Friend’s awful dress and my reaction

[SummerFate]

A friend is mine is quite heavily into fashion and spends a lot on clothes. Some of her choices are quite bold and not necessarily what I would pick, but she has a good figure and is quite distinctive looking, so can generally pull off something a bit more “out there”.

However, yesterday she showed me the dress she has spent a fortune on for an event - and it’s hideous. Not “not to my taste” - objectively hideous. And my face reacted before my brain could tell it to keep quiet.

She could tell immediately that I thought it was awful and she looked really upset. She said straight out, “You hate it, don’t you?”, and while I tried to say it just wasn’t my personal cup of tea, it was too late. It was obvious I hated it. I said we all have different tastes, what suits her wouldn’t suit me and that I’ve seen things look amazing on her that I could never wear, but the rest of the evening was really awkward.

I’ve messaged this morning saying I’m sorry if I upset her and that I didn’t mean to, and that she shouldn’t let what I think affect her choice. She hasn’t replied.

How do I fix this? Do I just hope it blows over? I know I should have tried to hide my thoughts, but when she said she’d spent twice what I pay a month for my mortgage, I was expecting something amazing - I just couldn’t hide my reaction when I saw this monstrosity.

Agreed, that’s objectively hideous.

she was shocked at the hideous dress. I love friends that are honest but then again I only have friends that are honest because there is no point to people that aren't
said friend should probably show her terrible clothes to other people that will lie to her.

so do i and i wouldn't be shocked about other people not liking it. or upset at their reaction - because i wouldn't care what they thought... after all, I don't have to look at it and don't care if it offends their eyes :)

This thread is insane. I can't believe the amount of vile posts on here!

In regards to your friend, OP you did nothing wrong, taste is relative and your friend needs a bit of a thicker skin if she's going to wear clothes that are so 'out there', all that matters is that SHE likes it, the fact that your face showed that you did not like it is pretty irrelevant. I think your message to her was fine, hopefully she moves on from it. Good luck!

She will get over it! Not a big deal, nothing wrong with being honest about a dress!!

How was it unexpected as you’ve said a lot of her clothes are “out there” and not to your taste.You must have known it might be something unusual

I'm team OP. With the best intentions I couldn't have kept a straight face if someone held that thing up to me.

OP, hope it blows over. And maybe it looks better on her than on the hanger...

My guess is this story is true except the picture of the dress, I think the poster deliberately searched for a dress that she thought to be most hideous so that it would get people talking on here like it has.
Whether the poster has done it out of boredom or not other members have certainly fallen for the bait, bet the poster is having a right laugh.

But you are the one being rude here?!!

I think you are over thinking this, and you made a comment earlier about playground behaviour?! Practice what you preach.

It’s not ugly, nasty coloured, too revealing or bad!
I don’t know at all what it’s trying to say?
For all the ruffles, it actually leaves me feeling quite flat!

I'm the friend (metaphorically) in this scenario and I think you've done nothing wrong OP. I regularly get looks of barely veiled horror when I show my latest fashion purchases to close friends and family.

I'm almost disappointed when they say they quite like something! My choices are definitely "out there" sometimes but people do often concede that I pull (most of) it off.

I think your friend was unreasonable to expect anything but strong reactions to that dress to be fair. Personally, I think it's a little bit fabulous but it's definitely not for everyone. I couldn't pull it off sadly - I'm too busty/hourglass but if I had a more androgynous body type, I'd absolutely go for it.

Personal style for me is just that - personal. I'd much rather have half the room hate what I'm wearing than be wearing the same thing as most of the room!

This is one of the more bonkers threads and not because of @SummerFate

If you ask for an opinion, get it, and don’t like it, that’s for you to deal with.

And OP didn’t even SAY anything.

Whether or not you like the dress, it’s bold and unusual and clearly designed to pass remark - it’s not one that anyone will give a bland ‘oh that’s nice’ to.

And I note some of the posters denigrating OPs character are the usual suspects who take a strident opposing opinion and run wild. And then call her snippy for defending herself.

’Cowardly’ was a particular highlight.

I have often heard the phrase “I spat my tea out reading your comment “ and thought “yeah course you did” but I was drinking tea, read what you wrote and did actually spit my tea out!!🤣
Absolute genius comment 🤣🤣🤣

It’s entirely possibly to ‘not like’ something and not think it’s hideous.

@InfrequentPropolis

’aggressively flammable’ is 👩‍🍳 😘

The point some of us were trying to make wasn't about OP or the dress or her reaction. It was simply that if her main concern was this:

How do I fix this? Do I just hope it blows over?

Then, posting the dress for pages and pages of mockery was not going to solve the problem and might, in fact, exacerbate it. It's clear, however, that the OP forgot she was trying to repair the friendship and immediately went on to attack anyone making that suggestion.

And I suggest that people do see all for the OP's posts. She seems to have forgot that she ever had the slightest concern about her friend's feelings.

I suspect it's all made up anyway.

A perfectly valid point which was made and then very quickly moved to personal attacks.

Bless you another bored mummy looking out for arguments. Not getting one out of me I’m afraid.
Cheerio!

I don't like the dress at all but it is by no means the worst! Have a look at Maggie Weber on Facebook, she is very funny about truly hideous (and often very very expensive) clothes.

I have an extremely ‘way out’ way of dressing and with my friends , when I appear in the day or nights outfit they say ‘what the fuck are you wearing ?’ And I take no offence at all! In fact I consider it mission accomplished, so to speak! Saying that, we all, as a group have a lot of laughs and don’t take life to seriously , so it depends if she’s like this or not . I think if you are going to dress in odd clothes you have to own it and expect comments. I would absolutely wear that dress with colour clashing tights and massive platform boots, but would also expect to make my friends laugh when they see me , if that makes sense ?

The thing is, if you select 'see all', you'll see that quite a lot of the OP's posts are deleted, where she was attacking people for making fairly gentle points about that. Towards the end, she ramps up again, but if you read those, I think you can imagine the earlier ones that were deleted.

Not really. I’ve had posts deleted because I’ve said ‘oh fuck off you twit’ when the extremely offensive post directed at me I replied to remains standing.

There’s a strange viewpoint here that is someone decides to ‘take you to task’ you’re supposed to meekly accept it and withdraw.

Plenty of posts have disagreed without attacking her.

Op you could be me. I’m the same my face “speaks” before my brain gets into gear and people see the look on my face. Of course it’s too late then because they know how I really feel.
Dont beat yourself up. So you didn’t like the dress!
We can’t like everything our friends wear and after all it’s just an opinion. I like some things and others don’t.
When I was younger and bought things, I’d ask my Ddad if he liked it. He would never say yes or no. He would always throw it back at me and ask, “do YOU like it?” Well I’d say of course I like it otherwise i wouldn’t have bought it would I?
To which he would answer “ well that’s all that matters!”
He taught me that I didn’t need validation from anyone on the things I wear.
my Ddad passed away a lot of years ago but he taught me the confidence in myself to not care what others think and that’s stayed with me and I’m instilling those qualities in my DD.
You’re not to blame op that dress really is hideous and I’m afraid I might have laughed out loud thinking she was joking.
Take no notice of the haters.
Explain to your friend, when she’s calmed down,that we don’t all like the same things and we are all allowed an opinion.
I hope she realises what a good friend she has in you, in that you wouldn’t let her wear anything that you thought was ridiculous. Everyone is going off about you posting the dress but you only posted it after a few people asked you to🤷🏼‍♀️and im willing to bet that not one person likes it!