Rafael Nadal's hungry bum

During the Wimbledon final on Sunday I'd estimate that my mother and I spent about three-quarters of the match discussing Rafael Nadal's bum. (My father maintained a dignified silence.) My mother's point was that surely a man with the wealth and profile of Rafael Nadal can afford to buy a pair of shorts or underpants that fits. I countered that Rafael Nadal has an unusually round, pert bottom that may be particularly, ah, hungry, as it were. My mother reiterated her original point. I said that perhaps Nadal, filled as he clearly is with nervous energy, plucks his bum as a kind of nervous tic, along with fiddling with his hairband and that cute little run he does to the baseline. He certainly does pluck his bum often enough - at least once before every point, just about, or say (with a guesstimate average of 6 points per game, 31 games in the match) about 186 times over the course of the match. Even more when he had to do a second serve.

I still love him. We've been over the Dogtanian thing, haven't we? My mother found time, in amongst the bum talk, to posit that he looks even more like Hong Kong Phooey:



Let's have a poll:

poll by twiigs.com

The Trouser Elections: results, plus Music Monday on a Tuesday on a Friday special

It's a hung wardrobe. Which means either a Lib-Lab pact (jeggings):



Or a Con-Lib pact (harem/legging hybrid - harging? Legem?):



The jeggings look a hell of a lot more appetising to me. But the people have spoken and what they have said is: Nick Clegg, we want to see you dressed like MC Hammer. But you didn't get enough votes, so I'm afraid you can't touch this. Stop! Cameron time.

I feel a song coming on. Not one by MC Hammer either. All together now: if you gotta run, run from hope!



As for me, I'll be in pyjamas. Wake me up in five years.

The General Election Is A lot Like Trousers

It's the UK general election today - well actually it isn't; I'm writing this the Sunday before, and right now I haven't even decided who to vote for yet. But it's the general election at the time of you reading this (assuming you read my blog the day it is published - what, there are people who don't?) so what better day than today to be writing about trousers?

When I was ill at the end of last year, I lost a lot of weight, and though I am slowly putting it back on, I am still too thin for the majority of my clothes from last summer. Tops are OK because they look fine loose, but my trousers won't stay up and are insanely baggy round the legs and bum when belted. I know I know, everybody wants to be thin and I shouldn't be complaining etc, but nobody talks you through how expensive buying a whole new weight-loss wardrobe is. And also what a nightmare it is when the entire world appears to have been taken over by TROUSER MADNESS.

Observe the insanity of the harem pant:



This, for those of you who have not been shopping for ladies' trousers recently, is the fashionable shape for trousers at the moment. Look at them. I mean, look at them. They are hideous. And not only hideous, but designed to make even a person who is currently clothes-shopping because she is too thin look hugely, disproportionately fat around the bum and thighs. I was hysterical with laughter when I finally gave in tried on a relatively un-extreme pair in Whistles and looked like a young pony-mad girl in a Thelwell cartoon:



I did not purchase them.

Your only other choices at the moment are jeans, leggings or linen trousers. Jeans are great. I love jeans. This is why I already have jeans. They are, however, a bit heavy for summer. Leggings can be fine, but they only really look tolerable with boots and a long top to hide what I will henceforth be calling the "Thelwell Area". And linen trousers look nice on the hanger but crease deeply and instantly across the crotch the moment you put them on. And that's basically it. Sure, there are a few other options around the lunatic fringes but I'm not sure that anyone alive can pull off the tracksuit-bottom-and-stilletos look and I'm not about to volunteer to try.

The general election is a lot like trousers. Yes, it is. It *is*. Labour are my old jeans, once much loved but gone a bit saggy and I'm not sure they're right for the current climate. The Lib Dems are the leggings and linen trousers, good in theory but I'm worried about how well they will suit me once I've bought them and taken them home. And the Tories, obviously, are the harem pants. Just because somebody's told you there's an eighties revival going on, that doesn't mean you have to buy into it. You will look back on yourself now and think WHAT IN THE NAME OF RUSSELL HARTY WAS I THINKING INVESTING IN THOSE.

But sadly, in the general election, I can't do what I've decided to do in the trouser department: give up and wear a skirt.

Strictlywatch 2009: Brucie Bonus

According to tonight's It Takes Two, this year's costume theme is not (as I guessed) prostitutes from Westerns, but 1970s and 1980s musicals.

Anybody spot that? Anybody?

Of course, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a 1980s musical so maybe they are just being coy. I mean, check out the trailer:



I think they actually did that bit where they rip off their balldresses to dance in their knickers in last week's pro dance.

(A longer, higher quality version of the trailer is available here.)

Strictlywatch 2009: Brucie Bonus

Erin's outfit. I forgot to mention it. The lime green coconut bra and matching feather bloomers. Sleep no more, Erin has murdered sleep therefore Marie shall sleep no more.

So Farewell Then, Andy Murray.

Your tenure as blog mascot was brief, yet brief. As a representative of all fair-weather tennis fans, I vow to completely forget that you exist unless you win a grand slam between now and this time next year, and then get all over-excited about your freckly chops and surly ways again for exactly one fortnight next June (less if excised early).

Now it's all about the ROD versus the FED. (Oh, and the WILLIAMS versus the WILLIAMS, but deja yawn.) I want to support the FED but I have serious trouble seeing past his monograms. Every time I want to get excited about his tennis I catch sight of a little RF on a sock / cufflink / gold-plated snot cap for his nostril, and it's really hard to focus on sport when you're trying to catch your own vomit in your hands. (Someone else's, no problem.) But then there's the ROD's cap. I know there are good reasons for wearing a hat out of doors, protecting your head bla sun in eyes bla bla nudge to All American fanbase bla, but it's such an unsexy garment, because not only is it horribly unflattering (on everybody, readers note), but also, all I can think of is the sweaty hair ridge when you take it off. *Shudder*. The FED would never risk a sweaty hair ridge. Not unless he could get his own head monogrammed in sweat.

Boringly, therefore, I will have to choose my allegiance based on the quality of play on the day. What kind of a way to follow sport is that?

Creeping Clothing Blight

As discussed (passim), I am an author, which involves much sitting around in my house by myself. Now, I don't want to ruin the image of authors, but it's fair to say that the clothing one might choose for sitting around the house is not quite the same as what one might choose for leaving the house and being seen by other humans. Essentially, if I am not going out, I tend to work in one of a selection of stretchy tracksuity type garments (cashmere in winter, cotton in summer), with one of those vests underneath that has the bra built in - so stylish! If the weather is really hot, I might wear a cotton smock, and if I am really lazy, I might just wear my pyjamas, and / or a dressing gown. When it's really cold, I have fingerless gloves to enable typing, and a little jacket that is essentially a cropped duvet with sleeves. Not directly relevant to writing, I also have a pair of Crocs, which I keep by the back door for when I need to nip out and water the garden. Bluntly, I look fucking dreadful in all of the above, but it doesn't matter, because the only people who see me in them are either peering nosily into my front window, or have come to the door because they are the postman, are selling me something, or are inviting me to join the a new religion. Happily, rarely all three at once.

Thing is, though, I should really not have used the present tense in the above paragraph. Because I am experiencing Creeping Clothing Blight. It started with the Crocs. First I wore them to water the plants at the front of the house as well - makes sense not to change shoes. Then I started going to yoga in them, because I am already looking shitty in my shitty yoga clothes, and also you have to take your shoes off at yoga and it doesn't take long to remove Crocs. Then I figured that if I was wearing them to yoga, which involves walking past all my local shops, there was no reason why I shouldn't wear them to go shopping as well.

This morning I had an optician's appointment in the highly chic optician at the corner of the extremely fashionable shopping street about twenty minutes' walk from my house. I'd had yoga that morning, and I thought to myself: well, there's no point getting changed. So I went in my yoga gear: frayed, and actually quite dirty, old tracksuit bottoms, so worn that the knees sag out, pulled up over shorts (waistband visible), pulled up over sporty underwear (waistband also visible), "secret" support vest, tatty hoodie that the flatmate I lived with six years ago nearly threw away before I rescued it from the bin, dirty yoga hair tied back, no make-up (ha! as if). I was, however, wearing Converse. Not Crocs. I am clinging to civilisation by my toenails, but can wandering the streets in a black bin liner, stapled to form sleeves, be far away?

(As an aside, I get far more attention from men when I go out dressed like a ropey old slattern. I don't know if I look like an easier target or if I am just deluded and this really is my more beautiful, au naturel self. Anybody who works in one of my local shops care to speculate?)

The Answer Should Be Crocs

But I think you get arrested for wearing them in Italy.

The Answer Is Not Wellies

I'm not sure what it is that compels me to tell you every time I go away what the weather's going to be and what I'm packing, and yet. Tomorrow, very early, I leave for Milan to promote the Italian edition of Gods behaving Badly. Weather forecast: extremely hot AND torrential rain. What shoes am I supposed to take for that, then? Eh? Eh? Eh?

Making Hay

Off to the Hay-on-Wye festival for the bank holiday weekend. Weather forecast: both sun and rain! Hurrah! I can pack a ridiculous amount of clothing I won't wear, including (does quick mental calculation) at least three pairs of shoes. That's three pairs of shoes, in order to sit in tents for three days listening to people talk about books. *Happy sigh*. I am planning to take my laptop with me, but only if there is room in my suitcase once I have packed the shoes. So there may be updates; or there may not be. It'll be an exciting surprise for us all.

Pointless addition to my bag this time: hairdryer.

This Week In Grazia

I have a(nother) stinking cold, which in my house means that I have permission to buy Grazia and read celebrity stories, such as the cover headline that sensationally reveals that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are back together, although the actual story in the magazine only sensationally reveals that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are not back together. I also get to find out what I'm supposed to be wearing this season, because really, I do not know. Right now I am wearing tracksuit bottoms, a jumper and some old cashmere socks. That's another thing having a cold means in my house.

Anyway, it turns out that I am supposed to be wearing this season is: jeggings. In other words, a cross between jeans and leggings. Skinny jeans are just too baggy, apparently. What you really want is denim that looks as though it has been spray-painted on. The piece comes with the following encouraging quote:

Denim guru Donna Ida says, "Jeggings flatter as they hug you in all the right places, and the high-waisted ones suck in the tummy."

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse - *high-waisted* jeggings? Could anything promise more hideousness? Jeans that are equally tight on your belly button as on your ankles! Meanwhile, the jeggings (the word doesn't get any less stupid with repetition) themselves are photographed without actual human beings inside them, and still manage to be unflatteringly fattening when worn by air. That's right: even nothing's bum looks big in jeggings. That's because they hug you in all the right places - and all the wrong places as well. And what does denim need a guru for anyway? Ladies: just say no to jeggings.

Three pages later, Grazia, as it does, has moved on from ensuring our compliant grotesquitude, and runs a piece on a 12-year-old Indian girl who has made a stand against forced marriage. It's the thinking woman's weekly, lest we forget. Unencumbered by any apparent sense of doubt in its reporting, Grazia cheerfully tells us:

While Rekha's parents at first reacted angrily, even refusing her water and food for several days, they eventually relented and now couldn't be prouder of their campaigning daughter.

Heartwarming stuff.

I can't quite figure out whether I need to never read Grazia again or buy it obsessively every week.

Gather up the news again, I'm back from New York

I'm back, and even my bleary jetlagged eyes can see that I have apparently only blogged about what I wore in New York and the arguments I had with subway operators. There were more arguments with subway operators, incidentally, but it just got too repetitive to log them all. Sometime around the penultimate one I noticed a small sign on the booth reading "Courteous Service Here". Would have taken a photo but feared it was forbidden and I would be punished with some kind of ritual decapitation.

I did do things other than argue with subway operators and get dressed, but I did do those things every day. (Wardrobe watchers: I returned having failed to wear two dresses and a top, and really I could have done without at least one of the cardigans.) I did remarkably little shopping (although my suitcase burst at the seams on the way home, which tells a different story) and I only went to one museum (the Guggenheim, stunning building but mostly shut) and one gallery (the fantastic Sophie Calle show at Paula Cooper) and rain for three days curtailed some of my walking around with my eyes open, and yet somehow I feel like I crammed full every minute with diverse sources of joy.

Will it be singing showtunes by the piano at the excellently-named gay bar Marie's Crisis that I look back on with most fondness? Will it be the jazz gig in an old woman's Harlem flat? Or perhaps the Lincoln Center's screening of an obscure 1934 Soviet musical farce, described with much accuracy by them as "part Marx, part Marx Brothers"? Will it be going to the birthday party of a Tom Cruise impersonator who had his own showreel projected onto a screen throughout, and who took time out from the cocktails and cake to show the bar the trailer of his new movie? (Surely he was lost - that sort of behaviour belongs in LA.) Will it be arguing (and winning the argument) with a ferociously patronising New York waitress ("I don't know how it works where *you* come from, but here if you put your knife and fork together it means you've finished")? Or will it be the simple joys of Coney Island on a Monday morning in torrential rain, where the only people around are moribund Russian waiters waiting for something - anything - to happen? Getting drunk on Mint Juleps and watching my horse lose the Kentucky Derby with a group of the preppiest men in history? Eating eggs over easy in an old Greek dive, served by a seventy-year-old waitress with drawn-on eyebrows? The vanful of cats? The Burger Parade (not a place, but a menu item)? The Bourgeois Pig (swine flu not included)? Shoegasm? Barney Greengrass, the Sturgeon King? Or just the discovery of the best bar on earth? (You think I'd tell? On a public website?)

New York City Wardrobe Watch: I have lost count of the days

Only here for two more days. I have worn everything aside from two dresses and a cardigan. And a top. I may have to get changed a lot before I go home.

Have started to believe that I live in New York. Arguments with subway superintendents a daily occurance. Latest was trying to buy a replacement for the Metrocard I lost: the credit card machine asked me to put in my zip code, I remonstrated with the superintendent that this was not possible (the machine's numeric only), she said with great boredom: Just make up a bunch of numbers. Eventually forced her to sell me one for cash. Her face spoke volumes of outrage.

Found myself getting irritable with stupid tourists trying to get into Guggenheim museum this morning as I swanned past with my yearly membership pass. Out of my way, peasants. I belong here. Oh hang on, that would be my friend's elderly landlady's yearly membership card. There is no photo.

Haven't decided what to do tonight yet. The doorman suggested going to the Intrepid. I imagine hidden locals-only bar. Google. It is naval museum.

Tomorrow I am wearing a dress.

New York City Wardrobe Watch: Day 3

Rain in New York. I misjudged and put on one of my chunky knits when I went out for the day, but it's warm and humid, thus I ended up far too hot and had to carry my coat most of the time. Don't see it getting any colder than this, and so must reluctantly register a FAIL for the cardigans. They were added as a last-minute impulse to an otherwise perfectly calibrated case: note to future self, ignore the impulse urge.

Meanwhile am experiencing a love-hate relationship with the New York subway. Points in favour: it's cheap. It's fast. It runs all night. It is air-conditioned - every time i get in to a busy carriage I brace myself for a London-style wave of fetid human bodyheat, but it's always blissfully cool. (Sadly not cool enough to justify the cardies though.)

Points against: it is totally beyond man or beast to understand. Particularly beast, I'd imagine, but basically there's a totally confusing map where it would appear that certain train lines all go the same way, BUT trains from different lines stop at different stations on the same trajectory, AND not all trains of the same line stop at all the stations on their line - it depends whether they are local or express. To further complicate matters, after a certain, non-defined, non-signposted time of night, some of the trains stop running and other express trains become local trains. You are supposed to know when this happens by some kind of New York ESP. Also, sometimes, without announcing it, they decide against doing this non-defined change, or they decide to do it but at a different time then usual, or do it, but then fox you by changing back. Result: I am becoming intimately acquainted with the subway stations of Harlem.

If that weren't enough, for some subway stations, there are separate entrances for the uptown / downtown platforms, and if you go in the wrong entrance you can't get to the other platform through the station, but nor can you exit the station using your Metrocard, cross the road and go in the other side. When I did this I had to be summoned and lectured by the subway superintendent, an utterly terrifying woman who gave me a long lecture about how I had to READ the SIGNS, and then who finally said that she would let me onto the correct platform "as a courtesy" but that I must NEVER DO IT AGAIN. She also informed me that if I *did* do it again, the mandatory amount of time that I had to wait before I was allowed onto the correct platform was 18 minutes. I would love to have been at the meeting where that was decided. 15 minutes not enough of a punishment; 20 too stringent.

I can't say I exactly miss the expensive, sweaty, early-closing tube, but somebody needs to sit the people in charge of the Subway here and have a long, firm talk about signposting.

New York City Wardrobe Watch: Day 2

A milestone has been reached. As last night I wore my flat sandals to dinner and then changed into my high-heeled sandals for Soho House, today I wore my flat boots, and tonight for drinks at the Bourgeois Pig I will be wearing my high-heeled boots, as of tonight I will have worn all four pairs of shoes that I brought with me, scoring a resounding WIN in the capsule wardrobe war. However, I have muddied the waters a bit by purchasing a new pair of red sandals in the excellent Shoegasm shoe shop on the edge of the Meatpacking District, and I'm not sure if that means I am obliged to wear them too. They are chic, comfortable and vintage-looking and they match my coat. My red coat, that is. Not the new brown coat that I also bought today.

Weather continues sunny and warm despite dire predictions of rain. This has permitted another enjoyable day of walking around New York with my eyes open, specifically Greenwich Village, Soho, the Meatpacking District and the Cast Iron district - an area of particularly spectacular architecture which we stumbled over by accident between one cafe which we couldn't find and another which we did find but wished we hadn't (we turned up our noses at it and headed instead for the peerless Cafe Gitane and the best chicken sandwich on human record.) I am hoping for at least one day of cold weather though: on the day we leave, because I am going to have to wear a hell of a lot of my clothes, and possibly two pairs of my shoes, if I am going to have any hope of closing my suitcase.

New York City Wardrobe Watch: Day 1

Day One: Jeans, Converse, blue knit long-sleeve top, coat. Weather: bright, sunny, warm. Wardrobe suitability: perfect.

As the weather forecast for the rest of the stay is by no means optimistic, today I have mostly been walking around Manhattan with my eyes open - both more enjoyable and less dangerous than walking around with my eyes shut. It's stunning - everything here is iconic, so I am staying in a bit that looks like Friends and spent the afternoon exploring a bit that's kind of Woody Allen and had lunch in a place so Seinfeld that Jerry Seinfeld actually eats there. It's called Barney Greengrass, "The Sturgeon King", and the smoked salmon bagel is the best I've ever had. Also the waiter the most flirtatious. We had a flirtatious waiter at Celeste, the excellent Italian restaurant we went to last night; all waiters flirt for tips, and we give them good tips because they flirt so well. It's like a more genteel version of what goes on in a strip joint, and the food is better. Since I would count as a Result any holiday where I spent a hefty percentage of my time eating good food and flirting with good waiters, I am feeling very pleased with my trip so far.

Tonight I am being taken for drinks to the roof of Soho House by a filmmaker who once had a publicity shot of himself completely nude save for a copy of an Ayn Rand novel (A Format, publishing fans) strategically placed. Will report back on whether I succeed in correctly pitching my wardrobe. If I follow his lead, I will need a trilogy. Paul Auster's New York Trilogy perhaps?

Start Spreadin' The News etc

Off to NYC. Suitcase mystifyingly less cooperative since I took out two t-shirts and replaced with two large knitted cardigans. Two items for two items, I don't get what its problem is. I am going to attempt to take my computer with me (we'll see if it fits in my handluggage - 50-50 chance I reckon) so keep your eye on the blog for transatlantic updates, notably on whether the half of the wardrobe that I am taking was the correct half or the half I should have left at home.

See you - with any luck - on the far side of the Atlantic.

Packing Hell

Off to New York tomorrow. Very exciting... except that the weather forecast is predicting every possible variety of weather. All kinds of heat and cold and sun and rain in every combination available. Which means: packing hell.

Yes, it's one of those trips where I need to take *all* my clothes. Warm weather clothes, cold weather clothes, day clothes, evening clothes, extra clothes for changing into when I've been out all day in the rain and got drenched, light coat, warm coat, and shoes - comfortable shoes, evening shoes, shoes for changing into when I've been out all day in the rain and got drenched, lighter shoes for unexpected days of nice weather when I don't feel like wearing waterlogged boots... I am already getting a second suitcase out of the attic.

I don't know when or why, but somewhere in my upbringing it was instilled in me that the highest of all human virtues is traveling light. I travelled round Australia for four months when I was 19 with two pairs of shorts, a pair of leggings and three tops, which made my backpack nice and easy to carry but left me with a set of holiday photographs I can't bear to look at. (The leggings especially: bad then, should not be back in fashion now.) I'm staying in the same place the whole time I'm in New York so all I need to do is to get there and leave my clothes, and then pack them again and bring them back, and as I alone am carrying my case - as, indeed my case(s) are on wheels, and therefore will barely have to be lifted at all - it really should not matter if I bring twice as many outfits as there are days that I'm going to be in town, and every pair of shoes that I own, except the Crocs which are only for Africa trips and gardening. It is nobody's business but my own. And yet, should that be the case (no pun intended) I would be filled with shame. A worthwhile human being should surely be able to fit all New York essentials into small jaunty handluggage bag, and still leave room for a laptop, three novels and a hairdryer. I have still not recovered from going skiing with a friend who managed to get her entire kit into her boot bag with her boots (skis, to be fair, not included).

Being a heavy packer in my mind equates with being some kind of indecisive, profligate floozy, the kind of person who can't answer the door to the postman without a full face of make-up and six-inch heels. I don't think that's the kind of person I am (my postman is highly familiar with my entire range of nightwear). I'm not even sure that kind of person exists outside of sexist rhetoric. So why do I feel that way just because I can't fit a week's clothing into a clutch purse?

I blame the concept fashion journalists have been trying to drum into us all these years: the capsule wardrobe. These are the same fashion journalists who insist that you can't wear the same shaped trouser for more than three months without becoming a social outcast (you're still in skinnies? Dear god in heaven! where are your harem pants?) and yet somehow they also unironically tell is that all we need in life - and in New York - are 'two pairs of trousers, a dress or a skirt for more formal occasions, a well-fitting jacket, a coat, a casual knitted jacket (or smart cardie) and two pairs of shoes - one pair of flats and one with a little heel'. That's a list I have just copied and pasted from Susie Faux, inventor of the capsule wardrobe. Faux means false, people. I think she is mocking us.

Still don't believe me? Here is a typically smug piece about capsule holiday packing from The Telegraph.

I recently went away for a long weekend with a small, half-empty case. I took a pair of black linen trousers, a pair of tailored stone cropped trousers, a handful of lightweight tops (cotton peasant tops for the day and slinky silk Lanvin and Marni tops for the evenings, which collectively packed down to the size of a washbag), one pair of gold Musa sandals for the evenings and flip-flops for the day.

Does anybody now not hate this person?

This is what I am currently thinking of taking to New York for one week:

One pair skinny jeans, one pair straight jeans, one pair cropped jeans, one skirt which can be worn with or without tights, two dresses which can be worn with or without tights, at least six tops (three smart, three casual), three jumpers which can be layered for different levels of warmth, coat, scarf, umbrella, one pair flat boots, one pair high heeled boots, one pair flat sandals in case of nice weather, one pair high heeled sandals for evening wear which can be worn with tights, pyjamas, and a vast mountain of pants, socks, tights and bras.

It's a capsule wardrobe. Nobody said anything about the size of the capsule.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

My dear friend Karen at Cinnamon Brainstorm did this fantastic bit of photomontage for me, so that now I am totally channeling Aretha. I have to say, when times are troubled, when the world looks bleak, the only way forward is to fix yourself up with a really fantastic hat. And if times aren't at all troubled and the world looks pretty good, just think (think!) how *even more* brilliant you'd feel in a hat like this!

Election thoughts, deep and shallow

Barack Obama's wonderful acceptance speech is both on video and transcribed here. Seriously, the man can talk. It actually made me a bit tearful, which isn't something I say about political speeches every day. And not only in a good way. I'm with John Cleese in Clockwise on this: it's not the despair, it's the hope, the terrible hope. It's hard not to see Obama as some kind of magic wand that will heal the whole world. He's so attractive and so charismatic and says all the right things. (I've learned to be wary of men like that.) And then there is the glorious optimism of all the people who voted for him, and in particular the culmination of the dreams of the civil rights movement and of black America. (Damn, am going to have to type fast, I am getting teary again.) But in the end he is just some bloke. And the USA and the world are in such a lousy state. The reason hope is so awful is that it's so high risk. The fear of disappointment is so great. Will we look back in four or eight years' time, disillusioned, wondering what all the fuss was about? I sincerely hope not.

And while we're on the subject of disappointment, can we just discuss this?

Oh Michelle, what were you thinking? The greatest moment of your husband's life and you choose a dress that combines to make you look pregnant and funereal and covered in blood all at once? I hate to say it but this looks as if you chose it just in case your husband was assassinated at the critical moment, so that it wouldn't show the stains.