17 Dresses

In the generation shortly before eating disorders are diagnosed and treated Paulette quietly starves heaves and cuts herself. Built like a 50s pin-up girl with a pleading pout she detests herself and even though she lives for beauty she cannot see her own. She takes sanctuary in the secondhand dresses scored in thrift and vintage shops a world of storied fabrics and a beacon for something meaningful beyond the California ideal that surrounds and often suffocates her. At 15 Paulette is a rocket heading straight into mid 1970s space. She has so little guidance and yet quite a lot of good fortune. Luckily she has a grandmother who relates to Paulette in the language of old clothing. And then there is her on-again off-again romance with the semiotician Benjamin who unzips more than a figure of speech. Over the course of seventeen years and seventeen vintage dresses each frock tells a delicate tale uttering significance and inspiring Paulettes transformation from girl to gal to grown. Part coming of age part homage to the rousing world of vintage 17 Dresses is a haute and haunting glance at the suffering that comes from not wanting to fit in to anything but that venerable dress in the window.