Gown for the Ball. Decisions! Decisions!

Well I'm no further forward.  Here we are, just a little over 24 hours to Willow's Ball and I cannot make my mind up on the dress.  Once I have the dress, accessories won't take that long to choose.  that's the easy part.   It's not that I'm disorganized - just that as usual, time has been against me.  At one point I thought I might just wear last year's Chanel but then I asked myself 'what was I thinking?'  The same dress  one year after another? That would never do.  

Although last year's dress (above) was a classic and there's no doubt and I am a classic dress/gown  sort of person I wanted something different this year.   

So here I am looking at some options.

Or

Or at almost $8,000

What about this McQueen??

Oh dear - so damn boring  maybe I should just branch out and wear red!

Which from the side looks like this..................

But it's the arms - some arms should not be seen  - Sophia Loren and Dame Judy Dench have got that right - make no mistake!

I'm not a 'flouncy' person so no Scarlett O'Hara dresses for me although I did buy  a black ball gown in Harrods, London in the late 80s which became known  in our house as the 'Scarlett O'Hara dress.  It was a heavy taffeta and velvet with a tight strapless bodice a huge skirt from the hips down.   It cost 750 pounds then and I only wore it three times.  At the same time I bought a stole/jacket, cape  which had one arm hole and the other side you threw over your shoulder. I still have it and believe it or not, it's still being worn.  It should be - it cost two hundred and fifty pounds!!  The last time it was worn was in 2006 by my daughter!  Imagine she was a baby when I bought it!

Going back to the Scarlett O'Hara dress - the first time I wore it was to a very special 'do' which was held at the Park Lane Hilton in London.  It was a show business thing raising money for Children's Charities.  Every British celebrity who was anybody was there and there must have been close to two thousand people in the ballroom.  So what would be the chances of seeing someone in the same Scarlett O'Hara dress?  You guessed it - one in two  thousand or two in two thousand?? As I rode up to the reception area outside the ballroom, there standing at the top of the elevator was a woman in exactly the same dress! Horror of horrors!  She watched me and as I stepped off I looked at her, smiled and said, 'you have good taste'.   Hah! She glared at me and stalked off! At least my cape was better than her woollen stole!  We did not cross paths again for the entire night   - it's easy to get lost in that many people!

Anyway this is not solving the problem of what I'm going to wear for the Fifth annual Willow Manor Ball and truth be told I'm not really over the moon with any of the ones here. Arms, bloody arms.  Would I had Michelle Obama arms!