The Red Dress and My Bratz Playlist

Tia Shang

I picked it for the roses. 

Rose is my middle name, so whenever I see the motif, whether in bloom or bud, I am connected. A sweater embroidered, wallpaper in a house for sale, garden beds at the Botanic. At first glance it feels mine, sewn, pasted, planted as a sign, like a symbol of a secret order. And the roses on this dress, so rich and red, were nothing different. 

Then the diamantes sold me. The way they adorned my namesake flower reminded me of the clothes the Bratz girls used to wear, how I’d wander down the toy aisle and stare up at the rows of fashionistas with my eyes glittering as bright as the doll’s rhinestoned tops, Shining Like Real Diamonds. I used to think, ‘I’ll dress like that someday. When I’m a big girl, I’ll wear those clothes and get smoothies at the mall and get phone calls all the time.’ Why shouldn’t I? 

The dress is short. It’s the only thing that made me second guess. But I’ve spent so long hiding my legs, and the Bratz girls had no problem with little skirts. They taught me to be myself, Express Yourself. I wanted this. It spoke to me. I bought it on sale from a boutique like a true mall girl. 

When it arrived, my mother peered over as I opened the package. I pulled it out proudly and held it up. My mother isn’t a prude by any means, but she’s never completely pleased with anything. So after her small silence I expected her to say something middling, something double-edged. ‘It’s nice. It’s very short, but it’s fine for the clubs.’ That’s what she’d usually say. 

Instead, ‘Why do you buy these things?’ 

My eyes narrow, but my smile stays. ‘What things?’ 

‘These disco clothes.’ 

I press it to my body and look down at the rhinestones. ‘You don’t like it?’ 

‘I’ve never liked that sort of thing, not when your sister buys it and not when you do. It’s very revealing.’ 

‘You’ve put me in worse stuff than this.’ 

‘What? Like what?’ 

‘Like Kora’s lingerie. You know, for Taylor’s birthday? The black bodysuit with the deep v,’ I run my hands down my sternum, ‘and her dad kept staring and making comments.’ 

‘I don’t put you in anything. I give you options—I make suggestions.’ 

I shrug and swish the dress a bit. ‘I like it.’ 

‘I just don’t think women have to do that to themselves.’ 

‘Do what,’ I say, already amused. 

‘Put themselves on display, reveal so much and reduce themselves to a sexualisation.’ 

It’s such a classic argument, said as if we’re torturing ourselves in some way, a form of self-harm and a performance wrapped up in tight strings and not much else. 

‘I’m not doing anything to myself.’ I admire the changes in the red, from a pale cherry to deep blood, the perfect placement of the rhinestones cascading down the largest petals like beads of dew forming splendorous falls. ‘It’s not for anybody else.’ I pat it like a pet as I put it back in the package to try on upstairs. 

‘It’s a nice colour.’ She gives me this. ‘But I don’t like it.’ 

I concede with silence. My smile still hasn’t left, not the whole time we’ve spoken. It might have once, back when I was less immune to her judgments and more susceptible to her so-called ‘suggestions.’ Now? Invincible. Let her reduce me in her mind, if she’d like to play righteous for a day. Because as I said, it’s not for anybody else. It’s for me, to be a Bratz doll at the bars and Sparkle & Shine in the streetlights. When it comes to my little red dress, the rest of the world can have their thoughts. Then they can shove them right up. I’m Just Having Some Fun and ‘it’s good to be young.’ 

 

 

Author: Tia Shang

Artist: Siena Hardie

Accessibility Reader: 

Edited by: Max Jenner, Nyah Marsden, and Lara Madeline Rand

Editors: Tia Shang