Great Dresses of Song: The Sack

I had a figure problem with the fashions of the past
But no more figure problem--now my shape's in style at last

In the sack
In the sack
No one knows that I'm poorly designed
I'm a runt in the front
And there's too much behind what's behind
But who knows
And who sees
Underneath my Parisian chemise
Who can tell what I lack
I'm in perfect design
Every fella of mine
Says I'm simply divine
In the sack

I'm a mess
In a dress
With a peck-a-boo split up the side
And I frown on a gown
Where there simply is no place to hide
So blow horns
Wave the flag
I'm the belle of the ball in the bag
I'm the pick of the pack
Since I took up the trend
Every gentleman friend
Says I'm simply the end
(In the sack)

For the new look
I was much too dumpy
I could never get a sheath around myself
For the flat look
I was much too lumpy
But I found myself
When I found myself

In the sack
In the sack
I am burning my old basic black
Each designer I see
From New York to Paree
Wants to throw little me
In the sack.

Lyrics by Jerry Herman (click on image to go to a book of his lyrics).

Another Theory Bites the Dust, Goddammit

A bit of backstory: I am fairly nondescript-looking. Really. I mean, sure, my glasses are pink (or green or blue, or yellow) and I wear the kinds of prints that insensitive pranksters like to hide in the closets of blind people, but physically, I am not all that striking. Which means that folks often say that they know someone who LOOKS JUST LIKE ME. Really! Their cousin's friend, a girl they went to high school with, someone they knew vaguely at their first job ... who could be my twin.

So my jokey answer, of course, is "Oh, yes, that must be my good twin." (Evil twin references ALWAYS equal comedy.)

But today, searching on the phrase "the most gorgeous dress ever", I found her. My spiritual twin: she writes a fashion diary/blog. However, she's my EVIL twin. How do I know she's evil? Because THIS is what what she thought was "the most gorgeous dress ever":


For once, I'm not going to apologize for how small the pic is. Any bigger and you'd be looking at permanent damage to your optic nerve. Maybe even hallucinations.

Oh yes, this is one of those smocky "dresses" -- I use the word "dress" for this only because she does -- that people wear belted, over jeans, like so:



She describes this as "pretty without being too heavy, comfortable without being too casual, and incredibly workable - can be worn alone as a dress or skirt, with jeans, belted, you name it". (My name for it would be "anathema," frankly.) Question: this is a strapless smocked cotton housedress--how is it not too casual? Oh, it must be because (you can't tell from the pic) it's SEQUINED. So you have to hand-wash it.

And she says the sizing is good, because the S/M fits her perfectly. I'm sorry. S/M is not a SIZE. S/M is a punt. S/M says "Oh, I'm sorry, I only design in two sizes, one for me, and one for my one friend (whom we call "plus-size" because she wears a size 10). She wears the M/L."

One other thing: it was $120. Yes, that's right. $120. C'mon, people! Paying $120 for this makes (choose one): the baby Jesus cry; America weak and our enemies strong; no friggin' sense.

Of course, she posted about this last January, so perhaps she's had a come-to-Jesus moment and is now featuring vintage (or at least actual dresses) on her site, right? Right?

Wrong.

(Do not adjust your set: the picture was like this when I got it.)

Ah well. It was fun being the evil twin while it lasted. I suppose that now that I'm the good twin I should bone up on past eps of The Patty Duke Show, which I only have to think of to be horribly earwormed with the theme song ("They're cousins, identical cousins ..."). Goddammit, again.

Click on any of the images above to visit the Style Diary site. Just remember that while I may not agree with what you choose to wear (and might mock you), I will defend to the death your right to wear it and post fuzzy pictures of it on the internet.

Ooh! Mod!

Okay, one more from Macojero's, inspired by Madelene who bought a different mod dress that I won't taunt you with (even though it was supercute) because she already bought it. (Duh.)

This one is so nice, with the completely non-functional shoulder tabs (to evoke epaulets?) and the diagonal lines, and no real place to put a pocket. And I've always loved that just-over-the-shoulder-point sleeve, although it's hard to make that look good without putting in a lot of time in the gym. Basically, I've just said I love this dress although it is: 1) non-functional 2) inconvenient and 3) unflattering. (To which I say ::bronx cheer::)

I have a ton of mod patterns, but I don't really ever sew with them. I just like to keep them around in case I miraculously turn into Jean Shrimpton overnight. Although even being Jean Shrimpton wouldn't make up for having to wear sticky plastic shoes and accessories. Vinyl is for records, not for shoes (or handbags).

Okay, back to the patterns.

Yet another variation on the midriff band, this one on eBay from Macajero for the unbelievably low price of $5.00. Considering I finally figured out what my first attack at the Hot Patterns Hippy Chick Dress would consist of (I woke up from a deep sleep last night with the idea -- the leftover Liberty dot-swirl-star print twill matched with a deep red heavy cotton/lycra, and let's just hope I have enough of each), you'd think I'd be leaving the midriff dresses alone. Ah, but you see -- this one is SURPLICE! The lure of the surplice cannot be underestimated, despite the inevitability of having to sew invisible snaps in them so that they don't come un-surpliced.

The red floral with the white bands seems very eastern-inspired, and is much better than the beige with a beige-ier ribbon, although I also like the orange and brown combo. You could even Lilly-Pulitzer it up in pink and grass green.

And while I'm nattering on about patterns, has anyone seen one for a pencil skirt with a very wide, convex waistband? I'm talking the kind that is nearly empire. I though I had such an animal, but the pattern I was thinking of was just very high-waisted, not waistbanded. I'm assuming you have to bone those kinds of waistbands so that they don't roll, and that the overall silhouette demands to be worn with bolero jackets, but I'm willing to make those kind of sacrifices for the greater good.

The Secret Histories of Dresses, pt. 1

I knew there was trouble when I saw the grocery store. I mean, look at me, I'm not a grocery-store kind of dress. I mean, maybe now you'd wear me to the grocery store, kids today and so on, but when I was new -- no. But there I was, in the grocery store, with house slippers, no less, and her husband's windbreaker. No one said anything. We bought three cabbages, five bags of marshmallows, and beef bouillon cubes. The cashier rolled her eyes, but I didn't know why that was unusual--for all I knew that was a week's shopping. I was more of a cocktail-party dress. I knew weiners on sticks, and little cubes of cheese, and crudités.

After the grocery store, we went home, and lay on the sofa, watching television, until the man got home. There were a lot of nice dresses on the television. "Where are we going?" he asked. He didn't notice the house slippers, or the lack of makeup. He just saw me.

"Hell!" she shouted, and threw her drink at him. None got on me, not even a spot, and I was thankful, because bourbon stains.

He just stood there for a moment, dripping, and then walked into the other room. I heard him dialing the phone, but I couldn't make out what he was saying. He didn't come back in the room, even though she was sobbing. She wasn't watching the television, although it was still on. Soon she stopped crying and then she was asleep. I don't like being slept in. It makes creases. When she had been asleep for a while, the man came back in with a nightgown, and took me off her. He was pretty gentle. I'd heard stories of men ripping dresses, but he didn't. He was upset that she wasn't wearing anything under me, not even a slip, but he just sighed and went off for a minute. He came back with a bra and panties, though they didn't match. I guess he hadn't noticed that hers always matched, or maybe he didn't think it was important. Then he put a coat around her and carried her out.

I didn't get hung up until the next day. It was odd to spend so much time off a body but not hung up. She always hung me up right away.

He hung me up, but put me way in the back of the closet, not near the other dresses I'd been by before. That felt strange. And then no one opened the closet for weeks and weeks. When the door opened again, she looked in and said "Oh! None of these will fit now, I've lost so much weight." She didn't seem happy or sad about it, either way. Her voice seemed kind of flat, not bubbly like it was before. Anyway, she never wore me again, and I was given away a few months later, to her sister who lived in Tucson.

Cat Chow: My Hero

Have I mentioned before how much I love the artist Cat Chow? This is her Zipper Dress, fashioned from ONE hundred-yard-long zipper. To get into (or out of) it, you have to unzip it down to the hips.

Click on the image to read a wonderful article about her, and see the Zipper Dress in red, as well as the dollar bill dress and the artist wearing a dress that I think is made from woven tape measures (and is gorgeous).

The closest I've ever gotten to making an art dress is making my friend Vanessa a Halloween costume out of bubble wrap. But I really enjoy looking at Cat Chow's work ...

By the way, A Dress A Day is taking Christmas off, and possibly the day after Christmas (I refuse to call it Boxing Day, I am also not eating any "figgy pudding," so there) too, depending on whether or not I can get internet access. (I've TRIED updating my blog by concentrating really, really hard, honest I have, but so far, no success.) However, check back in on Tuesday for a new and exciting variation on the A Dress A Day format, if I can get around to it. Otherwise it will the usual exciting format.

Another Office Dress

Here's another Take Me Seriously dress, this time from Woodland Farms Antiques (this dress, I need hardly add, has never seen a farm, much less a woodland one, but I digress).

This dress has an entirely different narrative: this is the dress that the assistant wears. Wait. This is the dress that the assistant wears in the last scene of the movie, the one after she's taken over the whole office while the overbearing, martinet boss (older, male, chauvinist) has been (ill/stuck overseas/unlawfully imprisoned). He comes back to find the office running better than it ever had, the big client landed, the big deadline met, the president overjoyed ... and himself now the assistant. "Are you ready to take some dictation, Mr. Elway?" the erstwhile assistant asks sweetly, wearing this dress and handing him a steno pad.

I have watched entirely too many screwball comedies, haven't I? But can't you see Myrna Loy in this dress? Who plays the poor blowhard Mr. Elway?

It's 34/26/35, and $125. It's also item #20 in the 1950s category, which is important as the site is frame-laden and you can't link directly to a product page (... have they never HEARD of bloggers?) Anyway. There's a lot (a lot a lot) of other wonderful stuff, too, but there's no search function, which is okay because they can't really spell ["umpire" waists abound] and they don't list sizes in a consistent format, so if even if you did search you wouldn't be able to find anything, anyway.

Thanks to Madelene for the link!

No Nonsense

I hope you can get a good enough idea of the gorgeousness of this dress from this slightly washed-out photo. This is the perfect dress to wear with an insouciant air of extreme competence, while still projecting that essential "I could crush you like a bug" vibe. This dress needs serious glasses, high round-toed heels, a pencil behind one ear, and a healthy dollop of Fracas or Chanel No. 5. Sexy secretary is not in it -- this is sexy BOSS.

It's 34/25/35, and $68 (including shipping!) from Penny Lane Vintage, and it's magnificent. I would buy it myself (I'm a sucker for pintucks), and if it's still around in January I just might. I have two very similar dresses, not tucked, but with that high round neck and long lines, both black. I wear them when I need to be taken VERY SERIOUSLY INDEED.

Click around in the Penny Lane listings, there's some nice (and nicely priced) stuff to be had. It's not too late to make amendments to your Santa list. I hear he has an email address now ...

Walter Lippman wasn't brilliant today

Ten points for the first person who can tell me, without Googling, the source of the subject line and why it relates to this dress. I am inexplicably drawn to this acetate dress from Lost Horizon Vintage; it's calling to me, and not politely, either. This is a "Hey, you! Yes, I'm talking to YOU!" dress. If I had a spare $375 it would be mine; if you do (and can fit into 36/26/35) it could be yours.

Be sure to click through to Lost Horizon site, not only so you can see how the zipper goes around the back and over the curve of the lower back, but also to check out her other dresses. There are some amazing things there ...

I can't tell if it has pockets or not but I just don't care, it's cheering me up and that's good enough!

The Lagerfeld ... ah, you know the rest.

Don't get me wrong--The Lagerfeld Must Still Be Stopped, but there's one point of redemption on this dress. Can you guess what it is?

Yes! The midriff band! (Okay, and possibly the round collar). Take away the godawful puffed sleeves and what can only be described as a shoulder peplum; remove (with a plastic fast-food knife if there's nothing else to hand) the apron detail and the ruffles on the skirt, and concentrate seeing a dress with that ruched midriff band and deep front slash. You could even leave it in that fabric, it's not at all bad, although I don't know if I would pair it with those sandals (and I even have a pair much like those!).

In my fantasy/theory, some design assistant at Fendi put together the dress I describe above, with simple cap sleeves, maybe, and the Lagerfeld swooped in, clanking (as he does, with all that extraneous metal, god forbid you're ever behind him in an airport security line) and says "Not enough random fug! My god, have I taught you all NOTHING!" and then he proceeds to add crap until the good dress underneath is completely obscured.

Of course, this is all pure speculation mixed with not enough sleep (and truly terrible dreams) on my part. Perhaps there was even more fug on this dress (although where you could put it, I have no idea) and the Lagerfeld, he used his weird sharp rings to pare it away. But I doubt it.

May I Digress?

I know I don't usually talk about shoes here, because so many other bloggers do it so well, and also because I believe someone's shoes are like their children: you should only give praise and never criticism (that is, if you want them to remain your friend!). However, take a look at these! The top pair, are (as the Manolo would say) the shoes of the surpassing comeliness, from the Prada. The bottom pair are the very faithful ... homages, shall we say, from Via Spiga. Guess which pair I bought yesterday?

I've been obsessed with the Prada ones since last Spring, when I saw them in the March Vogue (the shoot with Andre 3000 and Liya Kebede) and everyplace else, and I came very, very close to buying a pair until I discovered I am constitutionally unable to spend nearly $400 on a pair of shoes. (I broke out in hives contemplating it.) I am, however, perfectly well able to spend $80 on a pair of shoes, especially when they are on sale at Bloomingdales and are the only pair left in my size ...

What does this have to do with dresses, you say? Merely that a little black loafer, with a low vamp and a low heel, is simply the perfect shoe for the day dress. Dressy enough to wear to work, yet nicely informal with bare legs in the spring and summer, comfortable enough to walk long blocks, feminine (it's the low vamp) but not frilly or girly ... I've been wearing variations of this shoe for more than twenty years, which I figure makes it a personal classic. There is nothing more universally appropriate before 6 PM than a cotton dress worn with loafers like these and a little cardigan. If I have anything even approaching a uniform it would be this combination.

I've already put together an eBay search for this style name in my size; I'll probably try to buy another pair before spring. When you find a perfect pair of shoes and for one reason or another, can't buy another pair right then, hie yourself to eBay and set up a recurring search for them. Everything shows up on eBay eventually, and with any luck you'll be able to grab another pair, and cheaper, even after they've left the stores.

No More Alibis, by Sylvia of Hollywood (1935)

I got this as a present last night (OMG best.present.ever.) and am already entranced by the absolute sadism of Sylvia. Check this out:

from The "In-Between" Figure
"In-Betweens" have worse problems than the fat or skinny ones, who know their figures are wrong. They don't need anybody to tell them so. But you "in-betweens" often get the idea you're all right. And you aren't. Just take a good look at yourself. No, you aren't fat. And you aren't thin. But look at that chest. It's too flat. your ankles are too thick. Your abdomen sticks out. I haven't space to tell you your other defects. But I bet they are there--and plenty!

from Keep That Perfect Figure!
... you fat babies must always watch your diet. And watch those scales daily just as a scare. Now that your proportions are right, your scales will warn you the minute they begin to go up. That minute, back on the reducing diet for you.

on liquids:
Fatty people must not drink too much water. Two glasses a day are plenty with the liquids I've given you. Too much water enlarges the stomach. ...

on foundation garments
I don't believe in trying to hide bulges and bumps of fat by tight corsets. As a matter of fact, they are never hidden, just shifted from one place to another, in most cases making you look worse. The only sensible thing is to get rid of those bumps. Don't misunderstand me. I don't mean that you should go waddling into a room without any corset. I'd call that stupidity.

on swimming
Remember, too, that swimming builds you up. It's wonderful for you thin ones. But it won't reduce you fat ones. For you, sun baths in moderation and cold plunges in fresh or salt water are splendid.

on posture
If you think I am too hard on you or exaggerate, just go to a museum and take a look at the early Egyptian figures. Notice their sitting posture. You will see there wasn't a slumping abdomen in a tombful, and that many thousands of years before Christ, the Egyptians used Sylvia's methods.

on relations between the sexes
I am aiming to please the husbands, too. I don't want them to have to sit across a table from a woman with a mean disposition and hungry, wolf-like expression in her eye. It pays the nationally advertised beauties to take care of themselves because their living depends on their looks. And more and more, every woman's living depends on her appearance. We all have to earn our living one way or another. And men are getting more particular and critical about women every day.

Oh, I could quote Sylvia all day! But I'll stop now. More later.

Black and Blue

I seem to be drawn to that bruise color combination lately; maybe it's an outward extension of my inward clumsiness (I still have a bruise on my hip from falling down a flight of stairs MONTHS ago). Anyway, I went to Style.com to go find a picture of this OTHER Donna Karan dress, that I saw in Harper's Bazaar, but then was distracted completely by this blue and black number.

I really, really love square necklines -- have I mentioned this before? I mean, more than five or six times? And you can't tell from the picture, but the sash goes THROUGH the side seam to tie UNDER the fabric of the dress in back, so that the whole back tents out and streams behind you. So lovely, although I'm sure in practice you would always be closing it in the car door.

I also am a big fan of those square sleeves and a wide hem band, so all in all this dress is nicer than the one that originally caught my eye, because on that one I wasn't completely convinced that the nude fabric over the shoulders (that makes the dress look as if it started abruptly right above your cleavage) was a Great Idea.

Check out the whole Donna Karan slide show. She seems to have gotten over her crazy idea that women only want to dress in beige jersey knit, and the dresses for next spring are lovely! Abstract prints and nice lines. Sure, there's plenty of brown, but in a darker shade, not the walking Band-Aid it seemed she favored before ...

Dresses on the wire

The AP Wire, that is. There was an article on how "the cocktail dress is back!" that ran last week. I'm linking to the version from the Winston-Salem Journal as a shout-out to my hometown ...

Some highlights:

"We're seeing a fitted bodice, fuller skirt - often knee-length to midcalf - with a raised or natural waist, a very defined waist."

Hear, hear!

But with all the choices available, Andrews suggests trying something other than the round-neck, sleeveless black sheath that's become the standard "little black dress."

Yes, please!

But, in The-Lagerfeld-He-Must-Be-Stopped Dept.

His fall-holiday Lagerfeld Gallery collection features ... a brown sleeveless dress with a pleated hemline, beaded waistband and white high-neck collar.

I believe this is the dress in black:



Look how cunningly the armscye is cut into a point, making it impossible to wear an ordinary brassiere under the dress! Look how high the collar is, so that it will make a red mark on the underside of the chin, and create a double chin where none exists! Look how the pleats are placed to highlight the widest part of the thigh! The Lagerfeld! He MUST BE STOPPED.

Suzi Perette!

Hey, I'm just showing you the bodice of this dress, because really, that's all you need to see, right? You should be clicking on the image right now, actually.

It's from Vintro Modern, and has a BIN of of $62, which seems pretty darn good for Perette in excellent condition; and it's B38/W30. The eBay listing suggests that you be a "full" B38, and looking at the bodice I find that I agree ...

I was trying to find some information about Suzy Perette other than "omg so cute! want!" but had no luck with an (admittedly desultory) Google. Anybody got a good link?

Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love

Smokydiva's got this listed on eBay as a Buy It Now for $55, and it's a B40/W32. And check out the crazy print!

If I bought this, though, I would spend the rest of my life looking for spectator pumps in black and just that shade of blue. I mean, wouldn't you? In fact, the more I sew for myself the more frustrated I become at not being able to make my own shoes. That's pretty much why I'm so excited about desktop fabbing. That's how you know you're an unreconstructed girl geek; you read Wired because you want to apply new tech to making pretty clothes.

Check out Smokydiva's other auctions -- there's a ruffled HoJo's-blue rockabilly dress that almost made me forget that I look like a zombie movie extra in that color ...

Lucky: Love and Hate

New Lucky mag today, which I love. And hate. I love Lucky because their editors find these gorgeous things and present them to you with absolutely no pretense that they are anything other than pretty inconsequential things that give pleasure (that is, they don't have the Vogue disease where everything is Culturally Important). I hate Lucky because their stylists are colorblind pranksters hellbent on playing "exquisite corpse," only with innocent clothes.

I mean, look at this dress above. Nice, right? Great color, elegant lines. Pretty. Maybe I'd leave off the sash, or tie it a little higher for a more empire line, but it's not hilariously wrong.

Now look what Lucky did to it in November:

And this is not even an especially egregious example -- for instance, they didn't decide to do the timeless yes-I-am-insane-thanks-for-asking combo of tailored short-shorts and random-color tights, worn with peeptoe wedges, that shows up about twice an issue; nor did they swag the model in kitschy theme jewelry like a Liberace-themed Christmas tree, as is their wont. They even refrained from breaking out the Boots of Hysterical Unwearability, of which they seem to have an unending supply. (And they did tie the sash higher.)

I tend to rip out pages from magazines if there's a striking image, or if there's something that belongs in my Binder(s) of Good Ideas, and the pages I tear out of Lucky hardly ever feature a living person, unless by chance what has caught my eye is the topmost stratum of all the layers of WTF? that the stylist has aggregated.

And yet I read it voraciously every month. Go figure. Anyway, if you want this dress click on either image; it's called the "Fighting Eel Dress" (why? I have absolutely no idea) and it's $230, which is an awful lot for stretch cotton, especially when you consider Lucky thinks you have to add a completely incongruous tweed clutch handbag (that is itself $200!), and metallic leather pumps. Me, I say you could get away with ankle-strap round-toed flats (yellow would be cute!) and a little denim jacket in case it got chilly, and a maybe a slouchy bag with a wide strap. Although I'm sure whatever casual bag you already carry would be fine. (Actually, Rio's wonderful distressed white leather handbag -- which I marvel at every time I see -- would be The Perfect Bag, but since I can't describe it any better than that I shall pass over it in silence.)

Whew. Next time, I'll rant about the Lucky Breaks, and why I don't consider 20% off a $300 item The Deal of the Century ...

fine feathers

Look carefully -- the feathers are satin, not actual feathers. Click on the image to visit VintageTextile.com and see the details; they're astounding. The dress is nearly $1500 (!) but even at that "price point", it's already reserved.

I love the color, the applique, the tulle ... I'm a huge fan of this kind of dress, simple lines with over-the-top embellishment, but monochrome. I think this would make a gorgeous swan-like wedding gown (even though it's not WHITE, go on, defy the bridal paradigm!), but I'm not sure if a swan gown's a good thing or a bad thing. I have a vague feeling that swan brides in folktales usually lead to a lot of unnecessary complications, so perhaps that's not quite what you want to start your married life by invoking.

If you have a little time spend it clicking around on that site and making a list of what you'd buy if you won the lottery ... I have my eye on their Ceil Chapmans, but the rest is fair game.

another party dress

I love this dress from Vintage Martini. The color is amazing and the bodice really interesting. (The only problem with interesting-bodice dresses, though, is you have to be comfortable with people staring at your chest! I guess that's why they design 'em that way, but still ...)

It's $95 and 36-26-36 ... click on the image to check it out.

I wish that I could have a couple minutes with this dress to figure out how exactly the bodice was cut, but not enough to spend $95, especially as it wouldn't fit me now (although I, like the rest of the world, have high hopes for remedying that in January), and because I absolutely don't need any more party dresses. I did a little check last night to see just how many party dresses/clothes I had, and the count was double digits. The dressy-party count this year, so far? Two. So perhaps I am a little overstocked in the dressy-clothes category. Not to mention a little understocked in the interesting-life category. Not that I'm trolling for invites, mind you. Although my email address is on the right, down at the bottom ... I don't drink, so I'm a really cheap guest. :-)

Seven Dollars

Check it out -- this dress is listed for $6.99. That's right, seven dollars can get you a very nice (if a little small, and if in need of a teeny repair, the kind that even people who don't sew on buttons can make) holiday dress. I love eBay. I also love the balletic lines of this dress -- the round neck, the elegant sleeves, and the belled skirt. Nothing's better than a dress that makes you feel like a ballerina, all neck and grace.

Anyway, eBay is JAMMED now with people selling things that have only the most tangential relationship to Christmas. (Seriously. I don't care how emo your Christmas is, an early-80s Le Tigre lime green striped polo dress is NOT a "holiday dress.") And eBay is also jammed with people selling things that maybe, almost, could have been something that Sienna Miller almost once looked at. (Looked at and said "nah ...", I hope.) Seriously, in five pages of listings I saw eight Sienna mentions. What is it with "Sienna Miller: Fashion Icon"? I just don't get it. As they like to say in my homeland, "All her taste is in her mouth." And who searches clothes on eBay with the keyword "Sienna Miller"? They're probably not as scary as the people who search clothes with the keyword "Paris Hilton," but they're still pretty scary.

A lot of the vintage fashion books I have are big on developing your own style; you need to figure out what suits YOU, and then work to make it coherent. Every fashion magazine I see now is hell-bent on propping up four or five overly-styled quasi-celebrities and asking you to choose which one you would most like to emulate. ("None of the Above" never seems to be an option.) I believe the next step will be Sienna Miller *kits*, that you can buy in a department store, like those old "Multiples" sets from the 1980s. (Which she seems to be singlehandedly trying to revive, but never mind.) They will include bad pants, a ridiculous and incongruous hat, expensive and ugly shoes, and a random tunic/shirt/dress to top it all off, plus miscellaneous bling. Kind of like this. Ooh, I can hardly wait.

a workhorse

I bought this one from Macojero's Sewing Patterns, and I think it's going to turn out to be a workhorse. It's got four pattern pieces, not including the facings -- the pockets are cut in one with the skirt. It needs barely 2 1/2 yards of fabric -- a smidgen, compared to what I usually sew. I can usually piece together 2 1/2 yards out of scraps! (Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but you know what I mean.) If I can get the fit right I could probably run up three or four of these in a couple of days, and if I pick some SOLID COLORS for a change, I could probably wear them for years. I have some nice old-gold wool crepe that should make up beautifully into this, and if I wanted to get fancy, I also have some bubblegum-pink satin that would be really cute. (Although that last really isn't something you can wear over and over again ...) A dress like this under a nice cardigan or little jacket (of which I have, again with the exaggeration, hundreds) can go anywhere and do anything.

It's even supposedly one of those "proportioned" patterns, with different bodice pieces for petite, medium, and tall sizes. I might measure the petite bodice and cut that one instead, as I'm so short-waisted.

I'm not sure, though, if I'll do the neck facings. I hate neck facings, they're so lumpy and bulky and need so much trimming and fussing. I might cut bias binding in the same fabric, or maybe line the whole bodice (I have ten yards of lining silk around here somewhere, might as well use it) instead. If I am careful about the zipper placement at the neck edge, I think bias binding is probably the way to go ... it looks so much neater.

Old gold, dove gray (I have some nice heavy Italian cotton with a bit of stretch that I tried to make a Vogue DKNY pattern out of, a great pattern I'd made half-a-dozen times before and that for some reason I can't find online and am too lazy to scan (but let me just say it has a midriff band) but the combination of the pale gray and the very severe pattern lines made me look like the warden at a women's prison), and maybe even black -- I have some nice black Italian cotton, too. I always buy black fabric and think "oh, I'll make a black skirt!" and then I either never do, or I never wear them when I do. (A plain black skirt is something you can always buy for $30 at Loehmann's.) And red. I have some red sitting around just begging to be made, like a puppy wanting a walk. Guess I better get cracking.

promised (threatened) fabric scans

Well, of course the colors are all wrong (on the plaid at the top the grays are lighter, and the bottom is olive, black, and teal squiggles) but here they are, the fun fabrics I bought last week. After I had scanned them I realized that maybe the store had already done the work for me and put them on their site but no such luck. Either that or what I call "plaid" is not what they call "plaid."

But hey, aren't these cute? The top fabric is a mid-weight summer fabric with a slight slub to it -- perfect dress weight. The bottom is a light corduroy, very shallow wale, almost babywale. I'm pretty sure I'm making a skirt out of it, as I just have never warmed much to corduroy dresses. I think my mother was frightened by a corduroy jumper when she was pregnant with me.

Sometimes I think finding great fabric is both the best and the worst part of sewing for yourself. Spending hours in the fabric store rummaging around can turn up amazing treasures, or it can be an exercise in deep frustration. If you want something highly specific -- like one fabric I've been looking for now for many a long year, a midweight cotton in sky blue with a white fluffy cloud print, like a Magritte background with no SILVER GILT on it (my clouds don't need silver linings!), or the deep chocolate brown silk with dark yellow and green gingko leaves that I fantasize about on a monthly basis -- well, god help you, my child. If you need a specific color to match something else, if you have a tremendous need for polka dots of a particular size (and if you want to see someone squirt coffee out their nose, walk into a Manhattan fabric store while heavily pregnant and say you're looking for fabric with fist-sized polka dots), if you need fabric in an exact weight, there will be a gaping void where the objects of your desire should be. If you walk in not needing anything specific, the fabric gods will open their arms to you and rain down endless possibilities. It makes it hard to plan, but it makes it easy to be surprised. And as I get older I find I enjoy a good surprise more than I love it when a plan comes together.

Big Damn Dresses, Sir

I know it's a fuzzy picture but hey, fuzzy or not, it's still a big damn dress from Firefly, and it's being auctioned now on eBay. You can also get some leftover fabric from it, and a few other dresses and outfits, but not, sadly, Kaylee's frilly dress (scroll down) from the same episode. Which I believe was the also the episode that gave us the immortal monicker "Captain Tightpants." Mmmmm, Mal. Anyway. Where were we? Dresses?

Do you want to know how much devotion Joss Whedon inspires? The costume designer remade HER OWN WEDDING DRESS to create this dress for this episode. I'm hoping she's still married, because if not, it's not as good of a story.

Of course, the only real reason to buy this dress (although it's very pretty) is if you are obsessed with Firefly (which I'm not any longer; the movie gave me closure, dammit). I'm not sure if the proceeds go to charity or not; there was no mention I could find in the listings.

Thanks to Rio for the linky goodness ...

An excuse for "purchased trim"

I was in M&J Trimming on Saturday and barely made it out of there alive. I managed to restrain myself ONLY because I hadn't brought any yardage requirements with me, making buying trim for specific dresses an exercise in pure guesstimation. I ended up buying some green leaf trim (what I went in there for), a Superman patch for my little boy, and a string of yellow beads (they were 99¢).

If I were to make a list of everything at M&J that seriously tempted me, we'd be here for days, so the highlights: some polka-dotted stretchy foldover trim (especially as a co-worker stopped me on Friday in dismay. "You're not wearing polka dots!" he said, looking stricken. "You *always* wear some kind of polka dot!" I talked him down but it was a close thing.) Some heavy beaded ribbon in tones of teal and turquoise. Some faux-folklorica embroidery edging. And the killer, tulle covered with tiny square sequins. Square! So Courrèges! I wanted to buy the whole bolt and use it to make a skirt. I wanted to buy all the bolts (they had multiple colors) and just hoard it.

Then I thought of this pattern, recently purchased as part of the Great Midriff Band Obsession of 2005 (look, this one is SHAPED) and thought how nice the sequins would be as the "purchased trim" for this dress. Now I just have to decide the color. I think tone-on-tone would be the best ... not that I really have any place to wear a sequin-embellished ANYTHING, but that's never stopped me before.

Just one note: the floral dress looks as if it has a tiny collar, but it's just the miter line of the trim. Sorry. Fooled me too.

Another reason why librarians are awesome

So I was invited to speak last week (about my Real Job™) at a lovely library in Connecticut. It was gratifyingly well-attended and the audience questions were great. What does this have to do with why librarians are awesome and why this pattern is here? Well, as an honorarium for coming to speak, they gave me this pattern! And another one that was equally lovely! And they're my size!

"How did you know?" I asked, because this site isn't in my Official Bio™ ... but it does say that I like to sew with vintage patterns. So they had not only READ it (you'd be surprised how many people that want me to come speak DON'T) but actually took the information and used it. So thoughtful!

Anyway, that's reason #15,988 why librarians rock. And I hope you can see in the scan (it's a little fuzzy, sorry) how the collar splits at the shoulder seam. That also rocks.

Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit Dress

I am pretty sure that this dress has nothing to do with Updike, but if anyone googles anything different, let me know. Msbelle sent this one to me, last week sometime, and it's been growing on me ever since. It's at Nordstrom, $88, and the only thing I don't like about it is that it's polyester. (I'm a fiber snob, although I know polyester is getting nicer and nicer, it's still not as nice as silk. I'd rather have a nice rayon than polyester, even.)

I wish this dress was sold with two or three midriff bands. Velvet would be a nice alternative to the satin, and a color or a print would help make this dress a real workhorse.

Sorry no post yesterday; I was out buying some kickass fabric -- seriously, some of the best fabric I've seen in ages. I'll try to scan it towards the end of the week and post it. Warning: more mock plaid on the way. And it totally makes up for me losing the auction for this fabric ...

and one more from last Friday's cornucopia of pattern goodness

Isn't this wonderful? This dress reminds me of what Voltaire said about God: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." If this dress did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it.

I'm not sure if I will sew this one -- it might be better in this ideal abstract form than in whatever concrete hash I might make of it. Sometimes I feel some patterns are too pretty to sew, or at least too pretty for me to sew. When they're still in the envelope, they're perfect; when I'm swearing at them, wrestling with understitching facings and deciding whether I should hand-baste the zipper before submitting it to the not-so-tender mercies of my machine (the answer to that last question SHOULD ALWAYS BE YES, but still I ask it of myself) they descend to the merely real.

I've been trying to remember lately that the untried is always the idealized and to take the time to gedanken-experiment through whatever the situation is that I am assuming will be perfect. To remember that it rains, and that trains are late, and that people have colds in the head or bad hair days, that there's always static cling and lint and runs in stockings. The trick is to balance your hope for the best with your preparation for the worst -- Pollyanna riding Eeyore, if you will.

And that's a long, long way from dresses, so check out the back view! (I actually scanned the back this time. Sorry the scan isn't better.) Ooh, pretty. Dress pretty.

yet another pattern from last Friday

This one is actually next in the queue. I know I say that about a lot of dresses, but this time I really mean it. I swear. I have the fabric all picked out -- it's this green cotton satin, very bright green, absolutely beautiful, and very modern -- I think it was the bitter end of a Chaiken bolt, at least that's what the tag said at Paron's when I bought it. I've been wondering what would be worthy of the fabric since I bought it, and I think it has found a home.

You know why I love this dress, right? Do I have to enumerate it? The midriff band (of course), the interesting sleeves (be sure to look at how they join the bodice, in a kind of modified raglan), the pretty skirt. And, to be totally honest, even the IDEA of wearing it with one of those little veil-ly hats. Not that I would, I'm not really a hat person (despite many and valiant efforts to become one) but the IDEA of it is tremendously appealing.

I have just scored a pair of silver shoes on eBay and have a gorgeous lunchbox-style silver evening bag with rhinestone trim, bought years and years ago in a Hadassah thrift store on Long Island (long story, but the short version is that all the lovely ladies in the store BULLIED me into buying it with lashings of guilt: "You'll always regret not buying it, you'll never find anything like it again, it goes with everything, etc. etc.", very effectively, obviously). Anyway, if I make this dress (AS I FULLY INTEND TO) I will have a great festive holiday party ensemble that is NOT BLACK. Not that there's anything wrong with that ...