The New Dress by Virginia Woolf - Women and Fiction - Essay Example

 Entry into high-class society requires “being dressed in the height of the fashion, precisely like everybody else, always” (3). Conformity is a condition of acceptance. A woman’s dress defines her position. Although Mabel is evidently intelligent and well-read, her entire sense of self-worth is centred entirely around her dress. Mabel gives great importance to men’s opinion. She seeks assurance from Robert Haydon and Charles Burt. She admits that “If he had only said, “Mabel, you're looking charming to-night!

” it would have changed her life” (6). The men are not defined by their dress. This is clear from the fact that Mabel does not draw attention to their clothes. The men are focused on conversation and are obviously considered superior enough to judge the women’s dresses. Mabel is from a lower social and economic stratum than the other women at Mrs Dalloway’s party. She cannot afford a fashionable new dress because of that “meant thirty guineas at least” (2).

She comes from a poor background, “being one of a family of ten; never having money enough, always skimping and paring” (9). She is married to a law clerk and manages “tolerably in a smallish house, without proper maids” (10). She is dependent on her husband’s income. Her financial constraints contribute to her feelings of inferiority and insecurity. She attempts to meet the social conventions by mingling with the other party guests but is tortured by feelings of alienation.

In an age in which women are judged not for their personal worth, but largely by their dress, Mabel Waring remains an outsider at the party, as her dress does not conform to the accepted standards of fashion.