I think every woman has a dress that makes them look great. When I was younger, my mom had a burgundy dress with tiny white flowers on it. It was about thigh-high with the shoulders covered. It wasn’t fancy, maybe it wasn’t expensive, I don’t entirely know. But it was like that dress was made for her. It was simply, looked elegant, and complemented my mom’s dark skin. And she used to wear it with a cute little bob. She could wear it with makeup but mostly wore it without, and she was stunning. We don’t know where that dress went. Perhaps in all of the moving, it got lost in boxes or something, I don’t really know. 

Later in life, I found my dress. This dress is fabulous, is my thing, and it is the dress that I feel most beautiful in. Ironically enough, my mom gave it to me. It’s a long blue sun dress with spaghetti straps. Yet over the years the dress has withered and one of the straps broke. I never wanted to lose this dress, because it’s my dress, the same as the one that my mom had. It’s the dress that God made just for me. So I kept it, waiting for the opportune time to get it fixed. I honestly was scared to take it to a tailor because I thought they’d charge me an arm and a leg for the work.  

Then I went to Vietnam. By happenstance I stayed around the corner Cho Han Market in Da Nang. This market has different “stalls” if you’d call it that, that sell everything under the sun. They have snacks, toys, souvenirs, trinkets, backpacks, electronics, and anything else you can think of. The first floor also has a food market where you can buy hot dishes from vendors. Upstairs, they have clothing for sell, dresses, tops, pants, underwear and anything else. Next to the clothing is a section of tailors. 

The place is full of hustle. The tailors want business and I decided that with the prices in Vietnam, this was the time to finally do what I’d been wanting to do for so long, which was getting my dress fixed. I dropped it off on Wednesday, negotiated the price with one of the tailors. And finally after years, I got my dress fixed. I was scared to do it because of the potential language barrior but we worked it out. For $15, my dress strap was fixed, I was able to get the patches in the dress fixed and I’m now back in.  

Not only that, but DaNang is a great place to simply be pampered and taken care of. There are plenty of places to get massages, top tier manicure and pedicure salons all over the place, and many beautiful restaurants.  

However, what I’m most happy about is the unexpected gift of being able to get back into my dress.