Image: HERE

It's always something that's intrigued other bloggers, friends and, well, women in general; how can I call myself a(n ex) Fashion Editor, and still be so averse to dresses? What even is my problem with dresses?

A while back, I wrote a brief post attempting to explain it, but I think I failed. I told you that I don't like wearing dresses because "I'm not used to wearing them. I know that all my friends at my current school used to wear skirts for school, but with the fleeces which made up my old uniform, you'd have been an idiot to wear a skirt."

But, that didn't seem to satisfy many people.

Nor, apparently, did the notion that I was unwilling to wear dresses because I only had two weeks left at school, and so breaking out a whole new style would have seemed not only a little out of place, but would also have raised a few eyebrows - because I don't try to hide the fact that I don't like wearing dresses or skirts.

So, let me let you into a secret. I'm going to tell you the honest reason that I really, really don't like wearing dresses and skirts: they make me feel uncomfortable. Not physically uncomfortable, in the way that heels do after seven hours, but mentally uncomfortable - I feel as though people are watching me, and I'm not the kind of girl who likes to be watched, despite the fact that I act - when you're acting, you play a character. You have a façade to hide behind. When you're wearing a dress or a skirt in public, you're just you, and you can't help that. You just have to deal with it. And I never have really known how to.

Image: HERE

Why, though, do they make me feel uncomfortable, when they make most other women on the planet, as far as I can tell, feel good?

I suppose that it probably does have something to do with what I suggested before - with not being used to it - but I also think that it has something to do with not knowing where to look for dresses I like and can afford, and with not knowing how to wear them. The reason that I spent all last summer in a skirt was because skirts are more comfortable for hiking, and when you're 1500 metres up in the Alps, everyone looks bedraggled and a bit of a mess - but at school, or on the high street, people look sleek and cool and tidy and good - qualities I have never knows how to pull off in a dress.

It's not as though I'm not trying, though - it's not as though I don't want to wear dresses. I at least own some, now, which is more than could be said for me two years ago, when I know for a fact that I didn't have a single dress in my wardrobe. And, as I said in my last attempt to explain this bizarre phenomenon, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

But, how do you solve a bizarre and completely random problem like this?

I think that there's only one way, and here's looking at you, Rachel Charlton, for this - I need someone to take me shopping, and make me try stuff on, and let me choose which of it I like and then make me buy the stuff I like... just like Rachel did for her friend Maeve.

I know that I need to push my comfort zones, and I know that, in Sarah and Rachel and Rachel, I have three people who would be very happy to kidnap me in the middle of the British Style Bloggers meet up and force me to try on dresses and skirts until I find one that I like, and that I will be willing to wear on a regular basis.

Image: HERE

But, that's not until August. And August is an awfully long way away. And it's summer now, and even though I'm in the North of England, the sun is shining, and I'm feeling like I might melt, sitting here in jeans.

So, I've decided to embrace the spirit of Think Frock, It's Friday. I'm going to try - try - not to wear jeans every day from now on. I'm going to try to wear something else every once in a while, and I'm going to try to do it starting now. Sadly, I'm not going to do it of a Friday, because Feel-Good Fridays are getting me through my revision - but I am going to try!

Rest assured - I don't like being the frumpiest and most boring fashion writer on the planet!

LoveLoveLove

- A -