On a Thursday afternoon, it arrived at the Vogue office. My coworkers gathered around as I unzipped the garment bag with the same fascination as an archeologist opening an Egyptian tomb. With a quick tug, tufts of green tulle sprang free from the bag. Someone beside me went to touch it. “Careful now,” I say, like some kind of fashion Indiana Jones. “It’s extremely fragile.”
If you think the Bode Christmas tree dress looks like a costume, that’s because it basically is. Bode was inspired by the Eastern Onion Singing Telegram Service, whose entertainers wear festive and homemade costumes to perform their singing telegram skits at homes, schools, and offices. “I loved the medley of nostalgic ornaments and the overall volume of the costume when worn,” she tells Vogue. “I refined the silhouette but preserved and elevated the original handwork details on tulle.” For months, Bode sourced vintage and antique ornaments, including bulbs, plastic candies, and wooden miniatures such as instruments, birds, and a sleigh.
Retailing at $4,000, it’s not a dress intended for a mass audience. The wearer of the Bode Christmas tree dress is someone who puts no price on novelty, who believes high camp is high fashion. It’s like the clothing version of the Maurizio Cattelan banana: cheeky, a little ridiculous, and guaranteed to get people talking.
Especially, I discovered, when they are drunk. While my friends at Chez Margaux were all on their first martinis—and their social graces relatively intact—when I arrived at my next stop, the Nolita Italian restaurant Emilio’s, most people in the room had drunk several. And they had lots of questions.
“Did you lose a bet?” a man asked, his voice slurred, as he bumped into my table. I smiled and assured him that I did not. He looked me up and down, unconvinced, while squinting at a wooden bird. “So if you didn’t lose a bet…why are you wearing this?”
At this point, his friend had come over. He was less concerned about why I was wearing it. Instead, he wanted to know how. “Can you sit down in that thing?” he asked.
I mumbled some vague response. The truth, however? I hadn’t figured that last part out yet. My butt was covered in ornaments, including large baubles and pointy wooden edges. If I sat straight down, they went places that large baubles and pointy wooden edges should never go. The other option was to fluff out the skirt over the chair. But the delicate tulle got crammed in the back, risking damage to the dress. Mostly, I just stood around while regretting my choice to wear high heels.
So lost in thought was I about the whole sitting thing that I didn’t notice one of the drunk men was now pushing past me. “Scuse me, sorry,” he said as the whole dress jingled and jostled. Then I heard it: the now distinctive whomp of an ornament hitting the floor.
