How to single women dress on their own?!

[Happilyobtuse]

I bought a dress to wear for an event. It is a black tie event and the dress is a gown with the zip at the back. I have just realised I have no way of getting dressed for this event and leaving the hotel without help from another person! The event is in a different city from where I live. Made me think, how do single women get dressed when designers keep putting zips at the back! I have a few dresses with zips at the side but the one I want to wear for this event has a zip at the back. I am totally stumped. If I was at home my husband or kids would help. Wise mumsnetters give me a suggestion! Please don’t say change the dress! I love this one!

Tie a shoe lace through the zipper tag. Then you can zip and unzip anything without help.

Then you've obviously never worn a VERY fitted bodycon dress.

Or 'how do women dress on their own?'
Marital status has nothing to do with this; single women may be supple or have gorgeous, dextrous boyfriend. Married women may have clumsy or absent husband.
Zip up from bottom until you can't any more, then reach between your shoulder blades and pull up.

This. It's really not that difficult. I have numerous dresses with long zips down the back.

If you really can't do it, look for a hotel employee in the corridors. I'm sure they've had weirder requests.

I’ve got a frozen shoulder and honestly if it wasn’t for Dh I wouldn’t be able to get dressed, barely manage with him helping some days 🙈

if there is a liitle hole in the top of the zip pull thread a long skinny shoe lace through it, pull the zip up as far as you can with your hand and then grab the shoe lace to yank the zip up to the top. I have done this and it works, don't forget to remove the shoe lace!

Newsflash: some of us have different proportions to you? My torso is disproportionately long and no matter how many exercises i do ive never been able to get enough mobility in my shoulders to reach that far. My arms aren't as long.

Get a grip.

When I went away without DH I would manage but if tricky would just ask first friend I met to pull the rest up.

Safety pin with ribbon attached. Or ask a random woman in reception (only a little bit embarrassing).

Oooooh bully for you!!!

Or maybe there are clothes out there in the universe that you haven’t personally worn 🙄

Reckon all the people smugly saying they’ve never had that much trouble putting on a dress aren’t that familiar with cocktail dresses. Have a couple of dolce ones that are impossible to do up solo.

Uber driver will usually do it for you OP 😀

I have hyper mobility and sub luxed my shoulder rolling over in bed two nights ago. Whilst I could do up my own zip it’s debatable whether I should 😆

The idea is to buy a beautiful tight dress with a side zip.
I have worn a few body con dresses, all with a side zip.

Obviously I'm not talking about people who have had life changing injuries ffs 🙄

Ask one of the staff or other guests at the hotel

You know that satin which is for coat hangers and gets in the way so cut it out. I keep those so have assorted colours and tie that in the zip tag bit to make it longer and easier to grasp

It has nothing to do with MY bar.

🙄

everything to do with your smug post.

You do realise that the OP asked? Directly asked how single women manage to get dressed? Some people are replying to her question saying they don't have a problem. It's not them being smug, it's you not reading/understanding the title and OP properly.

This. I don't think dresses are made that can't actually be zipped up by the wearer. Not high street ones, anyway.

Paper clip threaded into the zipper, long shoelace attached, pull shoelace when you get to the place where you can't manage without help.

Well lucky you.

I have a very long back and my arms aren't long enough to reach a zipper in the middle of my back. I can do it up to a certain point but my arms aren't long enough to reach down. There's about an inch gap.

I bought a gorgeous jumpsuit on Vinted in the summer. I knew it had a back zip but was going to do the coat hanger thing. However the zip tag doesn't have a hole in it. I got DH to do it up for me, it looked amazing on. Then I realised I could never go out in it because someone would have to do the zip for me every time I went to the loo. I'm going to take it to an alterations place to see if they can replace the zip but if they can't I'll resell it on Vinted.

That’s what I do. I have. Shoe lace on a safety pin!

All those people saying "just reach behind" - not everybody can. I have never been very flexible, even when I was young and thinnish. I have never been able to do the yoga phase a few people have mentioned where you join your hands at the back. I'm also not very flexible in the hips although that's not relevant to putting on dresses. My usual strategy is the put the dress on zipped up. When that's not possible, I usually ask a family member, but if I was away from home with no family members available, I don't think I'd be embarrassed to ask anyone, male or female, for help. It's a common problem.

Be aware that if it's that fitted you'll probably need help taking it off too. But it's a lovely dress - I hope you decide it's worth biting the bullet and asking someone.

Well FFS yourself, we're still 'people'

This, well apart from the first bit, I can understand some people’s bodies may not help out with this task.

I like the coat hanger suggestion, presumably a wire one? Do it as much as you can and ask staff to finish off on the way out or someone on arrival? Laugh it off, but then my concern is getting back out of it later?!