Some fabrics are versatile. Others can quickly leap from fashionable to unsightly depending on the garment. One of the least forgiving fabrics on the market is denim. If you're paying attention to recent trends, denim is making a resurgence in many more places than jeans. The denim jacket is a risky move, but if done right it can come off pretty slick. That goes the same for the denim jumper. However, the denim dress may pass for cute in one of a hundred occasions. Mostly it's a deeply rooted southern style and a barren wasteland for beauty. It's Shania Twain meets Susie Homemaker meets Kevorkian. If you do decide to give it a shot though, here are a few things to avoid:
The Front Zipper. The type of guy you pick up with this dress has a fish hook clip on his hat, a can of Skoal Straight in his pocket and stops by the side of the road to shoot at animals. And probably black people. He calls the zipper his "hooker switch" and yells "The South will rise again!" when he climaxes. He also drinks Jack Daniels heavily and beats his wife, but you won't learn that for another six months.
Long Dress. You're basically admitting that your only skills involve operating the knobs on a washing machine and opening the oven door. There is not a dress on the planet more conservative looking than a denim long dress. It's the kind of dress you buy if you aren't allowed to interrupt a man at the dinner table. This is the 21st century. Women have real jobs and have learned how to read. You can go out in public, so you should probably start dressing like it.
Acid Wash. It looks like you made a bukakke film with the family livestock. I've seen ethnic cleansings that are more appealing than this dress. Chemically altered denim looks cheap. It barely made it past the 80s, crawled it's way through the 90s, and died on the doorstep of the new millennium.
Don't get me wrong, denim dresses can look good. They're an enigma, but a few girls will figure out how to pull it off. Sadly, in most cases the denim is too light or chemically treated, the cut is too wide, there are too many buttons or too long a zipper, unflattering seams, poor pocket placement and a myriad of other issues that take the look from city chic southern belle to shitty bleak southern hell.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect RVA Magazine editorial policy. Additionally, they are presented for humorous purposes, so don't take this shit too seriously.