She opened her wardrobe. Guilty by Design, she thought, looking at a black shift dress she had bought from the aptly named dress shop in Morningside, for there was a great deal of guilt involved in the buying of expensive dresses – delicious guilt; she had loved that dress and had worn it too often. Italians wore black, did they not? So something different – a red cashmere polo-neck would transform the skirt, and a pair of dangly diamanté earrings would add to the effect. There!
Isabel Dalhousie – fictional character in the book Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, the second novel in a mystery series featuring Isabel, by Alexander McCall Smith.
Guilt for buying expensive dresses? Well, no need for guilt IF the expensive dress is worn. Isabel has worn her expensive dress “too often” apparently and gotten her money’s worth. I don’t think you can wear a dress too often. As long as the dress is kept clean and and mended if needed, wear, wear, wear what you have and buy less. An LBD (little black dress) is an investment and with accessories can be styled so many different ways – worn with an elegant pair of pumps and a strand of pearls for a special occasion or with sneakers and a cardi for a casual lunch.
I think I have mentioned that I am a fan of (good) mystery novels and my current favorite is the Isabel Dalhouise series. McCall Smith sets these mysteries in Edinburgh and treats his readers to detailed descriptions of various blocks and neighborhoods giving us a real feel for the city. I love that he gently uses clothing to reflect aspects of his characters and the mysteries themselves are unusual (and perhaps a bit thin to be honest.) For example in Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, Isabel (the editor of a philosophy journal) meets a man who has recently had a heart transplant and is haunted by memories of things that didn’t happen to him. Hmm … what’s that all about? Isabel is going to find out!
What I like most about this series is hanging out with our heroine. She lives an interesting life in a big house in an old city and as a philosopher, she ponders the world and gets herself into quite a few moral dilemmas.
She looked overdressed and dangerously hot, but sunstroke or suffocation had not yet finished her off … I still thought she would be better off without so many tunics. Perhaps in a fine mansion with marble veneers, fountains, garden courtyards deep in shade, a leisured young lady might keep cool, even swaddled in embroidered finery with jet and amber bangles from her elbow to her wrist. If she ran out in a hurry she would instantly regret it. The heat haze would melt her. Those light robes would stick to all the lines of her slim figure. 
She was tall, with attractive silver blonde hair which refused to be contained in its entirety by a plait, and she wore a suit which was sober only in its coloring; no part of the outfit had escaped little finishing-off touches and Penrose, who had never realized that black could be so expressive, searched in vain for a square inch of plain material; even the gloves on the table were attached to velvet flowers, while the hat, which was too big to go anywhere else but on the floor beside its keeper, was the most creative mourning attire that he had ever seen. What was most remarkable, though, was that Alice Simmons carried it off with a dignity and composure which few people achieved with straight lines and understated simplicity. 
OverDressed for Life 