Nothing's wrong with this dress (that's why I just bought it on eBay). What's wrong (and I interrupt this blog post to bring you news of a bevy of flying pigs outside my window and the Pope's sudden conversion to Baha'i) is that all of a sudden, I am dissatisfied with full skirts. I hope it was just something I ate.

Food poisoning or no, I have been trolling eBay for narrower-skirted dresses … and this one was a Buy It Now that isn't a Regret It Later. I swear. Look how cute the pleated-front version is!

I'll probably shorten the skirt to hit at the knee (and I might make the plain front version in not-lace) but … look how cute!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the full-skirt-wrongness problem. Sleep on it, I guess, and flip through the major-metro-area phone book that is September Vogue.

Oh, and this pattern came from Lanetzliving.com, whose Ebay store is huuuuuge. Lots and lots 'o patterns, reasonably priced. I almost hit the Buy-It-Now button a couple of other times as well …

I'm not sure who it was that first told me of slounging (it might have been Shrift, and if you aren't lucky enough to know or know of Shrift, well, someday you'll hear stories), but this is a dress for it. Most slounging (which is, of course, a blend of 'slouching' and 'lounging') takes place in a seated position, of course, but for those rare times when you have to project a languid slounge standing up, you need a dress like this.

I think it's because the hips are pushed forward and the shoulders rounded, but it just might be because of those little cuffs on the sleeves. The sloungability quotient of this dress is only heightened by the air of complete and utter indifference that these women are projecting. It's impossible to care and slounge simultaneously.

The woman in the red version is slounging so expertly that she's not even facing you. But she's still saying "Darling, get me a drink, won't you? Lots of ice." She likes lots of ice because her bracelets and the ice clink in a slightly different ways, and the dissonance sets you even more on edge.

There's just something about the sailor collar that calls to me. I have bought probably a dozen sailor-collar patterns, everything from full-skirted stuff like this to drop-waist 1960s scooter dresses to barely-justifiable 1980s padded-shoulder tops. I've bought sweaters with sailor collars, t-shirts with sailor collars, and in college, actual Navy surplus middy blouses in both heavy wool and that indestructible white polyester (with the insignia carefully removed, of course).

When I make this one I'm not going to do those silly puffy belled sleeves; I'll make nice above-the-biceps short sleeves instead. And I'm really tempted to do black with white middy braid, instead of white and red or blue and white. And I probably won't wear a matching tam and gloves … but I'd be tempted.

Do you notice how the one view without a sailor collar is illustrated by a woman with a wistful expression? That's how I'd feel, too, if everyone but me had a sailor collar!

Why couldn't I have found this prom dress when I was in high school? Our senior prom theme was "Death By Jellyfish 1989!" This would have been PERFECT! I *so* would have been the Prom Queen in this number …

Click on the image to see the site of the Chinese importer of this dress. For all the good it will do you, as there is no purchasing or price information. (You weren't going to buy it anyway, were you? You're just rubbernecking.)

(Y'all know I'm just kidding about "Death By Jellyfish" being my high school's senior prom theme, right? The theme was actually "You Think You're Going to Have Sex Tonight, But You're Not.")

There's something just slightly wrong about this pattern, and I'm pretty sure it's the buttons.

The bodice, with the little mandarin collar and the fluttery short sleeves, is just great. The right-side pocket is nice, too. But then your eye hits those buttons, and it's all over.

It might just be me, though — I hate buttons on skirts. They always (at least on me) show strain, get weird wrinkles around them, and are uncomfortable to sit on. Not to mention drawing the eye down and away.

If you want this pattern (B30), click on the link, and be prepared to wait for it to be shipped from Australia …

By my reckoning, there are 36 days of summer left. This eBay auction ends five days from now; allowing another five-six days for shipping leaves you 25 days to wear this dress before packing it away for next year. (Your summer may vary if you live further south than I do. Australians may, of course, anticipate.) No one will mind if you wear this dress half-a-dozen times in those last 25 days–I would, if I could!

B36/W27; right now it's at $37.99 with no bids. Somebody go grab it, okay? The last days of summer are waiting.

I'm not sure why this dress is calling to me. I bought the pattern on a whim at an estate sale a few weeks ago, and it's been floating in the back of my head ever since. I'm not really a plunging-neckline kind of gal, and this skirt makes even these ectomorphic illustration women look like toilet-paper cozies, so I find its constant presence in my head disturbing and a bit irritating.

It might be time for a switch, though, and that would explain why this dress is pinging me. You know how you know, one day, just from something undefinable in the air, that summer is over? And how it's different every year, and not very closely tied to the calendar? That's how it is with styles, too. All of a sudden the very dress you loved, that you couldn't wear often enough, that was somehow the perfect shape and line — looks wrong. Its summer is over.

So. The short version, in gray challis with red banding. Or cream challis banded with chocolate brown. With the neckline, um, adjusted a bit upwards (to obviate the need for double-sided tape) and perhaps the skirt narrowed. Whaddaya think?

Also, Blogger tells me this is the 100th Dress a Day post! Thanks for reading!

I wanted to post a wedding dress today, but I just couldn't find one that sang to me. And then (since if you can't praise beauty you can always resort to mockery) I wanted to find one that was risible, but I couldn't find one that rose to the height of risibility that I was looking for. This is the problem with wedding dresses, in my opinion — they serve no purpose other than to make one person (POSSIBLY two, but usually just one) happy on one day, and for that reason they are not really subject to criticism in the same way as ordinary dresses are.

If wedding dresses are just, at their ideal, crystalline distillations of personality … I want to meet the woman who chooses this one. For some reason, even though this wouldn't be MY choice, I think I'd really like her.

Click on the image to go to the web page offering this dress. If you buy it, drop me an email! We'll have coffee.

Ignore the model's glassy stare and think for a minute what this dress would do for YOU. First of all, although I am a fan of the little black dress, this dress is not a LBD. It's a BBD, actually: dramatic, flattering, graceful. That neckline would, at the same time, make your neck look swanlike and feature your embonpoint charmingly. The embellished bodice is just understated enough to be tasteful, just sparkly enough to be festive. The Grecian twining at the waist will set that part of you off discreetly, and the soft flowing pleats of the skirt will flutter around you enticingly. This is the dress to wear when you want to look effortlessly elegant.

This dress is a siren's call to rival all siren's calls, but doesn't look like it. Gorgeous. From Narciso Rodriguez's Fall 2005 collection (by way of Serenada — who would look like a goddess herself in this gown! — thank you, Serenada!). Click on the image to visit the Style.com slideshow.

Yes, it's a flocked dress! There's not a lot of flocking on adult clothes lately — it seems only kids get the satisfaction of having raised fuzzy patterns on their clothing. But I'm all in favor of fuzzy party dresses — why NOT give people an excuse to touch you? (Okay, introverts, you can all say "eeeewwwww!" now, but I didn't mean it THAT way.) So, where were we? Yes. This dress — a tad expensive at $225, but in great condition, and it's not only flocked, it's flocked taffeta! — is just the perfect combo of color and pattern, and it's at The Cats Pajamas (I don't know where the apostrophe went either and without it I think that perhaps the pajamas are MADE of cats, and that is not a good mental image AT ALL) so click on the link if you must have it. B36/W28.

I may have to go troll Ebay for some flocked fabric now. Preferably a nice abstract like this one, and not flaming skulls or Hello Kitty, as much as I like both those motifs. Hmmm, flaming Hello Kitty skulls? Oh well.