Dream Dresses
Author: Hilary (Cunningham) Scharper
Did you ever dream of a dress?
Not just any dress. But the dress, the dress that would
make you perfect. The dream dress. . . .
So begins Dream Dresses, a short
story collection about women’s dreams and the dresses
that come to express them. Situated in Toronto, Canada and
covering the life span of women from childhood to old age,
these stories explore how the fabric of women’s dreams
and aspirations become so entangled with attire that the
dress and the dream become one and the same.
These stories portray the comingling of dreams and dress
in a variety of life circumstances. These are not just fantasies
about an Academy Award dress or a designer wedding gown,
but the “off-runway” dreams of a young girl
obliged to wear a drab school uniform, the desperate postpartum
struggle of a trophy wife to “get her body back,”
and the “little black dress” that a grandmother
wishes to wear at her own funeral.
Much like in nature when two organisms interact so completely
that they create a new life form, the fusion of dreams and
dresses explored here reveals that a women’s wardrobe
is not merely a collection of clothing, but also a closet
of dreams.
Dream Dresses goes beyond fashion
predation and the Cinderella syndrome. These original, creative
stories lay bare the deep, unique interpenetration of wardrobe
and wishes – of dreams, desires, and the clothing
that clings to them.
Hilary Scharper lays bare both
follies that clothes would conceal and dreams that they
sometimes reveal. With sharpness and compassion, and some
wry humour, she recounts our society's seemingly endless
search for the perfect fit - even when such perfection requires
alterations to the human body - and the human spirit - though
rarely to its garments. These last, as Scharper's 'Epilogue:Diana's
Dresses' illustrates, these last will survive to be admired,
even venerated, long after their wearers have worn out.
~ F.T. Flahiff is Professor Emeritus,
Department of English, University of Toronto and author
of Always Someone To Kill The Doves: A Life of Sheila Watson.
This is an astonishingly fresh
collection of short stories linked by a key act of the imagination.
Punctuated with fine insight, these stories give one pause
and a great deal of pleasure. As I read these stories, I
had the sense that I was seeing the world a little differently.
Hilary Scharper is a storyteller with transforming wisdom.
~ Mary Jo Leddy, Member of the Order
of Canada, is author of Radical Gratitude and a well-known
refugee and human rights advocate.
Author Bio
Back
to Books
