Stylish Surprise Revisited

I don't often go back and reference posts that are over a few months old, but here's a little tidbit came up today.  I found it amusing and wanted to share, so jump in the way back machine with me and let's take a trip down memory lane.  

In January of 2016 I tried a mystery bag from ModCloth called "Stylish Surprise."  I'm not sure if MC still does the mystery dress sales; I haven't shopped much at ModCloth basically since founder Susan Koger sold the company in 2017.  When Susan left, she took her style sense and her vision with her and nothing was ever the same.  But, way back in 2016, before Susan's departure was even a blip on the horizon, when most of MC's dresses came in at around $100, I decided to try one of ModCloth's mystery dresses for a mere $20.  

It. Was. Awful.  It was so ugly and cheap, I was beyond disappointed and vowed to never waste $20 like that again.  I felt that it was clearly a sample that MC wisely decided to discard rather than stock and I was the schmuck who got stuck with it.  Well, see for yourself:

I did try to style this dress and make the most of it, but I just couldn't get on board with it.  MC had so many better things that in the end, I sold it for like $15 and just took the hit.  This experience kind of scarred me.  Even today, six years later,  anytime I am tempted to buy anything marked "mystery" or "surprise"  I have flashbacks of this hideous dress and just can't commit to the unknown.  The funny thing is that as I was surfing Poshmark today I happened to see this very dress for sale from Anthropologie for a whopping $35.  

I guess if I'd just held onto it, that ugly dress would have appreciated in value once it was picked up by Anthro and sold as the Melia dress.  The funniest thing of all is that as much as I still hate that dress when I look at my photos of it, I think it looks pretty good on Anthro's model.  Maybe it just takes the right person for the right dress.  Whatever the case, thank you for taking this little trip with me.