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The Squamish quest to find a special old dress

'I have a daughter now and I want her to feel that same magic'

When former Squamish resident Selene Ferguson, 25, was a little girl she would twirl and twirl in the frilly, white dress she found at the back of a closet at her great- grandmother's house.

"My great-grandparents raised me and I used to sneak through their stuff a lot — they had lots of cool stuff and in the back of my grandma's closet was this dress and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my whole entire life," she said. 'I would drag it out and she would yell at me and put it back. Finally, I started to take it to my room and would dress up in it."

When she was upset, Ferguson would take out the dress, do a couple of twirls, and put it back as fast as she could before getting caught, she said.

She would ask about where the dress came from, but never got a real answer.

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Selene Ferguson wearing the dress for Halloween in about 2005. - Courtesy Selene Ferguson

"It was sort of this untouchable thing that was my little secret in the closet, I still don't even know what it was."

Though it was at her great-grandparent's house, she thinks it might have been her grandmother's prom dress.

Eventually, as she grew older, she twirled away from the white 1970s Gunne Sax dress.

A year after her great-grandmother Jayne Thompson died in 2011, the dress went missing when items from the house were sold or given away.

Ferguson is now searching for the dress and has posted on Squamish social media as a long-shot that it is still around.

"I have a daughter now and I want her to feel that same magic," she said.

She likes the style so much she has started collecting them. She has about 25 similar dresses, but not this one that meant so much.

Ferguson, who currently lives in Nanaimo, found a young woman in Squamish who had the dress at some point, but the local doesn't know what happened to it, either.

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The dress on Ferguson's mom in about 1998. - Courtesy Selene Ferguson

"The best thing about the dress has always been the mystery of it, so it’s very fitting that our journey has wound up here. Even if it never comes home with me, I’d love to know its new story," she said.

If you have the dress or know anything about it, write to news@squamishchief.com and we will connect you with Ferguson.

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