I have a very southern friend from Louisiana who years ago introduced me to the concept of something she calls the “drink and pray dress.” Lots of people might call this a little black dress… and though an LBD often works well for what she is describing, a “drink and pray dress” isn’t just that. For one, it does not need to be black – AND... it is just as much for day as it is for evening. Drink and pray may seem like opposites, but the minute she said it, I totally understood what she was getting at. It is a dress you can wear both to church OR a cocktail party. And often, conveniently, those occasions take place one after another. Think:
Wedding (church > reception)
Funeral (church > reception)
Baptism (church > reception… if you are lucky)
But in reality, I find this kind of getup to be fantastic for a million more engagements. Let’s say you’ve been invited to speak in front of a crowd. Use your imagination… you’ve been named school chair… head of a fundraising initiative… an award recipient…(!). Maybe you are being interviewed for an apartment in the co-op of your dreams.
I think the true litmus test for a drink and pray dress is that it cannot be overly sexy. My friend’s implied advice in the naming is that you probably do not want to show up to a house of prayer in something meant to attract that kind of attention. Nothing wrong with a sexy dress in my book… I am just saying that you often find yourself needing a dress that is NOT that. “Appropriate” is perhaps a more boring way of putting this. But for me, her quick description says it all.
And a drink and pray dress is exactly what the Arielle is. A dress that Princess Grace of Monaco might wear… or, even better, Princess Grace before she was a princess and just Lisa in Rear Window… or really any female lead in a Hitchcock movie. (Okay, maybe with the exception of Psycho.) Simple, restrained, very womanly and grown up. Modern and of-the-moment, not frumpy. A true lady dress. A more modern image you might remember is a very red-lipped Kate Moss next to Johnny Depp at Cannes Film Festival. She is wearing a simple grey dress. She looks like a knockout.
I had a fantastic black shift just like this in the ‘80s (pictured in the polaroid below) that I’ve worn too many times to count. Crew neckline, sleeveless, cut above the knee, super simple and yet totally beautiful. I must have worn that thing to every cocktail party that would have me. Rehearsal dinners (including my own), weddings, funerals. I stayed out all night in that dress on more than one occasion and could have easily slipped into taking communion in it the next morning. I hate to say it but it worked really well with a cigarette in my hand. (Fortunately for my lungs, this was mostly a prop and only for a few years.) The point is, a drink and pray dress can be fun.
It is the kind of piece where the dress is so sensational that people will remember how great you looked, but they may not even be able to describe what you were wearing. (“I think it was blue?”) To me that is often the mark of something flawlessly executed. You are wearing the dress… the dress isn’t wearing you.
Of all the dresses in my closet that fit the bill, the Arielle is the one I want to wear right now. It has the same simple jewel neckline of my beloved black LBD (which was made by my friend David Cameron, who also designed my wedding dress).
This dress, in a beautiful petrol blue, it’s prim on top and kind of cool on the bottom. It has an engineered A-line skirt with two slits that sort of swish when you walk. Simple, but not too simple. Modern. And made with the modern-est of fabrics: a technical nylon faille that we love to use over and over again. To me, this material actually looks great with a little rumple and dimension to it. I wore it to a celebration dinner last week where I should have done a little less drinking and a little more praying.
We have made many dresses over the years that fulfill the famous “drink and pray” criteria… but this one — this one is truly IT. You need it, I promise.
