Nowhere Else to Wear This

A just because invitation is the only paperwork this party needs, because the occasion is the clothes. Guests arrive in the thing that has hung in a garment bag since the fitting: the beaded column, the velvet suit, the satin heels worn once across a carpet. Nobody is engaged. Nobody is turning anything. The hooks go up the back and the hierarchy is settled at the door.

The room itself stays modest. A cleared living room or a small hired hall, a tray of drinks, one lamp turned toward the hallway mirror because that is where the photographs happen. People stand longer than they would otherwise, on account of the boning. It turns around the second drink, when someone explains exactly what the dress was bought for and how long ago that was, and the room agrees it was worth keeping.