SEASON ONE, ISSUE ONE: With This Dress…
In this first issue of the LOOKBOOK series, we learn of Lyla’s decision to end her engagement to Michael, her boyfriend of seven years. Reflecting upon “the perfect dress for a perfect day that didn’t happen,” Lyla sees the intersection of her career and the boundaries of tradition at a pivotal time in her life when she has discovered the power of feminine confidence and daring.
With This Dress introduces Lyla’s story as a preface to her modern female experience, a reflection on her personal style, pivotal decisions, and understanding of herself in the face of the unexpected.
I would have been wearing this dress one year ago had I chosen differently. Had I gone with the flow. Had I been weaker, stronger, less selfish, more giving, willing to settle for something that was, more or less, less. I abandoned security for something far greater. The freedom to do as I choose.
Most people do not understand my decision. They give it much more credence than it deserves. So what? I chose not to marry Mr. Not Quite Right. I gave myself a chance. I was 29 years old and I changed the course of my life. They might say “poor girl” or “where did she get the guts” or something from the perimeter that seems right but somehow misses the mark. It does not take guts to leave a situation you are in. It takes curiosity. Sometimes, if not always, you have to experience what you don’t want to discover what you might. It’s an unstable science, but it is true in some spiritual sense of trial and error. Seven years of my life were sacrificed for the sake of the trial of my heart, and that was my only error.
A promise is a tricky thing linked to expectation. Promises shadow other promises.
She cradles the Reem Acra gown and realizes the dress feel heavier feels heavier in her arms than the decision weighs in her heart. Her choice has great magnitude but does not weigh her down.
She is free of him. of commitment, of inevitable regret, of hollow duty, and sometimes, even expectation.