New Year's Eve is a bitter-sweet occasion – full of the excitement of being the Best Party Night Ever, yet riddled with the inevitable threat of anti-climax that can only come with the promise of the Best Party Night Ever.
Deciding what to wear is equally complicated, and that's why we can be certain you've experienced this rollercoaster of stages when picking out the perfect outfit for the night everyone secretly sort of hates, and you'll probably experience them again, some time very soon...
Stage One: You optimistically scan through the sales on boxing day, a pocket full of Christmas money and a mind full of pyjama-fatigue, full of promise of one more big night out before the January gloom.
**Stage Two: **You find THE best dress in your size with a mega-discount on ASOS and eagerly await is arrival, high on the idea of looking like an absolute badass babe come the 31st.
**Stage Three: **You realise you haven't actually made any plans for New Year and the side-boob baring silk number you impulse-bought is completely NSFYL (not safe for your local), so you panic-google nights that are on in your area.
**Stage Four: **So the best thing happening is fancy dress and your mates are well up for it. Whatevs, you'll just stick a mask on and dress as planned.
**Stage Five: **Walking back from the post office with your NYE purchase once you're home from your parents house it suddenly dawns on you that you bought it in your lower size-range without considering that you've spent a week binging on cheese and booze.
**Stage Six: **It fits, thank fuck, so you obviously strut around the house in it bragging to your housemates about your amazing purchase.
**Stage Seven: **But wait, the shoes you need to wear with it, those ones that will go perfectly? You've left them at your mum's house and your BFF goes and drops the 'I'm going away with my boyfriend last minute' bomb when you text to borrow some of hers.
**Stage Eight: **Maybe you'll just stay in. Fuck New Year. May as well get right into that January lounging early. Watching Jools Holland won't be that depressing.
**Stage Nine: **Pyjamas are great anyway! OMG Pyjamas!
**Stage Ten: **2pm, Dec 31st and FML-FOMO sets in hard. Your mates sacked off the night you found when they realised it was £15 a ticket and sudden Alone-In-Trackies-On-New-Year panic sets in.
**Stage Eleven: **You pour yourself an afternoon G&T (Christmas habits) while sending out an SOS group text to the rest of your mates who were too half-arsed to make plans and make last minute plans to go to the pub down the road after a takeaway, casual, like.
**Stage Twelve: **A biryani and a bottle of wine down you're back in the game and can't shake those New Year Goddess ambitions you had back on boxing day, so you drunkenly hit your wardrobe and grab your razziest Party Outfit.
**Stage Thirteen: **Sequinned hotpants are alright for the pub, aren't they? They certainly seem so when you and your mates crash into the pub at 11.30pm.
The rest's a blur until you wake up in your housemate's bed still wearing last night's outfit and feeling like you've been kicked in the face. You vow that next January first, you will definitely wake up hangover free, in your own bed, wearing cashmere pyjamas.
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Artwork: Eugenia Loli
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.