Erika Girardi’s Black Polka Dot Dress

Erika Girardi does not wear polka dots. She negotiates with them.

The dress is black, fitted, dotted in white at a scale that flirts with sweet and then refuses — the spots are too big to be demure, too small to be costume. It has the weight of a thing that hangs correctly on the hanger, which, frankly, half your closet does not. Picture the Pretty Mess years, before the Tom of it all, when Erika could walk into a confessional in something deceptively simple and dare you to call it cheap. (You wouldn’t. You couldn’t. The lighting alone forbade it.)

Wear it to brunches you intend to ruin. A small mercy, considering what the alternatives in your closet are doing. Into the Vault →