Why occasional dressing doesn’t suit everyone

Lauren Bravo writes: Poor Chloe Sevigny. She turns out at the Golden Globes in a cascade of silk ruffles, looking every inch the fashion-forward Hollywood star. She wins Best Actress in a TV Drama for her role in Big Love.

She makes her way to the stage, full of poise and old-world glamour, in front of an admiring audience of industry names. And then, at the last vital moment, Rrrrriiiiiiiiiip! Some git tears half her dress off. Thus we learn the first rule of occasion dressing: whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Especially if you’re on camera.

I felt for Chloe, particularly as I’ve experienced her wardrobe malfunction myself. Admittedly mine occurred at my high school prom, not in front of the Hollywood Foreign Press and a million television viewers, but it was still traumatic.

I spent £150 on a chiffony creation from Monsoon, the kind you picture yourself being proposed to in, then promptly put my heel through the hem as I got out of the car in the school drive. To add insult to embarrassment, it was quickly revealed that three other girls had turned up in the same dress – but hey, I was the only one with a gaping hole…

Some girls thrive on occasion dressing. They’re usually, as it happens, the girls who keep it low-key the rest of the time. The jeans-and-jumpers girls. All year it’s sensible coats, denim and comfy separates, then at the whiff of an invitation, ooh, out come lithe limbs poured into something slinky, satiny and elegant. They glide around, part Audrey Hepburn, part Disney Princess, and the impact is made all the more striking by its contrast to their usual appearance.

They don’t spill, their make-up doesn’t smudge, their underwear doesn’t show, and they don’t go all scarlet and drippy after a turn on the dancefloor. They are the girls formal events are designed for. I am not one of these girls.

No, I realised many, many years ago that I can’t do occasion dressing. Other people will be watching awards season with joy, cooing at the dresses and the flawless red carpet elegance, but I will spend it shouting “HOW? How are you DOING that??” at a variety of magazine spreads. And yet, every time an occasion presents itself, I still have a brief moment of delusion. “Maybe this time”, I think, “I’ll pull it off. I’ll find something classy, and I’ll look classy in it, and I’ll still be feeling classy when they carry me out of the marquee at 4am.”

It’s not an aversion to dressing up, you understand – In fact I have a tendency to be chronically overdressed for everyday life. I will wear sequins to the pub, cocktail dresses to family barbecues and stilettos to Tesco. But give me a bonafide ooccasion, something that actually demands a bit of sartorial effort, and I go to pieces. I become a one-woman style disaster zone.

The routine generally goes something like this: I won’t be able to find/afford/fit into a suitable dress. So I will spend three weeks in a consumer frenzy, then the day before buy something a size too small, in a colour I hate, that accommodates no bra known to man. I will then attempt something radical with my hair, which will go wrong, requiring me to obliterate the whole thing with straighteners, then wet it to stop it looking too straight, then straighten it to stop it looking too wet.

After a week on grapes and green tea I will crack, eat a burrito, and not be able to do the zip up on the too-small-anyway dress. After half an hour of flatmate-assisted zip warfare I will finally be assembled, but sweaty from effort, which will then demand another hair re-straighten. I will top off the look with a pair of shoes that cripple me, a massive bag with my alternative flat shoes in it, and a coat that doesn’t go. One of my false eyelashes will come unstuck on the bus. I will appear in at least 170 photos in the act of hitching up my dress, then spill kebab juice down it on the way home. That, ladies, is how I do occasion dressing.

So I hope Ms Sevigny wasn’t too distraught after her fashion faux-pas. After all, there’s nothing like a big shiny award to distract from a dress disaster – if I can somehow get myself nominated fro a Brit, maybe that will be my next trick.