Generally, I try not to be a proponent of “dress your age.” There are exceptions to everything I suppose, like if Jane Fonda showed up in a hot pants romper, which might cause me some consternation, or if Millie Bobby Brown continues to be styled by her team like she’s turning 3o next week. (I am not above clutching my pearls over people being rushed through their childhoods, that’s for sure.) But age means different things to different people, and I sure as hell don’t personally feel as old as I am, and the older I get the more I tend to think, “Live and let live, Bai Ling, you hoot you.”
All of which to say: There is something VERY and delightfully teenage about this, from the little party dress to its polka-dot overlay to the cuffs to the rickrack. And Storm Reid is a 14-year old — and one who is about to pilot a potential blockbuster in A Wrinkle In Time — so why NOT have a little fun gallivanting around in a dress that is basically PERFECTLY suited to your exact age and place in life. Part of me can’t help wondering what celebrity over the age of… let’s say 17… would pull this off, if any. Maybe that’s less a case of dressing your age than your persona; for example, Tracee Ellis Ross, the current flagbearer of cool for any generation, would not even attempt this because it would be goofy on her. She has more gravitas than this. It’s not Kristen Stewart’s aesthetic. It MIGHT suit a Fanning, but probably only Elle. Kat Graham could take a crack at it. So, okay, it’s not EXCLUSIVELY the territory of a teenager, but but for now it’s here on Storm and I can’t imagine a better context for what is, truly, a 14-year old’s party dress. This old crone is signing off on it — and now signing off, period, to go take my calcium supplements.
