When the people at Zalando contacted me a couple of weeks ago, and asked me if I’d like to choose something from their website, I went straight to this pink, 30s-inspired chiffon dress, which I’d had my eye on for months, but had resisted buying because, well, it’s a pink, 30s-inspired chiffon dress, basically. When would I ever get the opportunity to wear such a thing, I asked myself? After all, it’s not the 1930s any more. And it’s Autumn. And I hardly ever wear pink, even although I secretly always want to.

“Amber,” I told myself, “Turn your back on the pink dress. Choose something useful. Something practical. Something you won’t have to put in your closet until Spring, and then hope someone invites you to a 1930s-themed party so you can actually wear it.”

So, naturally I ordered the pink dress. I mean, OF COURSE I did.

“Um, maybe I could wear it for Halloween?” I thought, hopefully.

As it turned out, though, I didn’t have to wait that long, because when it arrived, I realised I could do what I always do when I want to dress down something that’s a bit too dressy, even for me: I could throw a sweater over the top. And then some pearls, because, well, don’t you think this is the kind of dress that’s just begging to be worn with a string of pearls?

“I feel like this is the kind of outfit that an aristocrat who’s fallen on hard times would wear to drift around her crumbling ancestral home in 1952,” I told Terry, who honestly couldn’t have cared less. “Lady Matchy of McMatcherson, say: her family lost everything in the war, and the good silver’s been sold off to pay her father’s gambling debts, so she’s drinking gin at 11am, wearing an old 30s dress she found in a trunk in the attic, a moth-eaten cashmere sweater and her grandmother’s pearls. Lady Matchy is crazy too, of course: that helps.”

“It’s a cool story, bro,” said Terry, “And Ima let you finish, but I really hope we’re not going to have to have that conversation about how it’s not ACTUALLY 1952 again, are we?”

Anyway, I got to wear my dress, is what I’m saying. I may not have gotten to wear it exactly the way it’s designed to be worn (i.e. as an actual DRESS), but hey, there’s always next time. And honestly, when I put this outfit on, it was the first time I’ve actually felt like MYSELF in a long time. Well, I felt like Lady Matchy of McMatcherson, obviously. But I was so happy to be wearing something I didn’t actively hate that it didn’t matter. If pink chiffon dresses are what it takes to beat this wardrobe crisis, then pink chiffon dresses are what I’ll wear. Even on random Monday afternoons in October…

“I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles. ~ Audrey Hepburn”

[Pink dress: Warehouse c/o Zalando | Sweater: Ralph Lauren | Shoes and clutch: New Look]