Okay. Remember the Milly dress in this same print that was just a waste of this excellent fabric? Well, obviously, this dress was the main event and that other one was just something to use up the leftover fabric (which explains why it was so skimpy). I still wish they had just given the leftover fabric to ME, but evidently the Milly designers don't read Dress A Day.

This one is available at Shoptwigs.com for $345, but only in size six. (Another reason why I need a couple yards of this fabric for my very own.)

It has, according to the description, "ruched cap sleeves, sweetheart neckline, satin bow detail and front slit pockets." Two out of three isn't bad! (Why "they" feel sleeves have to be ruched this season, I have no clue.) However, I forgive much for pockets. Yay, pockets.

You know, I haven't really made fun of anything here in a while, so my snark has gotten a bit rusty. I thought I'd start up again with something easy, like … I dunno, latex stripper dresses? Yeah. That easy. Like, the training wheels of dress snark. Not just training wheels, training wheels AND your dad running next to you. While you are wearing a helmet and elbow pads. Anyway.

I'm pretty sure you've figured it out by now, but clicking on that image will take you to a site that is very unsafe for work, unless you work at the Badda-Bing.

Here's the description of this dress. My comments are in italics. Dripping italics.

This latex rubber dress is perfect for any event. I'm glad, because Grandma's funeral is tomorrow and I need a black dress. A very, very shiny black dress. It has fabulous long sleeve dress that is not even English! with zip up full front & buckle neck with silver clasp. This is named for my girlfreind Trixie I worked in town with & used to slide down stripped poles. They were firefighters! Who knew! It gives cleavage and it taketh away? & it the best in sexiest latex clothing. something else is the best in "sexier latex clothing," or perhaps just clothing, full stop. Meduim Weight rubber to curve every hug. that is so good it needs no comment.

I especially like that, even though the dress is named "Trixie," the image file is named "Melissa." Everybody say hi to Melissa, now!

I also like that, on this page, they tell us that "Corsets date back to the 1940's when glam was what it was all about. You would NEVER see a lady in anything except high heels." Wait. I don't get it! If you'd never see a lady in anything but high heels, what did they do with the corsets? And if corsets don't predate the '40s, what was that thing I saw in Gone With The Wind?

Okay, whew. Now I feel the need to make some sex-positive, whatever-floats-your-boat, happy-happy disclaimer. Consider it disclaimed, and don't flame me just because you wear stuff like this every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

All right. That was a good warmup. Maybe, tomorrow, if I feel like it, I'll snark on Stella McCartney.

Anyway, aside from the hysterically funny point of this comic book image, look at the dress Lois is wearing. I've been looking for that thirties-style pattern for a while now. A collared dress WITHOUT a front placket, with kimono sleeves. Isn't it cute?

I have no idea where this scan came from (other than from my friend Thad, hi Thad!) so I can't go find out how the rest of the dress was drawn in other panels, but I'm fairly certain it has a high curved midriff band and a narrow skirt with a pleated kickpanel in the back. Don't ask me how I know, I just do. Why do you think Superman loves Lois, anyway? It's the dresses!

The matching gloves and beret and the bumblebee tie are just icing.

Okay, I was googling for a "candy corn dress" (as you do) and I came across this. Which is nothing like what I wanted, which was some justification for my plan to make my own candy corn dress, which would be a very simple full-skirted dress pieced in broad stripes of white, yellow, and orange, with brown piping. Subtle, you know, so people couldn't really tell if I were in costume or just had atrocious taste. Because that's how I like to play Halloween–right on the line of "Costume? Or just crazy?"

Last night I went to my little boy's school Halloween party. I went, by request, as Princess Leia, although I don't really have the hair for it. So I was just in a long white belted cassock with a toy gun stuck in my belt. Anyway, I noticed that one of the teachers had nice saddle shoes and a full skirt and I was thinking "great outfit" until it hit me that it was, in fact, a costume. So perhaps the "crazy?" part of "Costume or crazy?" can also be applied to the observer.

Of course now I know a really easy costume for next year, even if I don't make the candy corn dress, because I could dress 1950s out of my closet without even TRYING. (I have two pairs of saddle shoes. I buy them from here.) And that would also suit my goal of having folks be unsure if I were in a costume or not ….

Anyway, if you have someone in your life that would be thrilled to dress as a candy corn fairy (besides me, of course) you can buy them this costume for $39.50. Unfortunately, the wings, bag, Deely-bobbers, and shoecovers are sold separately, and you will have to arrange for the loss of front teeth yourself, although I consider that last an essential part of the costume!

Madelene is NOT giving up. Here's another version of the almost-perfect DVF dress, in silk this time, from Nordstrom. $475.

So this one is a bit closer … I'm not sure how I feel about the ruched sleeves — you might need to come from the land of the skinny-armed people for those to work, and the weird collar tab is, well, weird, and of course there's some lace at the bottom of the skirt for no good reason other than it was about to go bad and they had to use it up or let it go to waste. But that's easily fixed. Ten minutes with a seam ripper and you're good to go.

I still wish it were bottle-green.

File this one away for next summer — so cute and only $60! I love sweetheart necklines, so pretty without being too revealing.

Speaking of revealing, I was googling for "peacock dress", because I had idly remembered that I wanted to find one of those flapper peacock dresses. Instead, I found this body-paint "dress." Probably not safe for work.

Anyway, please turn your attention back to the polka-dot dress. It's completely not appropriate for the rainy cold weather we're having here now, so all the more reason to consider it, at length, now, and bookmark it for next summer.

One thing — the nice folks at mignonette in Brooklyn are very proud of their dress fitting ALL THE WAY UP to a size 12/B34! Sigh. Because we all know there's NO ONE in Brooklyn who is bigger than THAT. Ah, well, if you really like it, write them and see if they'll grade their patterns up to at least a size 16, preferably to 18 or larger, because this is a style that's really great on bigger gals.

I try not to post here during the day, but hey, it's lunchtime, and my mom sent me a nice email the other day after I posted about how "fun" I am to shop with.

Anyway, my mom (who reads my blog because she loves me, obviously) told me that not only does she shop that way (which I only vaguely remember, since she was very wise and started giving me a clothes allowance when I was about twelve, so I could make my own sartorial mistakes), but her mother, Chico, also shopped that way. (Chico, sadly, died when I was four or five, so I don't remember her.)

You would have loved to seen Chico at bazaars — Bangkok variety. [My grandparents were stationed in Thailand and Burma in the 1950s.] Lots of sign language and laughter. Stateside she'd do the whole shop and then she'd take something to a salesperson and say that she would like something just like what she was holding except in blue and with a long skirt — did they have something — maybe in the back – like that? They'd give her a look and say yeah — you're holding it … but occasionally it would work! And it would be so funny…

So there you have it. It's genetic. (Code for "not my fault.")

QWP–"Quoted with permission"–although probably getting permission to quote a private email from YOUR OWN MOTHER is pretty much a given!

You know, it's not all Peter Pan collars and pockets here at Dress A Day headquarters. Sometimes, when looking for more gorgeous pictures to put up for your delectation, I run into trouble. That is, I find something that not only do I have to post, I have to buy.

Like this one, which hit all my trigger points: midriff band, kimono sleeves, jewel neck … the little jacket is cute, too, isn't it?

I know the risks, and it's all worth it. I'm willing to take a bullet (okay, an overstuffed sewing room) if that's what's needed to keep this thing going.

Isn't this gorgeous? Doesn't it make you want to wear flowers on a rubber band at your wrist and drink punch? Don't you wish you were in a gymnasium decorated in "Early Crepe Paper", listening to um, "Open Arms," by Journey? (My name is Erin, and I went to high school in the 1980s.)

Geez, I'd better stop before I turn into the Annie Potts character from Pretty in Pink. (I'm so conflicted about that movie: one the one hand, SEWING MONTAGE SCENE! On the other, worst.dress.ever. Also, I don't care what anyone says, Duckie had it all over what's-his-face.)

It's a teeny size but so adorable, and it's super-cheap for a pattern this great — $16! (from seller FullGarage on Ebay, click on the picture to check it out.) I LOVE the bodice, if I weren't so damn lazy about grading patterns I would buy it and put it on a pencil skirt as a cocktail dress.

Look at the gathers at the back of the skirt … so pretty, and so swishy when you walk. In the good way. Make this in taffeta for maximum swish! Or crepe-back satin, with the dull side out for that front bodice drape …

I love the Garnet Hill catalog, page after page of calm, well-rested women in bright sunny rooms, all of them either on their way to or from yoga class or their creative jobs doing creative things (also in bright sunny rooms). There are never any messy, inconvenient MEN in GarnetHillLand, and the children are kept segregated in their cheery, brightly-colored creche, raised by the unsleeping and sympathetic robots. Ah, a preview of the future! Sigh. So what if from time to time their shoes look a little HR Giger for my taste? And if perhaps there is a little too much attention to applique?

This dress is only $158, which is cheap for Garnet Hill. I *love* the fabric, and the little sleeves, and the vee neck; I wish it were a little shorter — it would be really cute if it hit just below the knee, but this style might be difficult to alter. Maybe if you took off the ruffle and shortened the skirt and then reattached it … which I would never, ever get around to doing (I have pants older than my son that I have yet to hem) which is why I'm never buying this dress. But don't let that stop YOU …