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Jennifer Candotti was cleaning out her closet when she stumbled across a dress she hadn’t worn in decades.
Pink and white floral print, cotton, summery — this was Candotti’s favourite dress back in the late 1980s, when she was a college student at the University of Richmond in Virginia.
American Candotti now lives with her husband in Switzerland, and before they moved abroad, she donated a bunch of old clothes. But she couldn’t part with the floral dress. It was imbued with so many memories.
“It’s moved with me everywhere,” Candotti tells CNN Travel today. “I don’t have my wedding dress, but I still have that dress.”
When Candotti rediscovered the ‘80s garment last year, she was immediately transported back to her college years.
And as always when Candotti thought of college, she thought of her best friends, who she met the day she moved into Lora Robins Residence Hall in late 1986: Robin Clark, Robin Garrison and Angie Carrano.
“These are the girls I can count on, who know me best and who, when we are together, feel as though we are 18 again,” says Candotti.
In Candotti’s favorite college photo with Clark, Garrison and Carrano, taken in 1989, she’s wearing that floral dress. The foursome were at a tailgate at one of the college football games (“We would tailgate before football games, but never go into the football game,” recalls Clark, laughing). They’re each smiling into the camera, wearing sunglasses, holding blue solo cups filled with beer.
It’s over 35 years since the photo was taken, but the photo remains symbolic of Candotti, Clark, Garrison and Carrano’s lasting, loyal friendship. They’ve each got it framed in their homes. It’s their WhatsApp group chat photo. And when Carrano got married, she mailed the photo to the other three, asking them to be her bridesmaids.
“It’s stuck around,” says Clark of the photo. “It’s stood the test of time.”
The friendship has stood the test of time, too. When Candotti fished out the dress from the back of her closet, the four friends, now in their 50s, were about to go on vacation to Le Marche, in eastern Italy.
Candotti texted a photo of the dress to her friends and spontaneously packed it in her suitcase.
And then a plan started forming in the group chat:
“We decided to recreate the photo on our Italian adventure,” says Candotti.
One of Candotti, Clark, Garrison and Carrano’s favorite things about vacationing together is “being together under one roof as if it were our freshman year at college,” as Candotti puts it.
They’re all parents, all juggling busy jobs, responsibilities. When they’re apart, they video call, text each other book recommendations, recipes and advice for navigating menopause.
But it’s these annual vacations that really remind them of the importance of their decades-long friendship in shaping the people they are today.
“Now that we are scattered between the US and Europe, we schedule a trip at least once a year to be together and reconnect,” explains Candotti. “Edinburgh was our last adventure in 2023. For 2024, we decided to travel to Italy.”
This Italy adventure was perhaps their dreamiest trip yet.
“We spent the week learning how to make pasta, tasting olive oil, and traveling to the picturesque nearby hillside towns,” recalls Candotti.
But for all the women, the highlight (other than the “afternoon Aperol spritzes”) was recreating that beloved college photo.
Candotti wore the original floral dress, of course. Meanwhile Clark, Garrison and Carrano gamely dug out clothes that resembled their outfits in 1989. Garrison sourced the blue solo cups — which aren’t really a thing in Europe — packing them in her bag and bringing them to Italy, where they were filled with fine Italian wine rather than cheap college beer (“We’ve upgraded,” says Robin, laughing).
Candotti’s husband, who also joined the trip, took the photo, and helped the women recapture their poses.
It didn’t take them too long to nail it. And, in between, there was lots of laughter.
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Later, looking at the photos side by side, the four friends felt happy — and a little bit emotional.
“They say a picture paints a thousand words. And I think it’s so true looking at that picture,” says Clark, who says she was struck by everything the four friends have gone through together in those 35 years.
“There’s so much in that photo that somebody else just looking at it doesn’t see, but we can see and feel it,” Clark says. “And I think that’s what’s so special about it.”
Carrano agrees: “There was so much life to get from that first picture to that to that second picture.”
For Carrano, the friendship is underlined by the idea that they’re each other’s “anchors.”
“We go off and do our thing, but you can always pull yourself back to that anchor and find yourself,” she says.
Garrison agrees, counting herself so “lucky to have such wonderful friends,” who never judge, only ever support.
“We’ve all had tragedies that have happened in our lives,” adds Candotti. “And each time, these are the girls that are with me, that pick up the phone and say, ‘Are you okay? What can I do?’ I know they would do anything.”
While all four women have gone through changes and ups and downs over the past 35 years (from “old and new boyfriends” in their early twenties to “empty nest, menopause, taking care of our parents” in latter years) their friendship remains a constant, an “anchor.”
“Whenever we are together, we are astonished when calculating the number of years we have been friends,” says Candotti. “Through relationships, careers, marriages, children, and deaths, we have seen each other through it all.”
When Candotti returned from Italy, she hung the floral dress back in her closet, smiling. Then she framed the recreated photo, putting it in pride of place next to the 1989 shot in her home.
“In the end, we and the photo turned out all right,” says Candotti. “Thankful for my lifelong friends.”
