The LBD

The universally most important item of clothing a woman can own is an LBD. (little black dress) It can be worn casually or dressed all the way up. It's flattering on any woman of any shape, size or color. There is no accessory that doesn't go well with an black dress from bling to cowboy boots.

Not only is the LBD an easy wear, it's a cultural phenomenon. The term is originally associated with Coco Chanel founder of the French fashion House. She coined the term in the 1920's during the great depression. However, the elegance of the little black dress was documented earlier in France during the 1800's by Victor Hugo in his most infamous novel "Les Miserable." Cossette, the female protagonist, wore a dainty black dress and white gloves to the park everyday and caught the attention of Marius, who became a love interest:

And then, she was no longer the school-girl with her felt hat, her merino gown, her scholar's shoes, and red hands; taste had come to her with beauty; she was a well-dressed person, clad with a sort of rich and simple elegance, and without affectation. She wore a dress of black damask, a cape of the same material, and a bonnet of white crape. Her white gloves displayed the delicacy of the hand which toyed with the carved, Chinese ivory handle of a parasol, and her silken shoe outlined the smallness of her foot. When one passed near her, her whole toilette exhaled a youthful and penetrating perfume...

He did not attempt to approach the bench again; he halted near the middle of the walk, and there, a thing which he never did, he sat down, and reflecting in the most profoundly indistinct depths of his spirit, that after all, it was hard that persons whose white bonnet and black gown he admired should be absolutely insensible to his splendid trousers and his new coat. (Les Miserable by Victor Hugo)