

Last Christmas, I wore a black velvet top with long sleeves and a floor-length chiffon skirt.  This is not a white-tie outfit, but as you can see, the men in the choir are wearing sport coats and grey dress slacks, so according to the rules, I only need to be in black tie.  Plus, it was a 3 p.m. performance, so I barely needed that.  Another crappy picture, sorry.  But you get the idea.

And that's all I've got.  

Whew.  

So, I do not want a flowy, shapeless dress.  Nor do I want a suit.  I want a feminine, structured, flattering dress with sleeves.  And so, here's what it's like to shop for one:

After eliminating everything without sleeves and anything that has major structural elements that are simply not flattering on my particular body (high necklines, trumpet skirts, etc.), I get a list of dresses that are ugly, matronly, dated, frumpy, boring, cheap-looking, impractical, very impractical, or too expensive. 

And then, eventually, there's one.  

It's feminine, structured, flattering.  It has sleeves.  It's not made of a natural fiber, but it's on sale!!!  And they only have it in sizes 2 and 4.  If you sew a 2 and a 4 together, I might be able to get one leg into it...

*sigh*

What women want: apparently, the impossible.