I shop at all the “fine” fashion houses of south Austin: Costco, Sam’s Club, Academy Sports + Outdoors, Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shops. (The last two are actually south of south Austin: Buda and San Antonio, respectively.) Recently I branched out and while on a day-trip, bought a clothing article from the Wildseed Farms in Fredericksburg, Texas. Just one wild and crazy fashionista, eh?

The days of schlepping through the mall, store after store, for an entire day are long gone. I can’t even remember them, they are so long gone. Convenience is the main consideration when it comes to clothes shopping, now. I’d buy shirts from my local grocery store, HEB, but they never have anything in my size. (Fortunately for me, probably.)

Imagine my surprise when I discovered a dress I used to own was in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York! Turns out my dress was designed by Yves Saint Laurent for the fall/winter collection of 1965-1966.

Yves Saint Laurent dress at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

I came across “my” dress on the museum’s Artwork of the Day selection and recognized it immediately. I can still remember seeing the dress in the store all those years ago. But really, a designer dress in my closet?

No. Not then, not now, and shall I say, not ever. I have nothing against designer clothes, of course, except for the prices.

I also vaguely remember the time frame when I bought the dress: 1970 or 1971. As the dress was designed in 1965, it seems to have taken a few years for knockoffs to make it to my neighborhood store in El Paso. This dress may be the only proof that I was ever fashionable, even though by the time I wore it, I was fashionably late.