A Prom Dress, A Past Life
Right dress, wrong time? Plus client wins.
Often, we have a vision for how certain life events should look–or how we should look when they occur. Some visions, of course, are more realistic than others.
For my senior prom, I was desperate for a cerulean blue silk-and-chiffon Chloé dress that had initially debuted in the French fashion house’s 2005 spring-summer collection. The dress’s price tag–probably around $3,000–wasn’t its only prohibitive quality. Like the other clothes produced by Chloé, this gossamer dress was so delicate and dainty that it looked difficult to wear.
Founded in 1952 by French Jew Gaby Aghion and overseen in the early 2000s by British fashion-design wunderkind Phoebe Philo, Chloé has long been known for flowing fabrics and demure, girlish cuts.
For whatever reason, this dress did not appear in the collection’s runway show. Other graceful blue dresses were featured. Yet I could think of this dress—and only this dress—from the moment I first laid eyes on it. I don’t know why, but this dress just spoke to me.
A Chloé ad from this time depicted a young woman, bronzed and lithe and happy-looking, wearing my dress on the beach while holding a pink conch shell. The blue of the dress matched the blue of the sky and the ocean; the whole scene felt so blissful and tranquil.
I knew about Chloé because as a child I wanted to be a fashion designer. I was eventually talked out of this idea by my high-school government teacher, who told me that I would find the fashion world anti-intellectual and boring. I don’t know what a man who purchased all his clothes from Costco was doing lecturing me about fashion, but I took his advice and abandoned the idea.
After briefly considering a copycat dress from China, I knew I couldn’t stand to wear a forgery. Surrendering my dream dress idea, I drove to the nearby King of Prussia Mall and found an attractive alternative–a long, shimmery silver gown with a beaded halter neckline. It is a cool dress–it still hangs in a closet at my parents’ house and I could see myself wearing it again one day for kicks. But it wasn’t my blue Chloé dress, and the loss silently weighed on me. The silver one felt more appropriate, more expected, but we want what we want, even when we don’t know why.
That afternoon, the store where I purchased the silver dress felt peaceful and luxurious. Sunlight from the mall’s glass ceilings shone into the showroom. As she rang me up, the cashier–I presumed that she was a mom of kids my age or older–stopped and stared at me.
“You have a quiet spirit,” she told me in a very certain tone. I didn’t know what to say but I thanked her for the dress and left.
In high school moms were always making authoritative-sounding observations of me and my friends. One friend’s mother was chronically grinding my gears, and she seemed blithely unaware of how much she annoyed me. She was always commenting on my probable future, and she once predicted the exact age at which, she told me, I would certainly get married.
Anyway, it’s funny how old desires don’t go away. I never forgot about my blue Chloé dress. Every few years I would look for the original online. Eventually in 2021, I found one. When it arrived several weeks later from a French seller in a bright yellow DHL package, the dress was in excellent, nearly new condition. I couldn’t believe it.
So, what is it like to finally get what you want?
For starters, the bodice was too small. I took it to a tailor known for working miracles. We examined the dress together as if looking at a patient on an operating table. The tailors told me that they could potentially add a back panel, but they made no promises.
They sent me to the Fashion District to get fabric. Wading through enormous bolts of silk and chiffon in those dour, gritty warehouses, I felt relief that I had never become a fashion designer. Sometimes adults give good advice after all.
The dress’s overlay has a unique crinkled texture, and there were only a few options in the blue family. I chose a deep navy instead of attempting to match the colors perfectly. My choice led to a vaguely tense conversation during which I explained that this dress had taken a very long time to find its way to me. Its provenance was unusual and it was okay for the dress’s back to reflect its unique journey; there was no reason to hide it. The tailors reluctantly made the alteration; the operation was a success.
In life, we must constantly make imperfect decisions from a place of uncertainty and ambivalence. It is a relief to encounter something or someone and know immediately in your gut: “Yes, I want that.”
If this dress had a theme it would certainly be “beach formal,” and I recently wore it to my cousin’s wedding on the Jersey Shore. The dress is diaphanous and Grecian–doing anything from walking to dancing lends it an incredible, flowing movement. And it’s got that legendary Chloé tag inside the lining.
But this dress demands things of me. It is unyielding in places. The waistline has absolutely no give, despite appearances. Wearing it requires fashion tape, extra pins, a double-check in the mirror. The bodice contains boning that cuts into my torso. Beauty is painful, my mother has always told me somewhat ironically, and it’s true. This dress insists upon its pound of flesh–literally. Gaining or losing just a few pounds, which women often do, noticeably impacts how the dress fits on me.
At the wedding I found myself looking longingly at the women who had worn more forgiving outfits. Their dresses weren’t making them suffer.
Yet there’s a real satisfaction, I have to say, in following through on your desires. It feels good to have done something truthful, to have acted on such an honest, primal gut instinct. For whatever reason I had to have this dress, and I got it.
It’s impossible to know why certain things–and people–evince such strong feelings in us, for seemingly no reason. The film Past Lives (2023), a breakout success, explores this idea–of the things you want and the choices you make–through the concept of in-yun. In-yun in Korean describes the idea of pre-destined relationships, particularly romantic ones.
Nora is the film’s protagonist. She is a Korean immigrant first to Canada then to Manhattan, and we find her following her dream of becoming a writer. While in New York City, Nora gets back in touch with her childhood best friend Hae Sung, who is still in Korea. When they reconnect they both say, “It doesn't make any sense, but I missed you.” Their connection is deeply intimate and loving, and they talk constantly despite their wildly different time zones. Yet Hae Sung won’t come to New York. As Nora tells him, she has immigrated twice–she’s not going backwards. When he won’t commit to seeing her, a pained Nora ends the relationship.
Nora swiftly rebounds with Arthur, an American whom she meets at a writers’ residency. Years later we learn that they have married. Telling Arthur about in-yun, Nora explains, “If two people get married, they say it’s because there have been 8,000 layers of in-yun over 8,000 lifetimes.” A clearly-smitten Arthur asks her if their relationship counts as in-yun. Surely it must, if cosmic forces have brought them together. Nora evades the question and shakes her head no, saying, “That’s just something Koreans say to seduce someone.”
Nora has clearly put away her old desires. Yet years later, Hae Sung finally comes to New York City. His visit reopens not just Nora’s old wounds but an intensity of love and romantic longing that she had emotionally hidden away. It becomes obvious to Arthur that Nora has been vastly underplaying her feelings for her childhood friend. When Arthur confronts her and asks whether their marriage is one of true love or simple practicality, Nora gives the unconvincing answer: “This is where we ended up. This is where I’m supposed to be.”
You may ask how Nora could survive with this unprocessed, unrealized desire for so many years. How could she live like that? Yet people do it all the time, and the movie’s ability to make this point sensitively is part of its brilliance.
People think they get away with ignoring their instincts. An in-denial Nora tells Hae Sung, “Getting married is hard for idealistic people like you.” Arthur gives Nora a steadiness, an emotional reliability, and a literal place to call home. By contrast, the handsome Hae Sung is moody and commitment-phobic. His English sucks. A life with Hae Sung would be emotionally challenging. But there is a truthfulness to the depth of her feelings for Hae Sung that eventually even Nora can no longer ignore.
Who knows why we fall in love. Sometimes I think it happens because some external “Other”–a dress, a person, a place–has broken open something inside ourselves that was previously unseen and unexpressed. We are being witnessed when we fall in love.
My Chloé dress is a handful, and I’m not even sure it’s that flattering. I don’t know if it “does anything for me,” as my dad would say. But if I could describe this dress in one sentence, I would honestly say: It has a quiet spirit. For reasons I don’t understand, I must have wanted to express that part of myself all this time. A random stranger in the mall could sense that desire in me, many years before I could.
It’s so annoying when moms are right. See more photos of my dress on my Instagram. (Outfit and model sold separately.)
Rabbi Hyim Shafner (Washington, D.C.) writing in the Jerusalem Post about the importance of moderation in politics
Rabbi Dvir Cahana (Miami, Florida) performing at the 2024 Sababa Fest and formally joining Base Hillel Miami with his wife Shalhevet Cahana
