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Dress to impress: eight Guardian writers on what they – and their partners – wore when they fell in love

From an H&M shift admired at a distance to a shiny jacket that belongs in Vegas, our writers reflect on the sometimes stunning, often shocking outfits they wore when they met their valentines

It might sound frivolous, but try listening to Bella Freud’s high-brow, low-fi hit podcast, Fashion Neurosis, in which she almost always asks her guests: “If you fancy someone and you don’t like the clothes they’re wearing, does it kill your attraction?” It’s often far more revealing than you might think. I wore a long, pale-blue Dôen dress that I’d had for years to dinner with a man travelling from Scotland to meet me – elegant, I thought, yet able to accommodate a sizeable meal. My boyfriend chose to address this by artificially boosting his own height by repeatedly folding a sock and placing the wad under his heels, leading to what he called “a tip-toe ‘sneaking’ motion when walking, like a cartoon cat-burglar”.

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