Here is the image for this month's invite to write:

https://aras.org/records/3md.029

Our symbol for this month is dress.

In her song Dress, PJ Harvey sings:

"Put on that dress

I'm going out dancing

Starting off red

Clean and sparkling, he'll see me

Music play, make it dreamy for dancing

Must be a way that I can dress to please him

It's hard to walk in the dress, it's not easy

I'm swinging over like a heavy-loaded fruit tree"

The dress is a flexible item, it can be formless or form fitting, casual or formal. The dress can provide an almost complete freedom of movement and action yet also can be exposing and render the wearer trapped by the gaze of others. The dress can be constricting or freeing metaphorically as well, either trapping one in gendered expression or freeing oneself from the bonds of hiding their identity. The way we look at a dress has so much more to do with the viewer than the wearer. Even for such a simple forms of clothing, the layers of cultural, moral, and political meaning attached to the length, color, profile, design, and wearer of a dress reflect on the loaded language of the dress and how clothing plays into social performance of identity, gender, and self-image. Think about the way dresses shape the wearer and the perceiver. Why do you dress the way you do? Who do you dress for?

Happy writing!