Well Hello Dolly
Not the life she imagined but the life made for her
My husband Andrew and I have recently taken on the task of clearing out his mother’s storage unit. Roby no longer has need or use for the cartons of fine china, boxes of shoes and purses, racks of designer clothing, or bags of vintage dresses. Over the past four years we’ve managed to sell off or donate most of the bulkier items — the dressers and chairs, the dining room table. There’s still a lot left. Enough to fill a small U-Haul. Our goal is to move enough of it out that we can set up a lower priced, smaller unit close to our house and save her the expense of renting the space.
Until then, we’ve turned our living room into a sort of staging area, bringing over car loads of clothing and sorting through it for anything that might be worth selling. We discovered that Roby’s collection of vintage 1970s to 1980s Diane Freis dresses have become popular again. Imagine the sort of outfits worn by the actresses on the set of Dynasty, Designing Women, or Dallas. Think shoulder pads, wild colors, and lots and lots of polyester. To better display these dresses, I ordered a mannequin on Amazon. Andrew named her Molly Mannequin, but I call her Dolly.
Dolly is easy to dress — pop off her head, slip her arms out of their sockets, and drape the dress over her torso. The first set of photos we put up on Ebay featured her smooth, bald head. Andrew suggested she wear a hat, but I didn’t have one that matched the outfits. Except for this one.
The hat, in my opinion, gave her a confused, wistful look. As though she couldn’t believe she had landed here.
In the second box of clothing we discovered an acrylic wig. This was better, it gave Dolly a more life-like appearance. The wig had seen better days. It also looked like it had seen some really bad days. Frizzled strands stuck up across the surface of the artificial hair, giving Dolly an urchin look. It fit, however, with the bohemian vibe of many of the dresses. I remembered a trick recommended to smooth out the fake tresses on dolls and I soaked Dolly’s hairpiece in fabric softener. It worked, but she still didn’t seem happy, despite having smooth locks.
Something about the racks of frilly clothing and the dressing and undressing of Dolly felt familiar. The clothes were unlike anything I would choose to wear. My wardrobe is made of t-shirts with catchy slogans and sweatpants with elastic waistbands. In another life, however, I could imagine strolling through a garden party or dancing under disco lights. Maybe plotting my revenge on J.R. Ewing or Blake Carrington.
Flipping through the rack, the soft ruffled skirts brushing against my hands — I couldn’t help but smile at some of the whimsical patterns. How fun it would be to dress in one of these. I understood the attraction, the desire to own them all. At last I realized why this felt so familiar. Hadn’t I done the same thing as a young girl?
It was with another fashion icon.
Writer in Texas trying to get the words out of her head and onto the page. View all posts by mstturpin
Originally published at http://terryeturpin.com on January 24, 2025.
