Life is already the occasion

One of the sentences we hear most often in the shop is: “It is beautiful, but I have nowhere to wear it.” Or: “It is too nice for my everyday life.”

I always find that interesting, because hidden inside those words is an assumption we rarely stop to question: that beauty belongs to special occasions.

We seem to have divided life into two categories. There are the important moments — the wedding, the dinner, the celebration, the holiday - and then there is ordinary life. And ordinary life, we seem to think, requires very little from us.

Something practical. Something comfortable. Something that will do.

But perhaps we have got this the wrong way around.

Most of our lives are not made up of extraordinary occasions. They are made up of ordinary Tuesdays. Going to work, buying groceries, meeting a friend for coffee, walking through the city, making dinner, sitting at a desk.

These are not the moments between life. They are life.

And if beauty is reserved only for exceptional occasions, then we are reserving beauty for a very small part of our lives.

Why should that be?

Perhaps the ordinary day deserves more from us than we think. Perhaps we do not need to wait for life to become special before we begin to treat it as though it is.

Perhaps getting dressed beautifully is not really about dressing for an occasion at all. Perhaps it is simply one way of honouring the life we have already been given.