Clothes with Character

I am addicted to old home economics textbooks. I love the calm, matter-of-fact voice in which the authors tell you that "Very glossy satins, and harsh tweeds are unbecoming to the mature figure and to the person whose complexion has lost the vitality of youth" or ask you to fill out a quiz to determine if you are an "all-around girl: sincere, wholesome, charming" or a "coquette: flattering, petite, scatterbrained."

Recently I checked a copy of Clothes with Character out of the library (published by DC Heath in 1946, written by Hazel Thompson Craig and Ola Day Rush -- home ec textbooks are always written by women with three names, for some reason, maybe to indicate that they are married and thus not just academic home-ec experts, but practical ones as well?)

Here is an excerpt I found wonderful:

What to Look For When You Buy a Dress

Before you buy a new dress

• Study the current fashion magazines, newspaper sketches, and make several tours of the better shops and shop windows to see what is being shown.


• Take an inventory of your wardrobe on hand to find out your most essential purchase.


• Decide upon color, general lines, kind of material and size. Do not accept a substitute.


• If you choose a printed material, moisten your finger and rub it over the hem to see if the color is permanent. Many prints fade and become ugly under the arm and across the shoulder.


• If you choose a wash dress look for a color-fast and shrinkage label.


• See that all pieces are cut the right way of goods to avoid constant twisting.


• Move your arms and make sure the back is full enough.


• Sit down and make sure the skirt is full enough.


• For additional points in buying a dress study illustration 59.

from Clothes with Character, p. 222.

What I like best about this list is the professionalism of it. "Study" the fashion illustrations! Follow this checklist! Being a well-dressed woman is work, not play, and don't you forget it!

Stripes done right.

I love this dress from Shrimpton Couture. The matching of the stripes is just perfect, and the way they narrow to a point at the center front is sure to emphasize a slender waist (or create one).

It's 36B and $145 ... I have to say that I think that's worth it, just because every time I have to match stripes this way, I end up a bedraggled mess, hair on end, the air around me blue with cursing (and I have convenient access to large dictionaries of slang, so it's not just your run-of-the-mill swear words being bandied about, I have to tell you), seam ripper tightly clenched in my fist ... I'm surprised anyone who touches a dress that I've had to match stripes on doesn't get an electric shock.

There are more pictures at the site; go click the image to visit them.

More polka-dots!

Okay, work with me here. Imagine this dress being worn by someone who hadn't been able to talk/bribe/threaten her plastic surgeon into giving her ginormous implants. Concentrate instead on the enormous polka dots (I know, I know, they don't look so large next to those other unnaturally round objects, but try). Think about the cute border along the hem, and the pockets.

In fact, the pockets are so great that the description calls them "most sexy and unique"! Too bad the rest of the description is incoherent, saying the dress has an "empire drop waist" (a contradiction in terms) and is "perfect for ant occasion" by which I suppose they mean picnics, although that sounds more like a crossword clue than anything else. I pass over the apostrophe and capitalization problems as being unworthy of our time. (Why, oh why do these sites not hire copyeditors? I know plenty who would work for free clothes!)

It's only $58, and sized small-medium-large. (Large is a 38 bust, 34 waist.) Click on the image to visit the site. There are a couple other cute halters and goddessy gowns, but they're interspersed with dresses only useful to people auditioning for the role of "pole girl #3" in a rap video. (They also have the worst Duro version I've seen yet.)

Oh, did I mention this is from TikiBoutique.com? Or did the GIANT PHOTO WATERMARK give it away? (To be fair, there was one unmarked photo, but the model's implants are so freakishly disturbing in it I didn't want to post it. When did they develop antigrav silicone, and why didn't anyone tell me?)

By the way, please don't click on this, unless you have something to scrub your eyeballs with after -- just the words "party halter gaucho jumpsuit" should be enough to give you nightmares for quite some time. (They did me.) See what I go through to bring you cute cheap dresses?

Okay, here are the cards.

That's what they say on the front; there's also a back template that says "Confused by this card? Visit http://www.dressaday.com". I'll put up a little explanation about it in the next couple days.

You can download the front here, and the back here. They're both PDF files.

You can use this template with most Avery brand business cards but don't get the "clean edge" versions as those do not print front and back. (Remember, to print front and back, you have to turn the sheet over and run it through again ...)

Sorry I wasn't able to make these in Hebrew, as one commenter asked. (Although anyone can download the template from the Avery site.)

I spent a little time last night looking for citations about the average size of the American woman, retail information, etc. This article was the most easily accessible online and had the clearest citations for some of the most-repeated pieces of information, such as "Since 1985, the average American woman has grown from a size 8 to a size 14!” It's not a feminist-theory publication, either -- it's a marketing trends report from USC.

I also found some fairly off-putting stuff, like two Rocky Mountain News columnists (talking about a law in Argentina requiring stores to stock a full range of sizes) saying "Those empanada-chomping suburban women will get no sympathy from size-zero supermodels."

And how about "It's hard enough to produce regular sizes well, without being compelled to cut for people who often do not have the discretionary income to buy my products anyway," left in the comments here? There seems to be a logical disconnect: if so many women are over a size 14, they can't all be poor ... in fact, the CIA World Factbook says only 12% of Americans are below the poverty line. And although women are disproportionately poor, not every plus-size woman is. (The ones I know are desperate to buy stylish clothes that fit!)

The last thing I want this to be, though, is a sneering war between the larger and the smaller (I got a couple of "friendly" emails assuming that must be plus-size for caring about this and telling me that if I just lost weight, I could shop in "regular" again. Well, not exactly -- I wear between an 8 and a 12, depending on the store, so most stores stock sizes I could theoretically wear. It's just that I've got almost a ten-inch differential between my waist and my hips, plus I'm short-waisted, which are both hard to fit. If I lost weight, I would have the same problem, only between sizes 6 and 10 and not 8 and 12.)

I know it can be just as hard for people on the 0-2 end of the spectrum to find clothes, plus there's not as much sympathy. ("You're so skinny, you can wear anything!" Well, no -- not if the chest gapes, the sleeves billow, and the waistband falls off your hips!) And god forbid you are bigger than a C-cup and a small size. You might as well write away for the Frederick's of Hollywood catalog and be done with it.

So write your size (whether it's larger or smaller than what's in the store) on the back of the card if you use them. If you would have bought a particular thing, write something like "blue sundress, $100" too. Make it as real as possible. Turn that vague size-14 statistic into real money, and show them that money walking out of the store. The stores won't know that they're not serving your needs unless you tell them.

Fiji Dress from Modaspia

What do I like best about this dress? I can't decide whether it's that it's made of men's shirting (wonderful fabric, very smooth and light), or whether it's the bias contrast trim, or whether it's the pockets.

I think it has to be the pockets. I swear, I think I'm going to take a day and just make a hundred pockets like these in scrap material until I can do them hung upside down and blindfolded in a hurricane, and then I will be able to put them into everything I sew from that point on. They're so sleek and cute and just plain handy ...

This dress is $95 at modaspia (click on the image to go to their site). The only downside is that it's not available any larger than a size 10. I asked one of the designers about that, and she told me that they used to make bigger sizes, but wholesalers and boutiques wouldn't buy them! Grrr.

So I was thinking about making a little downloadable business card, a pdf that you could print out on those Avery tear-apart business card forms, which would read something like "You'd be looking at a credit card instead of this card if your store carried anything in my size." Then you could hand it to the sales staff or just leave it on the counter. What do you think? What should the wording be? Leave your input in the comments, please!

The Retro Butterick Wrap Dress

Remember the retro Butterick wrap dress? C'mon, I know you do. Well, Villain Extraordinaire actually made one, and here it is:




Isn't it adorable? I love the red and the red-orange print together. My only quibble is that she didn't solve the no-pockets problem (so that I could be lazy and just copy whatever she did). I guess that's why she's a Villain Extraordinaire ... her evil plan is to make me actually think. Dammit.

I'm now even MORE hepped up about doing this dress, pockets or no pockets. I have some yellow polka dot fabric that keeps falling off the shelf RIGHT ONTO THIS PATTERN, which is on top of the cutting table. I think it's trying to tell me something.

Twister skirt redux!

All right, all y'all who had such nice things to say about my Twister skirt, now's your chance to buy something similar! Or to mutter excuses like "I've already spent my eBay budget this month" or "polka-dot isn't really my color" or "it's not my size, so sad!"

Note -- I didn't make this one, it's vintage. I'm not the seller, although I admit to feeling a strong sense of kinship with anyone who likes multicolored polka dots!

Bidding starts at $19.99 and the auction ends Tuesday the 27th of June. Waist is 26". Click on the image to visit the auction, and if you win it, thank Lisa, who sent me the link. And then let's figure out when we'll both be in NYC so we can go roller-skating together in our polka-dot glory.

and the winner for "best use of border" is ...

I'm beginning to suspect that some eBay sellers have cracked the secret of time travel and are just holding out on the poor physicists while they grab the good stuff -- this would also explain why occasionally stuff goes missing RIGHT OUT OF MY CLOSET without my even touching it. When you have eliminated all possible explanations, as they say, you must turn to the impossible.

Anyway, Traven7 has this listed (and it's already past $150 with a couple days left in the auction, click on the image to go take a look) and isn't it one of the loveliest uses of a border you've ever seen? I am SO stealing this idea. I feel an actual, physical, visceral pleasure when I look at this dress, and my hands are itching to try this myself. I'm going to be looking at some patterns in a new way -- how can I lay out the fabric so the border is on the vertical, and not the horizontal? I want to try this in contrast, rather than tone-on-tone, so that it really shouts. Also, doing this means you don't have to do a placket! Oh, glory.

So thanks are due, not only to Ruby who sent me the link, and to Traven7 for going back in time to get it and listing it, but also to whichever inspired designer turned an ordinary border design on its head, so to speak.

pretty and good

Henriette in Denmark sent me this lovely dress from Rigetta Klint (click on the image to visit the website. Warning, the www.rigettaklint.com site plays music; really nice ambient music, but music nonetheless).

It's based on the traditional dress of Zanzibar, the kanga. The dress can be wrapped and worn a number of different ways, and Klint says:

On the design side it is immediately obvious to extend the idea of the kanga and produce an item of multifunctional clothing, i.e., an article that can be used as a skirt, top or dress according to need, and it's just as obvious not to cut up the beautiful textile more than necessary.

The dresses are produced in Zanzibar, and, in addition, 100 kroner (About US$15) from the sale of each dress goes directly to the women's cooperative on Zanzibar; they are using it to build a store to sell children's clothing to the tourists who visit there.

I am always in favor of clothing manufactured by women who maintain control over their working conditions and who share in the profits of their labor--especially when the clothing is as lovely as this.

I can't figure out a price or sizing information (even though the site is actually in English!), but if you're interested you can email info@rigettaklint.com -- if you do, leave a comment and let the rest of us know!

return of the scarves

All right, who went and seeded eBay with all these scarf-neck dresses? It's not going to work, you know -- especially if you persist in not listing them in my size. This one is $4.75, and B39. I'm way too lazy to grade down from that size. You'll have to do better than that!

Isn't it cute, though? I think this is a perfect summer office dress. Maybe in voile, maybe in a lightweight silk. Adorable in cream and white seersucker; commanding in black handkerchief linen. I'd make the A-line skirt version (and get rid of that front seam), add pockets, and boom! I bet I could make three or four of these in short order, and wear them until they fell apart.

The seller does what I wish every pattern seller would do: she scans the back, so you can see the pattern pieces and the fabric requirements. Heaven.

She also has this listed:



A bit fancier (and still B39). I like this one too, although I'm pretty sure the one in the slim skirt is actually an android. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I blame June Cleaver.

I blame June Cleaver. Or maybe 1950s advertising in general, with their perfect housewives doing laundry in freshly-done hair and high heels. Or perhaps sunspots. All I know is, somebody has to pay for putting out the idea that doing housework in a housedress is ludicrous. In fact, I think that if you have to do something messy, unrewarding, and unpleasant, you might as well do it in a loose, airy, comfortable cotton housedress, which has plenty of extra fabric to wipe your hands on, dries faster than a pair of old jeans, and still looks neat and tidy if you have to answer the door mid-task or run to the hardware store for another essential doohickey. And you won't feel like changing when the job is over and it's time to put your feet up and drink lemonade.

There are still a couple of places where you can buy old-fashioned housedresses, like the ads in the back of Parade magazine and the Vermont Country Store, but they tend to be, at best, half-polyester, skimpy, and with inadequate pockets, nothing like this adorable example. Click on the image (from Klassic Line Vintage Clothing and Costume) to see more pictures, so you can ooh and aah over the positioning of the stripes and the rickrack trim. It's B40/W30 and is $75 ... I'm not recommending you spend $75 on a dress to do dishes in, but if you see one in a thrift store for a couple of bucks (and you ever have occasion to do a bit of light housework) you might consider picking one up and trying it out.

I bet you thought I forgot about the book contest AGAIN, didn't you?

The winning book!

Agatha Christie 1950s Omnibus -- 105 votes!

Submitted by P (of Petulant Feminine), who wins her choice of one of the books in the contest.

And the random winner of all those who voted is: kismet! I'll email you (as I cleverly asked for your email address with your entry). You also get the same prize -- one of the books in the contest.

The grand totals were:

Technique of the Love Affair -- 102 votes.


Mommy Dressing -- 64 votes.

Rosie Dunne -- 38 votes.
The Cinnamon Peeler -- 33 votes.

As you can see, it was a very close thing between Technique of the Love Affair and the Agatha Christie Omnibus. But murder will out.

(Some links, just in case you're late to the party: The nomination entry. The voting entry.)

questioning assumptions

Lisa sent me a link to The Brown Dress Project, which I found very interesting. Alex Martin, an artist/dancer/mother in Seattle, made a brown denim dress that she has been wearing every day for nearly a year.

Her artist's statement says that the project is "one small, personal attempt to confront consumerism by refusing to change my dress for 365 days." And, in her FAQ, she says:

But on a feminist note, let's stop agreeing that the best way for women (in particular) to "express themselves" is by purchasing new wardrobe items and putting together daily outfits.

Whoa! When did I miss the memo that the best way for women to express themselves is through their outfits? Because, really, I should have been on the distribution list for that one, right? You'd think I'd be right up near the top! Dress is ONE way for women to express themselves, certainly, but I feel you'd be hard pressed to find consensus that it's the BEST way. Even *I* don't believe that and I write a blog about dresses.

It's confusing to me that an artist who has spent a year living a project that involves clothing (in other words, expressing herself through dress) could make a statement like that. Perhaps the key word in her statement is supposed to be "purchasing", but, if so, it could have been clearer. And what's with the "feminist note"? I am proud to call myself a feminist, as I believe in equal opportunities for women and men. Last time I checked, feminism didn't have a dress code, and, in fact, now that we're on the subject, I am fed up with people who claim that women who enjoy wearing dresses can't be "real feminists". Yes, dresses are traditionally feminine, but really, part of being a feminist, in my opinion, is finally internalizing that "feminine" does not equal "bad" or "weak" or "unworthy."

Elsewhere, in her blog, Ms. Martin says:

Since I am continuously engaging in conversations about my attire this year, I have become really sensitized to our cultural slant towards giving "compliments" on each others' daily outfit. "Oh, I just love your (fill in the blank - bag, hair, shoes, socks, sweater, dress, earrings, jacket, bracelet, hat, scarf)" - and tragically often, this is the intro to a conversation about where the item in question was purchased, a perfect segue back into our place as consumers in this economy. These conversations are not out-and-out evil, but I do think they are a symptom of the insidious fashion culture that keep us, and here I mean ESPECIALLY girls/women/ladies, so ridiculously busy consuming. waxing, accessorizing, and beautifying to perfect our wardrobes and fashion alignments that we can't possibly find the time to accomplish anything more revolutionary or important.

The scare quotes around "compliments" are odd -- does she think such remarks are insincere? Not actually compliments? I just don't get it. I think she's cavalierly dismissing the communal, aesthetic, human pleasure of creating something beautiful and finding it appreciated. What artist doesn't want to be asked about their process of creation? If we consider that we all have the daily opportunity to create sartorial art (even if we don't always take it), why begrudge us a few simple responses?

As for dressing and accessorizing interfering with "real" accomplishment -- this is a strawman argument, I'm afraid. When I think of the women I know who are interested in clothes, they're not people whose accomplishments tend to the lighter end of the scale. They're not bubbleheaded dilettantes brainwashed by the glossy magazines, unable to lift anything heavier than a charge card; they're writers (novelists, journalists), they work in public policy, they are doctors and lawyers and artists and mothers; they run their own businesses and they work for causes they believe in. (And I have to say that I don't see male activists calling each other out for being under the sway of the consumerist sports industry.) Sure, there are things in life more important than clothes, but to say that an interest in clothes is irreconcilable with achievement is both ridiculous and wrong.

The Brown Dress project is interesting (although I have to say I'm more intrigued with Martin's nebulous plan to spend next year wearing only things she's made herself) but I feel the artist's assumptions as to what are valid and invalid ways to express oneself through clothing need to be questioned as strenuously as she herself is questioning consumerist culture.

Ms. Martin is right to have problems with unbridled consumerism; I do myself. But a blanket condemnation of taking pleasure in one's appearance does nothing to further anti-consumerist agendas--if anything, it sets them back. She's painting with too broad a brush. People who feel fast food is soul-killing and planet-damaging don't say "don't eat"; people opposed to throwaway fashion and consumerist culture shouldn't say "don't buy clothes." The appropriate, more nuanced tack would be to discuss how to fully enjoy what you wear, where it came from, the story behind it; a kind of slow food movement for clothing, but one that allows for joy and creativity and yes, even has room for fashion.

It wasn't the pattern's fault, really!

Here's the pattern for the abject failure dress of the other day; see -- it was the fabric's fault (or rather, since cotton poplin is not yet known to have either consciousness or agency, my fault). The pattern, Butterick 7130, is blameless. Innocent of any wrongdoing, and without stain. Okay, with a little stain--the pattern's pretty beat up.

I have to admit that I approached this pattern with considerable trepidation, when I first went to make it up. It looked a bit ambitious; I was daunted by the place where the bodice meets the waistband.

However, it couldn't have been easier. You pull the gathers, you snip a bit to a corner, turn under the edge of the waistband, and topstitch it over the gathers! Easy-peasy! I only ripped it out once, and that was because the tension in my machine was wonky and I didn't like the way the topstitching looked.

The whole thing, in fact, went together nicely. Since I am shorter from shoulder to waist than the patterns think I should be, I always shorten bodices. I find the easiest way to do this (and a reason why I love kimono or otherwise non-set-in sleeves) is to sew the shoulder seam deeper -- with a wider seam allowance, tapering off at about the bicep of the sleeve. I bet there's a better way to do it, but not a lazier way, since this is a fix you can do even if you forget and have to do it after the facings are already in. (Not that I would know this from constant, repeated trials, or anything. Oh, no.) This also has the benefit of making a deep vee neckline less "where's a safety pin?" deep.

I always meant to make this dress in a dull black silk, maybe twill or something with a little heft to it, with bloody-maroon topstitching and deep garnet buttons, so red that in certain lights they would look black. It would be a real black-widow dress, for sure. Nobody'd mess with you while you were wearing a dress like that. A dress like that makes a slightly raised eyebrow have the force of a right hook. Of course, sewing with black fabric bores me to tears and gives me the headache (I can't tell you how many half-finished black garments I have hanging around in UFO limbo), so I just keep making non-weaponized dresses that don't have the power to make the insolent quail in fear. More's the pity.

Every Woman's Fantasy; The Rest of the Story; Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream

Okay, get this. Mrs B. in Paris wakes up one Saturday morning to find her husband, instead of wanting to watch Dr. Who (not that there's anything wrong with that), wants to go shopping. Did I mention that "Mrs. B in Paris" does actually live IN PARIS? No? Well, she does. So she goes shopping with her husband. Who, after buying Parisian pants, (that's "trousers" for you Brits) says "oh, honey, it must be hard for you to go to all these stores with me without even looking at anything for yourself." While Mrs. B is boggling from THAT, he goes on to urge her to buy a new dress. In Paris. With a budget four times what she would have set for herself.

Anyway, go click that link to read the whole story, instead of my Cliffs Notes, but this is the dress. Isn't it lovely? And I don't know what kind of additives she's putting in Mr. B's pot-au-feu, but if she can figure out a way to market them, I think she's got a winner. She's my new hero. I mean, I can barely get my husband to put on ANY pants, and she's got hers buying pants in France. Which even if it didn't rhyme, would be the greatest thing ever.

And, for the rest of the story -- the crow-megaphone dress? Went to a good home in NYC, with Stephanie at Klosekraft. Whew! Sometimes, when you see a great eBay auction that you know you can't bid on, it's like seeing an especially cute puppy or kitten at the shelter. Will someone kind and loving take them home, or will they have to suffer rough petting at the hands of an oblivious jerk? This dress went to a good home and will have lots of walks in the bright sunshine, I'm sure.

Oh, and just for complete randomosity, I dreamt last night I was making a dress out of those zip ties you use for garbage bags. I was using those narrow plastic straps that hold cardboard boxes together for the weft, and then zipping the ties over them so the long edges stuck out like fringe. Each tie would zip over two straps, and I did a kind of herringbone thing so that the whole mess held together as fabric. Very hard to explain, like most dreams, but I woke up disappointed that I hadn't actually done it and taken a picture to post here.

Abject Failure

Oh, it's not all puppies and popsicles here at A Dress A Day headquarters. Not everything that rolls off the assembly line gets worn, or even looked at without a shudder. This is one of my more spectacular failures. So spectacular, that even though this was completed more than a YEAR ago, I couldn't bear to even look at it until now.

It shouldn't have been this way. I've made this particular pattern three or four times, and it always looked pretty good, as far as I could tell. (I made it twice in Liberty prints, one lawn, one Jubilee, and once in a big print of pink roses.) And when I saw this fabric, shimmering happily on the computer screen, I figured, "Oh, fun, HoJo's blue!"

I swear, if I had a time machine, one of my to-dos, right after killing Hitler and visiting Claire McCardell, would be to go back and prevent myself from pushing the "place order" on this one.

It was pretty obvious from the beginning that this was the wrong fabric for this dress; it was too stiff, even after a few washings, and it showed every little spot. Yet I kept on. I didn't try it on at all (why should I have? I'd already made the pattern three times) until I was about to hem the skirt. Then -- oh lord. The dress hung as if it were made of cardboard, and the color left me looking like some minor character from a horror movie. Not any character with a name, but someone you see in the credits noted as "Zombie Girl Who Loses Eyeball in Punch Bowl." Yes, it made me look like a bit player in Zombie Prom, which, now that I check IMDB, is not just my fevered invention but a real actual movie coming out this year. (Why didn't they call me? I have my own costume.)

The only redeeming feature of this dress is the buttons. They're vintage, and very nice. I'm not quite sure what to do with the rest of it. I could cut it up for an A-line skirt; if I kept this color (which seems to be my Kryptonite) away from my face it could still be cute. I could just put it in the pile for the Salvation Army (they take anything); I could put it up on eBay (sucker born every minute); I could send it to the producers of Zombie Prom II: The After Party; I could find a farmer and offer it to him for his scarecrow. Lots of options. The only option closed off to me is actually wearing this as is.

a little bird told me

Thanks much to Holly at Lucite Box Vintage for the link to this one. She's so selfless, it's not even one of her own auctions!

I love this fabric with an obsessive and stifling love:

I wish I could have met the textile designer. After sitting a safe distance away from him or her, I would casually venture to bring up what creative process had led to shouting stylized crows with megaphones. "It's such an ... inventive design! How on earth did you come up with it?" Of course, if the answer was "Well, I see them all the time, along with the dancing elephants wearing propeller beanies," I might shift my chair a little further away and pretend to get a text message on my phone that needed immediate attention. But I sure as heck wouldn't leave without four or five yards for my very own.

However, I can't imagine that I would be able to choose a better pattern for this fabric than this designer (the label is "Ann Sutton"). I love the surplice cap-sleeve bodice WITH the midriff band (perhaps the crows are cheering for the midriff band? Seems reasonable to me) and the lovely full skirt. I should be able to fake this up. This is absolutely a "no, but hum a few bars" style of dress.

If only I had some of this fabric! If you want the whole dress, it's B36 and a $125 BuyItNow -- no auction close date, so hurry up!

doesn't this sound cool?

Do you know what this dress is made of? It's made of reclaimed audio tape. And, even cooler, it's playable. You can hold tape heads in your hands and run them over the dress, and noise will come out! This is so cool the temperature in the room when I read about it dropped eight degrees. (Many thanks to Ursula for the link!)

Now, I'm not suggesting you actually wear a sonic fabric dress for longer than it takes to mess around with playing it -- I'd bet it's pretty hot, and the silhouette is not one that I would choose. But as an art object? It's wonderful. I would get one just to hang on the wall, or keep on a dress form.

In fact, I actually have a dress on a dress form in my living room -- not a sonic one; a great 1940s beaded taffeta sweetheart-neckline full-skirted dress, and it was one of the first pieces of vintage clothing I ever bought. The woman who sold it to me looked like Morticia Addams, never wore shoes, chain-smoked menthols in this giant abandoned garage full of random items (all of which were flammable in degrees ranging from 'three-acre brush fire' to 'towering inferno'), and kept a roll of bills in her cleavage. I always tried to have exact change. But, that burst of quasi-nostalgia/horror aside, I like the idea of dresses as art and this one is art in two dimensions, as it were. It's art and music. Next step: a dress that is art, music, and moves by itself -- dance! Oh, wait, I'm thinking about robots again. Dammit.

Click on the image for more information about sonic fabric. They have messenger bags and suchlike, too.

Wrap pattern sought ...

Helen in the UK is hoping that some kind and helpful reader of A Dress A Day will know where she can find a pattern for a dress similar to this one -- a wrap with a full skirt and collar/sleeve options. I know, it should be easy, right? But no.

And if anyone can tell me where to buy broderie anglaise online, I'd be very happy. Preferably at less than "oh-my-god-they-want-what?" per yard.

If you click on the image you can buy the dress featured here -- it's a Zara dress listed on eBay.co.uk.

Coming up soon on A Dress A Day ... the Esprit giveaway is this week, if I can get everything ironed and pictures taken before Friday. And I'll have the winners of the book contest, I think. Plus, I'm feeling a bit ranty! Watch out!

So Darling

I saw this yesterday at Darling and the slightly bemused clerk let me take pictures to show you. Isn't it, well, darling?

Check out the very vintage-y fabric:



And the belt, backed with a coordinating green:



I'm not sure if Darling takes phone orders but if you MUST have this, it might be worth calling. I saw a size 10 and a size 4 on the rack. I think this one on the mannequin is an 8. It looked well-made, and the label is London Times. It was $145, which is not outrageous for a dress in a boutique in the West Village!

There were a lot of darling dresses there, unsurprisingly, but what I ended up buying (surprisingly) was a stretchy wide multi-buckle slightly bondage-y belt. I'm feeling the very, very cinched waist for fall ...

We interrupt this blog

For an announcement -- I'll be reading at the New York Public Library tonight as part of the Literary Magazine marathon, so if you're in the city and would enjoy hearing me read from "The Simpsons: Embiggening Our Language With Cromulent Words," by Mark Peters, come on by. (I'm last on the bill, btw.) Details: New York Public Library's DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Room, 5th Ave. at 42nd St., Saturday, June 10th from 4–6:30 PM.

I'll also be hanging out at Housing Works all afternoon tomorrow, for the Lit Mag Fair (do you sense a theme developing here?) -- Housing Works Used Book Café, 126 Crosby Street in Soho Sunday, June 11th from 12–5PM. Remember, come to the Fair wearing a dress and I will give you a free pen. (While supplies last.)

Katy Keene again

Many thanks to Joy, who sent this in from a July 1960 issue of Katy Keene.

I admit to more than a sneaking suspicion that I am a Bertha! I mean, the polka dots alone are a dead giveaway! Oh, well, if everyone were always tasteful how boring the world would be.

a skirt and an excursion

So last night, as is my wont on a Wednesday in NYC, I went skating at the Roxy. And, after going around in circles for a couple of hours, I thought posting a crappy picture of my favorite skating skirt (after having worn it for said couple of hours), taken in a badly-lit hotel room in Midtown, would be an excellent idea. So here it is!

I bought this fabric a year and a half or so ago, on eBay, and originally made a plain circle skirt out of it. I was a little scant of fabric, though, so it was a bit short for my taste. So a few weeks ago I added the waistband, and voila! The Twister Skirt.

I got several compliments on it at the Roxy, usually by people who had just narrowly missed involving us both in a sixteen-wheel tangle on the floor. (Well, they had to say SOMETHING!) Hoo-boy, was the Roxy crowded last night. Think Times Square, at rush hour, on wheels. It was fun, though. The bass was turned up to "defibrillate," and the DJ somehow had a shunt straight from my iPod's "guilty dance-y pleasures" mix to the turntable. He played "Get Into the Groove" and "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "Best of My Love"! I may have to send him a thank-you note.

I was surprised that the Long Island Concussion Enthusiasts' Society was out in such force last night, but they all thoughtfully skated carrying their baguette handbags clenched tightly under their arms, so that when they hit the floor skull-first and forgot their own names, the responding EMT could just pull their IDs right then and there. They also pair up, so that if one skater looks in danger of staying upright for more than thirty or forty seconds, her spotter can squeal and haul her down to the floor where the concussions are more readily available. Because nothing says "Missy's 23rd birthday party!" like a traumatic head injury.

There was also a meeting of the Human Spirograph League -- these are the guys (they're almost always guys) who cannot skate in the tame and banal oval that the rest of skate in; they must perform elaborate loops around the floor in highly elliptical orbits. Often backwards. They're like stray planets haplessly interrupted by the sun at a really, really bad time, and so they won't ever have a nice neat orbit. Also, they tend to wear inline skates, instead of quads. One of them nearly took me down, but nicely hauled me along with him for a stride or two so that I didn't suffer the indignity of an official butt-to-the-floor fall. All I can say is, the Human Spirographs? Have tremendous upper body strength. Go figure.

I had a really good time (I always do) and, as usual, left right before I got tempted to get too fancy. I'm a great mediocre skater. I don't run into folks; I don't do the Wile E. Coyote leg-shuffle to keep my balance; I can stop several different ways, none of which involve finding a large immobile object to run into at top speed. I also don't skate backwards, do spins, or too much tricky footwork, because I think the pleasure I would get from doing that stuff (especially when it's so crowded) would not be enough to overcome how just plain stupid I would feel if I seriously injured myself on a business trip 800 miles from home.

So. This is my skating skirt, and that was my night at the Roxy, and sometime in the next six weeks or so I'll get another chance to skate wearing polka dots, and happiness will abound. Can't ask for more than that.

I sense a new obsession developing.

No clicky picture here; I already bought this. Which I'm a bit worried about. Two scarf dresses in the space of a week? That seems suspiciously obsession-y.

Although this one I might actually make (well, considering I didn't buy the other pattern, it will be much easier to make this one). Both views. I love the kicky side pleats on the straight skirt, and the scarf-y version has me thinking maybe, just maybe, I will finally be able to use the car-print Liberty before I die. I swear, I must check that fabric on a monthly basis, on the off chance it's had a growth spurt in the fabric pile when I wasn't looking. I don't know why I don't just label my fabric with the yardage when I buy it; although, since I have sworn never to buy pieces under three yards ever again (with God as my witness, I will never buy blouse lengths again!) it's only these weird outliers from the four-yard average that have me measuring and re-measuring.

The car print isn't the only player in the "Did it Grow?" game. There's a piece of cherry-print rayon that likes to re-wrinkle itself when I'm not looking, so it has to be pressed before it gets measured and comes up short. There's ONE YARD of a gorgeous Matisse-print silk (and by Matisse-print, I mean it has figures from his "Jazz" paper cut series on it, in those brilliant colors) that I must have laid out a dozen blouse patterns on and never made a single cut into. (Maybe someday I'll have a brain injury that changes my entire personality and turn into someone who wears halter tops. Who knows?) There's a pile of shantung remnants in jewel colors that someday will have to be the world's least practical crazy quilt, or a jester outfit, because there's not a garment's worth of any single one of them. (Hmmm. Duro? In shantung? For winter?) Plus many other bits and bobs too pretty to throw away, too small to use, & that I'm too lazy to cut quilt blocks from ... it's a puzzlement.

Another Duro Report from the Field

Caroline in LA sends in her interpretation of McCalls 5137, taking the picture outside in her back yard, in accordance with tradition. Doesn't it look fab? She's unsure how much she'll wear it, since her silk turned out to be polyester (I hate it when that happens, but occasionally a store clerk will get huffy about me trying to set their fabric on fire -- strictly to test fabric content, I assure you -- so I've been taken in by the poly masquerading as silk before). I love the necklace, too -- I think it's the perfect length for this neckline. I made one just that length, only in orange (I know, the orange thing is getting out of hand) to wear with mine.

I know a lot of you have asked to see this on a Real Life Person (and Caroline certainly is, or else AI has advanced TREMENDOUSLY in recent months) and so I hope this helps. I'll still try to get someone to take a picture of me on one of the days that I'll be wearing my versions this week ... like today. So if you see someone in this dress, wandering around Midtown today, that's probably me, or someone who committed an act of violence to obtain said dress. Either way, stop that person and say "hi," okay?

Hell yeah.

I admit it. This dress pushed all my buttons, right to the point where I pushed the "Buy It Now" button (from Stellablue Vintage Sewing). Collar? Check. Sleeves other than set-in? Check. Hip pockets? Insouciant hat on the pattern envelope? Check and check.

The kicker? Showing it in that green tweed. Do they even make nice green tweed anymore? I never see any. Which is a shame, because I have some buttons that would go really well with it ... might even have a matching belt buckle, too.

This below is one that I didn't buy, although -- see? the green? -- it was very tempting. I just know that I've reached my quota for a while on interesting neckline patterns. The sad truth is that a lot of them I'm just too lazy to sew ... but if you have a bit more gumption, go to it! It's only $7.50!

And again, from the top

I threatened to do one that was mostly orange, and here it is. How wrong is it that all my "what shoes go with these dresses?" problems could be solved if only I could find a pair of orange espadrilles? Quite wrong.

Also wrong is me not matching the stripes on the front band, but, you know, with clashing prints this busy I expect not very many people will even notice. (As the saying goes, "If they're nice they won't notice, and if they notice they're not nice.") The stripes were not on the grain -- they are printed on the bias, so even though the band looks cut on the bias, it's not. Does that make sense? I hope so. It's a very lightweight voile from Hancock's -- I thought it was on sale over Memorial Day but it was in fact just hanging out next to the sale fabric, hoping to have some of the sale frenzy rub off on it. Which is of course exactly what happened; by the time I got to the cutting table I was already too deeply invested to mind that it wasn't forty percent off. These two fabrics were designed to coordinate, or at least they were in the same "collection," which, I have to say, feels more than a little bit like cheating, considering the last dresses either had fabrics created more than a couple decades apart, or that were sourced, by hand, from different countries. (It was nice not to have to look at the colors under every light bulb in the house, though, to make sure they really matched. Which I do even though I have full-spectrum fluorescents in the sewing room.)

Here is a closer view of the bodice:


And here, for those who requested it, the back view:

The skirt is a bit hung up on the dressform on the right side.

I think this is the last one, even though I have some red, turquoise, and dark blue paisley that matches EXACTLY with a turquoise scribble print ... we'll just have to see.

Just a reminder that NEXT Sunday I will be at the Housing Works Bookstore all afternoon for the Literary Magazine Fair. All literary magazines $2, proceeds support Housing Works! Come by in a dress and I will give you a pen (while supplies last). And if anyone has made any sightings of orange wedge espadrilles in the NYC area, would you let me know?

Multitasking.

I'm a big fan of the dress that is its own accessory. Not just because I'm scarf-impaired (which, sadly, is the case), but because it's impossible to forget to pack the scarf if it's part of the dress.

(Of course, if I always remembered to pack everything I needed for a trip, the lingerie department of Lord & Taylor would miss their monthly quota on a regular basis, and I would have roughly 200 fewer half-slips than I actually do.)

I love the check shown here, but I think I'd make this in (what else) a scarf print, just to really rub it in. I'd draw the line at trimming the edges of the scarf-part with fringe, though.

I like pockets, but this goes TOO FAR.

Robin sent me a link to this pattern on eBay. The dress is certainly cute, but the stole is really something else. Something that I'm not sure needs to actually exist ... look closely; the ends of the stole are joined by what looks like bamboo rings to two dangling purse-pouches. With pockets on the outside. I suppose they're technicallly reticules, but they remind me of nothing so much as this:


I know there's a lot of clothing that lets you conceal weapons but I'm not aware of a lot of clothing that can be USED as a weapon. I mean, directly as a weapon, not like this:



I suppose it could be worse. The stole-purse-weapon-thing could be knitted ...

I bet you thought I forgot about the book contest, didn't you?

I know, I know, I set the deadline for the book cover contest for a MONTH ago (more, actually) but, you know, my life got in the way. And I had to figure out how to do a cgi form with my webhost. Which wasn't difficult, but it was a hurdle ...

Anyway, of all the submissions, here are the finalists. Now it's your turn to vote! Fill out the form below, and choose which cover you like best. The criteria? Whether it's a good dress and whether it makes you want to pick up the book. The person who submitted the cover AND one person selected at random from all the voters will win their choice of one of these titles (so you can vote for a book you don't actually want to have).


Mommy Dressing -- Isn't this dress SWANK?

Rosie Dunne -- Cute. Plaid. Irish.

Technique of the Love Affair -- The dress alone would make you an expert at flirtation ...

The Cinnamon Peeler -- I love the embellishment and the silhouette.

Agatha Christie 1950s Omnibus -- Even if she had to kill for this dress, it was worth it.

[Form removed; entry deadline has passed.]

I will use your email address ONLY to tell you if you have won the contest. I will not send you spam! Please vote ONLY ONCE -- I fear for my inbox if there's ballot-stuffing.

Voting ends at 12:01 a.m. Saturday morning June 3rd! I'll try to have everything tallied up by the end of the following week.