Dave Bakke: Mocha Momma and her red dress meet Katie Couric

That's Oprah and Katie down for Kelly. Which national show is next? Ricki Lake? Jimmy Fallon? Ellen DeGeneres?"I'll just have to get my own," says Kelly. Don't think she won't.Two years ago, I wrote about her appearance on "Oprah." As assistant principal at Lincoln Magnet School, Kelly was one of several educators on the show to talk about the movie "Waiting for Superman." It was a documentary examining the problems of the country's public school system and solutions for fixing those problems.But this time it was "Katie" and the story of The Traveling Red Dress.
The red dress phenomenon was started by Jenny Lawson in Texas. Jenny wrote on her blog, "I want, just once, to wear a bright red, strapless ball gown with no apologies. I want to be shocking, and vivid and wear a dress as intensely amazing as the person I so want to be. And the more I thought about it the more I realized how often we deny ourselves that red dress and all the other capricious, ridiculous, overindulgent and silly things that we desperately want but never let ourselves have because they are simply ‘not sensible' ".Jenny bought the dress, wore it and it was liberating. She wanted other women to feel what she felt when she wore that dress and so it began a journey ... "traveling from city to city so that other people can wear it and love it and feel as special and vivid and dynamic as they already are. Because sometimes we all need a little red dress to remind us of that."
She sent the dress to a breast cancer patient. A woman with agoraphobia wore it. But mostly it is worn by women like the ones you see on the street every day.About a year ago, the red dress made its way to Springfield, and Kelly wore it. She had professional photographer Matt Penning take pictures of her in the dress.Feminine looks, old Hollywood style feature at NY fashion week.Afterward, she wrote on her Mocha Momma blog about the experience of the dress and why she wore it.
"I needed a moment of the abnormal, a celebration of the irrational," she wrote. "I needed the absolute crazy idea of getting a red ball gown in the mail and going out in the middle of the woods to take pictures in it. I needed to be something that maybe you wouldn't expect from the person at your child's school. I mean, really, can you see this person as the trusted individual whose office you might need to go to when your child gets in trouble or is in need of help? ..."Red dresses are transformative. Red dresses are necessary. Red dresses have the power to resurrect. Red dresses are the best kind of ridiculous. Thank you, Jenny, for reminding me of that."