'The challenge is to embrace the new year spirit without showing an unseemly amount of enthusiasm'
It has become terribly uncool to care about New Year's Eve. The in thing, these days, is to declare that you've never liked it, with sighs and references to the price of taxis, the tricky social diplomacy involved in managing who wants to be with whom at midnight, the cold, etc. There is a subtext, as there always is, which is about NYE having become what New Yorkers call a bridge-and-tunnel night out – in other words, one that brings out the uncool suburban crowd rather than the hipster regulars.
But for anyone who likes dressing up, the symbolism is just too good to resist. Out with the old, in with the new: new year is an occasion that embraces what fashion is all about. It would be rude not to mark the night with a sartorial flourish, even if that means your best pyjamas for champagne in front of the telly. But, pyjamas only being an option in front of a very select guest list, the challenge is how to embrace the new year spirit without showing an unseemly amount of enthusiasm, seeing as how you don't really care, and all.
Which is where the long dress comes in. Counterintuitive, I know, but bear with me. Nothing says Big Occasion like a floor-length dress, and yet it doesn't look show-offy or desperate in the way a little sequinned number can. Floor-length sets an old-fashioned, faintly poignant mood, like a black and white movie. The floor-length dress – a "gown" in fashion parlance – was facing extinction in the real world until recently, and seemed destined to be preserved only in the red carpet zoo. But the gown is making a last-gasp comeback, as a new generation discovers the joys of not having to worry about correct hosiery opacity, or ladders, or cankles. At the British Fashion Awards this year, I was struck by the fact that the cool kids were in floor-length and the middle-aged contingent were in knee-length.
Naturally, the floor-length dress is not a one-size-fits-all NYE option. It's not going to work if you are going to Trafalgar Square, or midnight sledging, or to a dirty rave in a basement. But, as we've already established, you are much too cool for any of that, right?
• Black beaded dress, £199, Hobbs Invitation from John Lewis, www.johnlewis.com.
Photograph: David Newby for the Guardian. Styling: Melanie Wilkinson. Hair and makeup: Tracey Quinn.