It was April when I first saw a woman wearing That Zara Dress. It was by my office and she had paired this summer's most memorable high street dress with white sneakers. She looked effortless and self assured and radiated cool girl energy and I wondered where her dress was from. Rixo, perhaps? Some cool girl Scandi brandI would never manage to track down? Luckily, that weekend I found myself face to face with The Dress after ducking into a Zara to escape a downpour. It was only £39.99. Bargain. I wore it to work the next day and one of the girls on my team asked where I bought it from. Zara, I whispered conspiratorially, feeling like high street fashion's fairy godmother spreading the good word.
Fast forward a month and I'm in Spain with some friends when one of them pulls The Dress from her luggage to wear to dinner. We bonded over how much we loved the cut. The black and white spots. How versatile it was. And, crucially, how good we felt wearing it.
Back in May, I had only spotted The Dress in the wild a handful of times. I still felt like I was in on the high street's best kept secret. And after moving my life and my wardrobe to a new country which lacked the brands that had been my go-to for affordable and flattering cuts and after months of trying on clothes that didn't sit quite right or, even more upsettingly. required an extreme extraction effort to undress under harsh changing room lights, I had finally found a dress that worked for my body.
Every version of That Zara Dress
1 of 3Zara Polka Dot Dress
The wintery version was first released in Australia, but has now hit stores in the UK and is available to buy now.
2 of 3Zara Red Leopard Print Dress
Same cut, different pattern. In August Zara released an updated version of The Dress, which can be yours for £49.99
3 of 3Zara Polka Dot Dress
The Zara spotty dress that inspired a thousand memes is currently out of stock - but it looks like the retailer will be bringing it back.
I have seen The Zara Dress on tall women. Short women. Pregnant women. Very thin women. On women who - like me - are not a sample size. And you know what? It looks great on every body. Herein lies the magic of the summer's most viral item of clothing: women really just want to buy clothes that make them feel good. The Dress, it seems, is fashion's great equaliser.
I know that everyone has the dress. I know when I wear it in public there is a high probability I'll cross paths with someone in the same outfit and be turned into a meme. The virality of the dress has been immortalised on Instagram accounts, covered by everyone from The New York Times__ to the BBCto your WhatsApp group chat and is known to inspire extreme reactions in bystanders.
Some will audibly groan or roll their eyes when they see you coming, swathed in spots like a low-budget extra from Emma Stone's 101 Dalmations reboot; others will try and subtly take a snap to submit to @hot4thespot. But there's always at least one woman who will see you wearing it and tell you how much she loves your dress before revealing they've got their own spotty number hanging up at home.
The Dress might be a real life meme. A basic bitch cliché. The height of unoriginal dressing. But just like I can't stop wearing it, I can't stop buying it. I now own every iteration of The Dress currently available. The original? It's been on high rotation for seven months now. The more Autumnal red leopard print version that inexplicably retails for an extra £10? Hanging in my wardrobe. The Wintery black with white spots edition? Well, I might just be wearing it right now. Sure, I might be one wear away from becoming a viral sensation, but you know what? I've got too much Big Dress Energy to care.