The New Dress

The New Dress Summary | Detailed Summary

"The New Dress" is Virginia Woolf's short story about Mabel Waring, who attends a social gathering wearing a new yellow dress. The story is written in a stream-of-consciousness fashion as it describes Mabel's thoughts and actions while she is at the party.

Mabel is wearing a yellow dress that she designed with her dressmaker specifically for this particular occasion. She has taken an image from a old fashion magazine from Paris and has spent countless hours with her dressmaker attempting to get the design just perfect for this social gathering, where she wishes to make an image of perfection of herself.

As she arrives at the party and removes her cloak, Mabel sees herself in a mirror and immediately announces to herself that the dress is not right. There is just something wrong with it, although there is no indication of precisely what the problem is. The dress actually sounds quite exquisite from the description Mabel provides, with a high waist, long skirt and high sleeves, made of yellow silk.

Mabel takes a long look at her self in the mirror and finds a seat on a sofa where she can still view herself in the mirror. As the other attendees are enjoying their selves at the party, Mabel is focusing on her dress and obsessing about what the others are thinking about her. When the others attempt to make conversation with Mabel, she reads into their comments and silently interprets their comments as slights on her appearance. The only time that Mabel thinks anything positive about this entire experience is when one woman tells her that her skirt is just the perfect length. At this moment, and only for a brief moment, Mabel feels positively enthused about the many hours she spent to perfect the design of this dress. In the next instant, a gentleman makes reference to a picture that is very old-fashioned. Mabel misinterprets this comment to assume that the gentleman is speaking of her new dress. Suddenly she again hates the dress and feels incredibly self-conscious.

As Mabel obsesses about this dress, she thinks of the many things in her life that have never been quite right, from her childhood, to her marriage and children, and even to her house. Everything has always been just not quite right. Her house, for example, is nice, but a bit small. Another example is that she is married to a good man, although he is not quite what she had always imagined herself with.

Finally, Mabel begins to think of a way to help her self escape the undeniable shame that her dress is causing her. She thinks about going to the London library on the following day and getting books into which she will escape. She imagines herself becoming the characters about whom she will read, and suddenly she has the confidence to approach the hostess of the party.

Rather than tell the hostess, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway, that she is happy to be in attendance, or rather than thanking her for having been invited, Mabel simply tells Mrs. Dalloway that she is leaving and that she has had a wonderful time. As Mabel leaves the party, she continues to focus her thoughts on what others must be thinking of her. She believes they know she is lying about having had a good time, although there is no way anyone would know, since she had only been there for a very short time.