A Letter I Really Sent

Dear Mr. De la Renta,

My name is Emily Hale. I’m writing because I think that you make sublime green dresses. And there’s nothing in the world that I like more than a green dress (especially one that you made around 2010 for 7990 dollars--it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen). 

Upon visiting a Frank Lloyd Wright house in St. Louis, I learned that Frank Lloyd Wright designed a house for a middle-class artistic couple in order to prove that his designs could be accessible to people in all price ranges. (Honestly, I’m not sure he proved his point: it seems like a luxury that most people can’t afford to get a bed in the shape of a parallelogram.) 

I got engaged this Christmas while ice skating in the mountains. Rather than wear some silly puffy white dress down the aisle, I would love to wear a green gown, preferably designed by you. Sadly, I’m just emerging from seven years of graduate school and don’t have loads of money for a dress.

So I’ll come to my point: I was wondering if you could make me a Usonian Oscar de la Renta green dress for my July wedding this summer. I could pay you probably even as much as a thousand dollars.

My favorite greens are Kelly to Emerald—really anything that’s green with blue and not green with yellow. [I will omit my physical description of myself here.] My fiancé is wearing morning dress. He’s very fashionable, but, sadly, he’s also quite an anglophile.

I admire your work. Thank you for reading my request.

Yours,

Emily Hale

P.S. I am a political theorist, so if you’d like to barter a gown for some political theory made to order, I’d be happy to write you up your own. I think it would be interesting to do something on the political theory of fashion.