Liz Taylor Didn't, Either

I always thought I would get married in the dress, and now I'm selling it.

Soon after my 19th birthday, I moved to Toronto. I lived with three guys from my hometown who were attending theatre school in the city. We lived in a huge, but run-down apartment in the west end, in an area that to this day remains untouched by the gentrification that has swept through most of the other neighbourhoods it adjoins.

Because I was a late-addition housemate, I got the worst and smallest room. It was located in the middle of the apartment, had floor-to-ceiling wood panelling, and its only window was located above the door and opened into the hallway. When I moved out, my former roommates began saving their 2litre pop bottles, eventually filling the room to waist height. They would spend evenings hot boxing the tiny room then rolling around amongst the empty bottles as though it were the adult version of the ball room at IKEA. At first pass, it seems like a fun and interesting thing to do, but upon reflection, I suspect that it did little to help the substantial cockroach and mouse problems we experienced in the apartment.

Our downstairs neighbours were recent musical theatre school grads, and all three were servers. At some point, I loaned a pair of jeans to one of the guys for his first shift at the Golden Griddle. After a couple of wears, he became obsessed with the notion that my $30 Bluenotes jeans were "magic pants", and insisted that I take something of his in exchange. On a Saturday night, drinking a coffee mug of wine poured from a box, I sat in the basement apartment while he rifled through his closet. Eventually, he presented me with a cream angora tank dress with hand-beading and sequins, also in cream. It had been the dress he'd worn for his final recital (in drag, clearly) and had cost a fortune, but he HAD to have my jeans. He'd become superstitious about them by this point, and was convinced that he wouldn't make his rent if he had to give the pants back. I accepted the dress.

I've only worn it once--just a few weeks after the trade, we had a hallowe'en party. I had nothing to wear, and was completely broke. So I put on the dress with a pair of hiking boots. (It was the 90s. I'm not going to say that it worked, but it was less unusual than it might seem.)

I never wore the dress again, but have always somehow believed that I would be married in it. It's gorgeous, like something Elizabeth Taylor might have worn in the early 60s. It would have needed substantial alterations to work on me, being sized to fit a 6'2 man, but still. It is an incredible dress.

But I must part with it. I need the money. I'm as broke now as I was then (which was, coincidentally, the last time I worked in a mall until now, but I'll save that for later). There is no other place to wear a cream, hand-beaded sequin tank dress EXCEPT your own wedding. Considering that I've long been indifferent at best on the subject of marriage, it makes little to no sense to hold onto this dress.

So, after holding onto the dress for 15 years, it's going to go. I need the money, and I need the space in my closet.

For the vintage Armani I've always known I'll be buried in.