Lisa sent me this gorgeous, slightly obscene dress (click on the picture to go to the eBay listing). Notice, please, that the design is of tiny lit cigarettes! Why is it that the iconography of things that are bad for you, like smoking and alcohol, is so alluring? When I was in London I saw a woman in a lovely 40s peplum dress that also had a cigarette pattern; I asked her if it were vintage although of course it was obvious. Not that I don't think that a modern rockabilly dress with a pattern of little lit cigarettes wouldn't sell out in the time it took the web page to reload ...
But I wasn't going to post about little lit cigarettes today, I was going to tell you about some funny dress superstitions I found while looking up something completely different ... here's a few of my favorites, so far:
If you tear your dress under the arm there will soon be a wedding.
If your dress is torn by a bramble, someone envies you.
If a stick catches in your dress while you are walking, you will meet a new beau.
If mud splashes on your white dress, someone is speaking ill of you.
It is bad luck to let anyone wear your new dress before you do. (How convenient!)
Never mend your dress while you’re wearing it; you will become poor, or people will speak maliciously about you.
It is considered lucky to tear a new dress before it is washed. (By whom?)
If you wear a new dress for the first time and it rains, it will rain every time you put it on.
Anyone have other ones?
Also -- I may not have internet access until Monday (I know! The withdrawal will kill me!) so posting frequency may be somewhat less than once per day. But I did add the link to Secret Lives #7 over there on the right ...
If you peel an orange in one continuous strand of peel, you'll get a new dress.
Posted by: ita | 09/14/2006 at 11:14 AM
(Sadly, this isn't a dress-related superstition, but I have a great Hanae Mori knit wool suit that has a pattern of lit matches--not as fatal as cigarettes, but still a bit ominous)
Posted by: Frowner | 09/14/2006 at 11:42 AM
This is the perfect dress for an ex-smoker. Hey, if I can't smoke, at least my dress can, right?
Posted by: Laura | 09/14/2006 at 01:28 PM
I was told by my great grandfather (who was a tailor) that you can fend off the bad luck of having something mended while you wear it if you keep your thumb in your mouth!
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/14/2006 at 01:32 PM
Speaking of cigarette iconography, there is a famous 1940s-era Bes Ben cocktail hat made with empty cigarette packages. There is a lit cigarette etched in the black netting right about where your mouth is. I think there is a picture of a woman wearing this hat somewhere on the Internet. Just follow the trail of smoky URLs.
Posted by: the_lazymilliner | 09/14/2006 at 01:35 PM
If a dress dosen't fit you, it was ugly anyway--not quite superstition but I read this in a magazine ad and thought it was funny.
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/14/2006 at 01:41 PM
Not mending a dress while wearing it must go along with the caveat not to iron your dress while wearing it (warning courtesy of the attorneys who wrote the owner's manual of my new Rowenta).
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/14/2006 at 01:51 PM
Ooh, that color!And if anyone needs proof that tearing a new dress before it is washed COULD be lucky, see the poem "i bought a new red" by femme extraordinaire, Chrystos.Talk about smoking! ;)
Posted by: nora | 09/14/2006 at 05:43 PM
I've never heard any of those, and I don't have any to add to your list either, but they're all interesting. It took me a while to see the cigarettes on the dress.
Posted by: Madeleine | 09/14/2006 at 08:34 PM
My sister had an "earthquake dress." My mother named it that the second time she wore it and there was an earthquake. The 3rd time was the LAST time for that dress!
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/15/2006 at 02:15 PM
My grandmother used to say that if you stood up and the hem of your dress was turned up, someone was coming to visit you.
Posted by: Anonymous | 09/20/2006 at 07:34 AM