A concrete reason to buy an abstract dress

Cherie at Shrimpton Couture sent me a link this weekend to a different dress (a wonderful red and white seersucker with some great piecing ... but which is already on layaway, and I figured, hey, who needs to be taunted more on a Monday than Monday already taunts people), but, in checking out THAT dress, this one caught my eye.

I love abstract plaids for so many reasons. First of all, plaid is cheerful. I think "cheerfulness" should be a strongly motivating force behind all clothing decisions. Also, abstract, free-form plaids don't need to be matched as carefully as "real" plaids. And the last, and probably most important reason, is that if I were to spill something (preferably something in the red-orange family of foods and/or beverages) plaids like the one on this dress wouldn't show it! That's a big plus for plaid, I think.

This dress is a nice coated cotton, with ORIGINAL BELT, lined (!) and it's $125 at Shrimpton Couture. (measurements 36-28-38)

"This gives the gown a whimsical quality."

There's a ton of nice stuff up at Kitty Girl Vintage right now but this one (as you might expect) caught my eye. That enormous belt -- how perfectly surreal!

It's described as a "small/tall 36" 26" free hips (17" shoulder to waist, 39" waist to hem)" and is $366; a bit pricey, yes, but I think it's worth it.

This dress is the perfect bridge between the too-safe Little Black Dress and full-on sartorial eccentricity; training wheels for speeding away from boring eveningwear, if you will.

If money were no object (and in my dress fantasies, it never is), I'd get a rhinestone necklace made up just to go with this dress, one where the clasp was also an giant buckle, meant to be worn at about the 4 o'clock position on the neck.

Sadly, it's fairly apparent from the photo that the huge buckle is not also a capacious (and very hard to reach) pocket. That would just be too perfect ...

[Click on the image to visit the listing page.]

Isn't It Madness?

This may come as a shock to some of you, but I'm not a big person for musicals -- for theater in general, actually. I enjoy it when I am put in the way of seeing any, but my first impulse when seeking entertainment is to reach for a book, and my second is to reach for a long, arc-y, plotty TV show (like The Wire -- the hotness of Dominic West will go a long way towards warming up January here in Chicago), and my third is to watch national icons blow up in spectacular and original ways while eating popcorn. So: not so much with the musicals.

But now I think that it would be hilarious to wear something like this to an opening night for Chess, wouldn't it? Sure, I'd be flamboyantly overdressed, but I would have made an effort.

A $650, lose-ten-pounds-first kind of effort, but it would probably be worth it.

If it's worth it to you, this is up at Shrimpton Couture. I'm not sure exactly how to navigate to it, sadly. The site doesn't have individual linkable pages for each dress. But you probably won't mind browsing around, as there's a lot of other eye candy there, too, and the pictures are good!

Come Sit By Me

Julie at Damn Good Vintage sent me this dress that's up for sale in her shop right now. And all I can say is I wish I knew the woman who put this together. I mean, sure, there's an even chance she was a raving loon (okay, better than an even chance) but I bet she was FUN. I bet she ate ice cream without moaning about how fat she was, and I bet she didn't mind running so as not to be late for the movie previews (the best part) and I bet she could imitate the mannerisms of your worst ex-boyfriend in such a way that you howled with laughter and forgot all about how badly he broke your heart. You know, the female equivalent of a mensch. And I bet, if you asked her, she would have let you borrow this dress, even though it was her favorite and even though she knows you tend to gesture with your french fries and spill ketchup everywhere.

It's B38, W30, $110 and completely inexplicable. There's a supernumerary bow on the shoulder. The sleeves have ties. Those buttons -- they HOLD THE SKIRT ON. I don't understand, but then, do I really need to?

If you buy this and actually wear it, drop me an email. We can go to the movies. I'll wear my crazy skirt, and bring the Raisinets.

I Don't Know What You People Are Thinking

Seriously. Holly at LuciteBox Vintage has had this up as a Buy-It-Now on eBay for like, a week now and it's STILL THERE. I was looking at my list of to-be-blogged topics and thought "There's no way that dress is still up," but when I went to check, it was. Sheesh! What is up? Is everyone still getting back from Labor Day vacation? Are you still trying to get that last week of wear out of your summer sandals? Does everyone have the horrific head cold I came down with?

I mean, check out the back:




That alone should have made you hit that handy "Buy It Now" button.

Anyway, it's navy, B36/W26, and just plain gorgeous, and pretty affordable at $74.

Everyone should have a very structured dark dress for the days where you Mean Business. This is a brook-no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners dress. I have one that is black crepe and insanely severe; but it can go from lady-scientist to hardcore-vamp with a change of shoes and a slash of red lipstick. This is one of those dresses, and believe me, once you have a dress like this you feel a renewed sense of confidence. It's like having a $100 bill in your pocket, an unmetered parking space, a new pair of kickass shoes, and a fantastic idea, all at once. Even when you're not wearing it. Just having it in your closet, ready to pull out in case of emergency, is enough.

So why is this one still available? I don't know. I am going to have to fall back on my traditional there's-no-good-explanation explanation: sunspots.

The Perfect Larger-Size Vintage You've Been Waiting For

I get quite a few emails from people who are a modern size 14 or 16 and can't find anything vintage they like in their size. "Be patient," I tell them (which is horrible of me, because no one EVER likes to be told "be patient"). "Keep checking eBay, your perfect dress will turn up eventually."

So if you were one of those emailers and you don't bid on this dress (B46), I don't want to hear any more whining from you, young lady. This dress is about as perfect as you'll ever see, and I can't believe Holly's actually selling it (she's lost some weight and it doesn't fit her any longer ... of course, if I had this dress hanging in my closet, I'd be tempted to slam back the malteds until it fit me again, too, so I understand).

I don't know where to start with what I love about this dress. The Orla Kiely-ish print? The scallops along the side? The buttons? It's so hard to decide ... did I mention that it has a pocket? And that it's lined in red?

If this fits you, you should jump at it, because I will bet you will wear it to pieces (and probably, if you're anything like me, hold on the pieces for years in the fashion equivalent of a reliquary, or like a jar of ashes on the mantel). It's just that kind of dress.

The auction ends Wednesday, so hop to it!

Good Intentions

I *absolutely* meant to post about the Etsy/Instructables contest, but the last few weeks have been pretty hectic, what the conferencing and the travel and the husband-gone-fishing-in-Canada-ness of it all. But right now I am looking at a week with very few conference calls in it, and only three or four deliverables, so isn't it good that they extended the deadline to July 16! That's a week from now, plenty of time for you all to enter and win a NEW SEWING MACHINE!

I also meant to post about the BurdaStyle contest ... they extended their deadline, too, to July 15. That's plenty of time to design, sew, and mail, right? Right?

I think there's some other stuff I was going to post about, as well. Maybe I will catch up this week, stranger things have happened.

Oh, and someone in the comments a few days back asked for another fabric week, and well, seller atticcon has listed a ton of vintage fabric, including the blue silk up above. Blue-gray *textured* silk. Mmmmmm. Perhaps my good "I'm not buying any fabric until I go to Japan" intention is going to take a workout this week.

Anything else I've forgotten? Leave a comment or email me ...

Crawly, but not creepy

Julie (at Damn Good Vintage) has this adorable snail-print dress up right now. It's only about $75 but it's teeeeeeny. Waist 24.

I love the little snails -- how could you not? And I wouldn't even mind the inevitable escargot jokes. (Although my favorite escargot reference is this one. [warning video link])

Don't the snails look as if they were drawn by Ian Falconer (who does the Olivia books)?

Here's Olivia:



And here's a closeup of the snails:



I think this similarity is deeply significant, but I don't know why. Or how. All I know is that if this dress were in my size (PETER PAN COLLAR, people, and POCKETS) I would own it.

This also reminds me that I have some really cute bug-print fabric that I bought to make my son a camp shirt, and since he has shown NO interest in me making him a shirt (or, in fact, me making him anything that isn't various complicated Star Wars costumes) I think the statute of limitations has run out and I can use it for a dress. Right? Right. (Besides, I think I bought six yards, so I probably have enough for both.)

Hey Viv! Need a Crinoline?

Theresa sent me this link to the Hey Viv! store, where you can buy yourself a brand new 50s-style crinoline, for all your swishy-skirt needs. They're about $27, not including shipping, and also come in black, pink, and red.

I'm not a big crinoline-wearer myself -- I have enough trouble getting in and out of cars as it is -- but I'm tempted to get one. Just for parties, I'm telling myself, although I know if I had one I'm sure I'd try to wear it every day, like a six-old-girl with brand-new patent maryjanes.

I think some of you have sent me links to other retro-undergarmenty places in the past, links I have carefully filed, never to see again. If you feel generous, leave them in the comments?

Hints for actually managing the wearing of a crinoline are welcome, too.

Dvorak or QWERTY?

Angela at Dorothea's Closet sent me this -- it's not for sale, though, so put your credit cards away. She bought it to sell and had to keep it (that's one of the reasons I'd never be a good vintage store proprietor: I'd keep too much)!

Angela said her four-year-old daughter told her it looked like the dress had "buttons" -- she meant "keyboard keys". (I remember when my son was four; he was obsessed with pushing buttons. We spent a lot of time in elevators that were making unscheduled stops at all floors.) And, yes, don't they look like keyboards?

Isn't this a great dress? I'm happy just knowing it exists. I'm even happier knowing it has pockets:




Pockets that LACE UP, no less!

Again with the Summer

I know, I know, there's still snow outside (at least there is in Chicago) and I'm jumping ahead again to the summer dresses. What is wrong with me? Can't I live in the now? Stay in the moment?

Well, no, not when the weather in the now sucks so badly. In general, too, I much prefer the future to the past, but vintage sewing gives me the best of both worlds. I can rummage around in the so-called dustbin of history for aesthetic flotsam like sewing patterns, and then wear them in front of my computer. I can't imagine that the makers of this pattern, for instance, ever even touched a computer. Maybe they never even saw a punch card! And yet the only way I could really find their work now is through one. It kind of gives you hope for all sorts of other things assumed to be ephemeral. Perhaps our work will live on in ways we never intended or imagined?

I love the brown version here -- I love brown for summer, especially brown and yellow -- although the border print is really cute, too. Although right now, with the snow and the cold and the having to wait yet one more week for Daylight Savings, I'd probably like anything that promised summer!

As you can see from the image, it's B32. Click on the image to visit the eBay auction ... I think this is at about $12 right now.