This is it. Gulp. Well, almost it. So nearly it that it feels like it. I’m back at Nooshin’s studio in Savile Row for my last fitting of The Dress. It’s the real thing, in the fabric I chose and everything so surely that counts as ‘it’, doesn’t it? The only way in which it’s not it is that the seams are open to allow for any final changes. But I don’t really understand what that means so in my book, this is it.
What if I hate it? What if in the intervening fortnight I somehow put on two stones in weight which is only just about to become apparent? What if it’s just not what I imagined?
I arrive and Nooshin is beaming. A smile of confidence which says that she thinks The Dress is looking pretty darn good and that I’ll love it. As she holds it up for me I can see that it’s gorgeous, even though it seems rough and unfinished. A little like seeing someone whose plastic surgery op hasn’t quite healed yet but you can tell that when it has the results are going to be knock-out.
I get into the dress and it feels like a dream. Fellas are very fond of saying that a bespoke suit feels wholly different to one off the peg but now I know what they mean. It fits! Like, really fits. No lumpy, bumpy or baggy bits. It fits – and I realise I’ve never before owned anything which really does.
I feel so good in The Dress that I can’t quite focus on the tweaks that Nooshin is making to it around me. I can’t see that anything needs to change at all but I suppose that’s why she’s a tailor and I’m, well, not. Reluctantly I take the dress off. It will now go for finishing and then it really, truly and finally will be My Dress.
In case you missed them, read parts one and two of The Dress.
