Solitude and old dresses

I woke up this morning thinking about a blue dress I bought when I was a student in Portsmouth in 1974 and there were more secondhand clothes shops than supermarkets. It was already retro - 1950s, probably. It's handmade and has one or two intriguing details - a small flap of fabric by the neck which I imagine is reinforcement for a brooch, and tiny shoulder pads - enough to give it some shape, stitched down pleats to give it body.
It was far too big for me in 1974 and I pulled it in with a thick belt because I was young and thin.
I've carried three of those dresses I bought in Portsmouth days with me. The pink and black one fitted better. I remember wearing it to a pub we went to sometimes for Sunday lunch, where strippers were normal family entertainment.

This morning I was wondering if the me who pulled in my belt and put on a pair of black patent leather DMs to go with it, would be happy with the me who fills it out now - how I've turned out - the me who's wearing it for Giya's one shot with a large format camera during her foundation photography course.
The third is a taffeta cocktail dress, worn to parties and gigs. I saw a replica of it once in an exhibition in Brighton museum and if I tried to zip it up now, it would split.
I think of these dresses after two days on the allotment, not alone because it's been busy, but feeling the solitude of changing times. I used the phrase 'semi-retirement' for the first time the other day, nervous about it, but needing to be honest.
I have a passport photo of myself in the pink and black dress with my hair up, from days when I was working on a local paper - probably taken for a union card. I wore it on a summer afternoon boating on the Odiham canal. It might have been June. There were meadows, flies above the water, red brick bridges at every few metres and trees hanging over the water, filtering the sun. Everything was green. Mark and I, Beanie and her boyfriend had a picnic, the rowing boat tied up at the canal path. We were in the dome of summer and our hands were young.