Why Are There Holes in My Sleeves?

Kim Kardashian, with holes in her sleeves. Photo: Steven Lawton/FilmMagic/Getty

Summer is almost over, and I still don’t have the perfect summer dress to wear to my friend’s wedding this weekend. This is probably because I don’t like to shop and also because there are holes in all the sleeves. You know what I mean?

I prefer a dress with sleeves, and every sort-of nice, wedding-appropriate dress with sleeves looks like this now:

Or this:

Or this???

It’s untenable. I love sleeves, and I don’t want holes in them. Sleeves are supposed to cover your arms, keep them warm, and shield them from potentially unflattering camera angles at weddings. A sleeve should not open up at the roundest part of your weak tricep so that everybody can focus their attention there.

Unfortunately, the “cold shoulder” style of dress is having a moment. Kim Kardashian wore this Balmain catastrophe for her first post-baby red-carpet appearance this summer. On the most recent season of The Bachelorette, JoJo Fletcher sheathed herself in fashionably tattered dresses from the first rose ceremony to the final fantasy suite dates. And Lena Dunham is nostalgic for the holey gowns of a bygone era, even though the style is currently so popular that it may never go away: In a coveted interview with Hillary Clinton for Lenny Letter last year, Dunham asked the Democratic nominee for president about an “extremely chic” shoulder-baring Donna Karan dress that she wore when she was First Lady in the ‘90s. Clinton gamely called it one of her “favorites” (sure) and then attempted to diagnose Dunham’s fascination with it. “Donna always says that no matter your age, your size, your shoulders always look good,” she offered.

No offense to Secretary Clinton or Ms. Karan, but I don’t think that’s true, and either way, it’s oppressive. Women should not be forced to display one random body part because somebody decided it’s the only one that doesn’t rot with feminine decay. Give us real sleeves.

A dress with sleeves — now that is an ideal thing to wear to a wedding. You don’t have to worry about it falling down. You don’t have to do the degrading, contorted, hand-on-hip pose to fool people into thinking your exposed arms are smaller than they are, when honestly you’re not fooling them anyway. You don’t have to bring a sweater, because you are already sort of wearing a sweater, in the form of sleeves. Also — and here is a tip, straight from me to you — you can show off some other part of your body in a sort of scandalous way (low neckline, no underwear, whatever), and people will still think you’re being conservative, because of the sleeves.

It is truly crazy to me that everybody decided to put holes in the best thing on earth, which is: saaahhhleeeeeves.

When did this…

JoJo the Bachelorette.

…become hotter than this?

The Olsen twins. Photo: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic/Getty

I bet you are trying to imagine an Olsen twin wearing a “cold shoulder” dress right now. Well, you can’t, and so I rest my case. Sleeve holes are bad, and I wish I could buy a dress without them.

Why Are There Holes in My Sleeves?