Less Cloak, More Dagger: Why I broke up with the little black dress

For most of my adult life, the little black dress was sacred. Not in a religious sense, but in the way you trust a friend who never lets you down. Black was elegant, slimming, invisible in all the right ways. It whispered sophistication without saying anything too personal. My wardrobe for evening wear was a monochrome chorus of safe choices: tasteful, tailored, and entirely unremarkable.

It wasn’t just about fashion. It was strategy. Black let me blend. At a charity gala or an awkward drinks thing, black was armour. It made you sleek. It made you untouchable. It gave nothing away.

Then came the pandemic.

I didn’t expect it to change how I dress. At most, I assumed I’d re-emerge mildly feral, clutching hand sanitiser and wearing shoes with the hesitancy of someone learning to walk again. But what I didn’t anticipate was how different black would feel. What used to feel refined now felt a bit… spectral. Like showing up and simultaneously not wanting to be seen. It was too quiet. Too closed. Too much like trying to disappear.

Post-pandemic, black started to feel like a shrug. And I didn’t want to shrug. I wanted to show up. I wanted warmth. Boldness. Colour that meant something.

Which brings me to the red dress.

It has been in my life for as long as I can remember. My sister wore it on my first birthday. Years later, when I turned twenty-five, she gave it to me. No grand speech. Just a dress that had somehow stayed perfect. I’m forty now, and I still wear it. Not out of sentimentality, although there is plenty of that. I wear it because it fits in every way that matters. It’s bold without shouting. Feminine without fuss. Familiar. It feels like my past and present agree on something.

There’s a lot written about red. How it’s the colour of confidence, power, lust. The kind of thing you wear when you want to make a statement. But I wasn’t trying to make one. I wasn’t saying anything. I just didn’t feel like hiding anymore.

The first time I wore red to something formal, I expected to feel exposed. What I felt instead was... present. I didn’t feel like I was performing. I felt like I had turned up. It wasn’t about being seen by others. It was about not disappearing from myself.

For women, dressing has always been a bit of a code. You’re meant to be tasteful but not too bold, feminine but not girlish, confident but not intimidating. Red, historically, has been the colour of women who don’t care what you think. But maybe it’s also the colour of women who’ve spent enough time trying to be polite. Maybe red is what happens when you stop asking for permission to take up space.

I still like black. It will always be classic. But something has shifted. Black feels like the exit route. Red feels like the front door.

And no, I don’t think red is brave. That’s the sort of thing people say when a woman does anything slightly visible. It’s not brave to wear a dress. It’s just a choice. But it can be a reminder. That you’re still here. That you’re not fading. That you’re allowed to want attention. Not from everyone. Just from yourself.

Red is not about seduction. It is about presence. It is not the colour of someone trying to be admired. It is the colour of someone who knows she belongs in the room. For most of my life, I thought elegance meant vanishing just enough to be considered tasteful. Now I realise there’s grace in being visible too.

I didn’t stop wearing black completely. I still have the structured black blazer that makes me feel like I’ve got a quiet plan. The trousers that go with everything. The jumper that makes people think I live in North London and read philosophy. But black doesn’t feel like my first instinct anymore. It feels like a default I no longer need.

Red, oddly, feels safer now.

Not because it hides me, but because it reflects something back. Something about how I’ve changed. Or maybe just grown into myself a little more.

There’s also the fact that fashion, for all its frivolity, has always been how women say what they cannot put into words. When we are grieving, we dress in shadow. When we want to disappear, we scale down. When we want to reclaim something — our bodies, our attention, our joy — we dress for defiance. Or softness. Or just for the hell of it.

The red dress, the one my sister gave me, has witnessed all sorts of things. It has been worn in joy, in grief, to dinners where I felt utterly out of place, and to nights when I couldn’t stop laughing. It has outlasted relationships. It has outlived the person I used to be when I first put it on. And yet it still feels like mine.

That’s the thing about clothes. The good ones become archives. They hold stories. Versions of you that didn’t know what was coming, and pieces of you that stayed. Red has become part of my vocabulary. It says, I’m here. I remember. I still want more.

It has taken me years to learn that visibility is not the same as performance. Wanting to be seen does not make you shallow. It makes you human. You are allowed to show up in colour. You are allowed to want warmth. You are allowed to walk into a room without apologising for the space you take up.

So here’s to red. For being the colour of recovery, not recklessness. For being bright when things are dim. For feeling a little ridiculous in the best way. For saying something, even when you’re not quite sure what.

And for finally making the little black dress look a bit tired.