The New Dress
by Virginia Woolf
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In this stream-of-consciousness story, Virginia Woolf explores the inner turmoil of Mabel Waring at Mrs. Dalloway's party. Mabel has had a new pale-yellow dress made, modelled on an old-fashioned design from her mother's Paris fashion book, hoping to look 'original'. The moment she arrives, however, she is seized by a deep, lifelong sense of inferiority, convinced that everyone is mocking her 'hideous' dress. She imagines herself as a wretched fly struggling to crawl out of a saucer of milk, while others are beautiful dragonflies and butterflies. She recalls the brief 'bliss' she felt at the dressmaker Miss Milan's, and reflects bitterly on her poor childhood in a family of ten, her failed dreams and her weak, vacillating nature. Unable to bear the torment, she leaves the party early, insincerely telling the Dalloways 'I have enjoyed myself', and wraps herself in the old Chinese cloak she has worn for twenty years, 'Lies, lies, lies!'
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'The New Dress' by Virginia Woolf is a masterly example of the 'stream of consciousness' technique, taking us inside the mind of Mabel Waring as she suffers agonies of self-consciousness at a fashionable party. The story lays bare her deep inferiority complex, her insecurities and her painful memories.
The suspicion that something is wrong
Mabel first suspects that something is 'not right' with her appearance as Mrs. Barnet hands her the mirror. The suspicion hardens into conviction as she greets Clarissa Dalloway and glimpses herself in a looking-glass. At once the old misery she has felt since childhood, 'the sense… of being inferior to other people', sets upon her, and she is sure everyone is thinking, 'What a fright she looks! What a hideous new dress!'
The choice of the dress
Mabel recalls that, unable to afford fashionable clothes, she had decided to be 'original' instead. She took her mother's old Paris fashion book from the time of the Empire and had a pale-yellow, old-fashioned silk dress made, imagining it modest and charming. Now, among the fashionably dressed guests, she feels it looks idiotic, and she dares not even look in the glass, feeling like 'a dressmaker's dummy' for people to stick pins into.
The fly in the saucer
To bear the pain, Mabel repeats to herself the image of flies crawling out of a saucer of milk. She sees herself as a 'dowdy, decrepit, dingy old fly', while everyone else, Rose Shaw, Robert Haydon, Charles Burt, seem beautiful 'dragonflies, butterflies'. She distrusts their polite compliments as 'Lies, lies, lies!' Every remark, like Charles Burt's 'Mabel's got a new dress!', shoves the 'poor fly' right into the middle of the saucer.
Memories, self-loathing and escape
Amid her torment, Mabel recalls the 'extraordinary bliss' she felt at Miss Milan's little workroom when the finished dress first made her feel like 'a beautiful woman', and her tender pity for the humble, patient dressmaker. She traces her insecurity to her poor childhood, one of a family of ten, always 'skimping and paring', and to her failed dreams and 'weak, vacillating character'.
Unable to endure it any longer, Mabel resolves (in a fantasy of self-transformation) to change her life, then rises and leaves the party early. She tells Mrs. and Mr. Dalloway 'I have enjoyed myself', but says to herself, 'Lies, lies, lies!' and 'Right in the saucer!', as she wraps herself, 'round and round and round', in the same Chinese cloak she has worn for twenty years.