Day Zero, Goal #56

February 2009, I receive my March issue of Elle Canada in the mail. That moment is my undoing, for one glance at Coca Rocha on the cover plants a seed of obsession I may never be able to uproot. No, not for the girl. Just her dress. Pink and purple bandages cross the model's body, and then across my heart. I swoon, I fall in love, I flip eagerly to the page that tells me the designer: Herve Leger. I google, and I feel faint. The dress is over $1200. More, with the US exchange rate. Taxes. Shipping. What am I looking at? $1500 plus. Three months rent. Three classes. Two years of textbooks. 4 months of groceries.
Fuck.

I scour eBay anyway, but it's no use. Sometimes the dress pops up, but not at enough of a discount, if any at all. I keep searching anyway. In the meantime, April rolls around and the boyfriend & I travel to New York. In Manhattan, I seize the opportunity to visit the Herve Leger store to learn my size first hand (Small). The Dress is nowhere to be found, so the salesman tries to sell me a $2300 gown instead. I tell him I am a university student and he laughs and wishes me a nice day.

Bergdorf Goodman is a few days later, and I find it. The Dress. Shoved in the back amongst others, like it was a dime a dozen. I check the tag, and it's the original price of $1200. I consider it, because it's absence in the designer's store has pushed me all that much closer to desperation. Maybe I'll never find it again, maybe this is it. Fate has put me here, on the other side of the continent, in another country, and I am finally cradling my dream gown in my fingers. I have to take advantage!
But I don't buy it, probably only because my Visa limit wouldn't permit it. I go home empty handed (well, at least Herve Leger-less, which is the same).

Months pass, a year, and then magic happens: eBay doesn't fail me. The dress appears. It's somehow gotten all the way to Romania. I start bidding. With 45 seconds to go, I rush in with the highest bid. I'm winning. I'm winning until there's 10 seconds left, then some stupid bitch offers $10 more and outs me. To say the least, I am devastated. I am distraught for days. I go on an eBay binge and buy some other dresses, but nothing fills the void.

But fate strikes again: 5 days later The Dress is relisted. The horrible evil girl that budded in front of me at the last 10 seconds didn't pay. Frantic, I email the seller and offer to buy it now for $615 -- and she says YES. I pay immediately and it ships from Tulcea, Romania the next day. I want to tell the seller she's changed my life.

Today, I have it. I don't think I need to describe my glee. I shot off the couch when the postman got here, I signed for the parcel with a shaky hand, I took care unwrapping for fear of damaging the gown. I had the boyfriend zip me into it with a strong hand (it is an XS and in NYC, I was very decidedly an S at Herve Leger).
And now, everything is right in the world.




Most appropriately, I'm standing where my digital piano used to be, since that's exactly how I managed to fund this exorbitant purchase.