The Carnivale of the Couture, I mean. This week's question (hosted by I am Fashion) is:

Suprise darling! You have just won the lottery! How will you, the super fabulous fashionable blogger, spend your US$10m winnings? Tell us all about your money-spending plan!!

Now, before I answer, I should warn you: I am BORING. Like, when you ask me what I'd take to a desert island, I say "A lifetime supply of flares and a flare gun, and the food replicator from Star Trek. 'Earl Grey, hot!'" All of my lottery daydreams up to now have involved fully-funding my retirement plan and buying real estate and more life insurance. In short: BORING.

Now, with $10M and strict instructions to spend it on fashion? That's easy. I would invest it all (I could get at least three percent return just from CDs, right?) and spend the $300K/year creating my own couture studio. I figure $300K/year would pay for two seamstresses (or a seamstress and a couple of assistants), a small space, equipment, fabric, and spare pins and whatnot. I'd saunter in once a week, describe what I wanted made, and work on some prototypes (just to keep my hand in. I'm sure the staff would unpick all my seams after I left). When I was satisfied, I'd have mine made, and maybe do some tweaking. Then I would post the design online and take limited orders from other people. Of course, I wouldn't really have to make too much money, because I would have the $10M pouring interest into the project. And I would always have *exactly* what I wanted to wear!

If I managed to turn a small profit (or earned more interest on the original $10M) I would start becoming even more obsessive, and get a textiles designer to make me prints, and a shoemaker/leatherworker for shoes and bags.

I forgot to buy a lottery ticket this week (um, pretty much like I forget every week) but I am always ready to entertain offers from angel investors.

A helpful commenter left a cryptic lead on the Duro dress a few days ago. "There's a Folkways pattern that's a dead ringer for the Duro." Well, you don't need to hang around the alley getting your trenchcoat dirty with ME; I was off with the intel like a shot. To be immediately frustrated by the lovely, deco Folkwear pattern illustrations that give ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA of the lines of the dress. Yes, yes, I understand that my life will become infinitely more beautiful and exotic and world-music-y in clothes made from these patterns, but, for the love of Vreeland, could you just give me a goddamn clue as to what the bodice looks like?

Anyway, applying my rationale of "when in doubt, apply Google, rinse, repeat" I found this, which is the Folkwear Afghani Nomad dress. Or, in this case, the Folkwear Provençal Nomad Dress, which is I suppose much the same thing. AND: there was a line drawing!

A line drawing that is the death of hope, but a line drawing nonetheless. This is not the Duro dress, although in the taxonomy of dresses it is surely related. (Which taxonomy I am slowly developing; so slowly, in fact, that one day I will be the subject of one of those newspaper features the gist of which is "Crazed and Crabbed Local Elderly Person Finishes Useless and Pointless Lifelong Project" and will include the line "Even though the omniscient quantum robots from Alpha Centauri gave us all possible knowledge in 2036, Ms. Dressaday (as she prefers to be called) refused to stop. "You can't tell me some clanking tub of bolts knows anything about dresses! And yes, I know quantum machinery has no moving parts. Sheesh. Did they bring any knowledge of rhetorical devices? Go away now, my stories are coming on.""

Anyway, close but no cigar, sadly. I am still thinking that the best course of action is to modify a blouse pattern to fit the skirt pattern I already like. The question is whether to start with one that is closer to the right neckline, or closer to the sleeve I want. I'm thinking sleeve, as sleeves are a bitch; I can find the sleeve and trace the neckline from something else. Or I could just keep whining here about it until Mr. Olowu takes pity on me and signs up with Vogue Patterns. Maybe if I mention his name enough he'll come across me while ego-surfing!

Oh, jeebus. Have you ever passed by a stray cat, missing one eye and bereft of most of its fur, and thought "Oh, you poor thing!" and taken it home? Or seen a perfectly run-of-the-mill jerk and thought "Gee, he seems interestingly broken, my love will HEAL HIM!" and done the same? Or decided that a total teardown is your "fixer-upper"? Well, that's the way I feel about this dress.

I can't even begin even a half-hearted apologia for the collar, so let's pass over it in silence. Nor for the sleeves, which seem to be fashioned expressly to let your upper-arm bingo wings run free and frolic. The skirt looks like they drew it up from a 1940s fabric-rationing guidebook–this much and not one inch more! But even if I took off the collar, narrowed the sleeves, and fattened up the skirt, it would still look like something that would get you mistaken for one of the housekeeping staff in a nicer hotel.

I'm sure my feelings for this dress are all about the pockets, with additional subliminal influence from the shoes in the illustration, which I covet fiercely. And a little bit because the women wearing these things look like they are just one sneering look from passers-by away from becoming a girl gang, on the model of Charlie's Angels. Obviously. I mean, they have the brainy brunette (ringleader and commandant, as she is central), the ditsy blonde (you can tell, because she's looking in the wrong direction AND wearing blue gingham) and the exotic and feisty person of color (who despite being EXOTIC! and OF COLOR! has unthreateningly Caucausian features). Notice how the brunette has to hold her back, lest she open up her can of whoop-ass prematurely.

Luckily, I very rarely give in to the "it's-broken-I-must-fix-it" impulse nowadays. If you want to offer this pattern comfort, click on the image and pay your $4 on eBay. I think I will just go watch some buttkicking women on TV (Buffy, Alias, old Doris Day movies–what? she does metaphorical buttkicking, and has better clothes!) and look for two-tone platform oxfords online.

A regular reader of A Dress A Day, who wishes to remain anonymous, sent me half-a-dozen vintage patterns she found when she was clearing out her garage. This is yet more evidence for pronoia, the idea that the world is constantly and secretly rearranging itself to make you (well, in this case, ME) happy.

Because wouldn't this dress make you happy? And all those around you? I especially like the binding/ribbons on the neckline of the polka-dot version. In fact, from personal experience I can say that wearing excessive polka dots can bring plenty of joy. (I have one short full skirt, white with multicolor polka dots five inches in diameter, that never fails to 1) make folks smile and 2) make me look like an honors graduate of Ringling Clown College.)

If what you're wearing today isn't making you happy, why the hell not? Life's too short for boring miserable stopgap clothing. Don't wait until you lose weight, or until you get married, or until you get that next job. Do it now. Grab every opportunity for joy that life affords you. A dress like this would be a good place to start.

But it is usually quite simple to tell the two staffs [of Vogue and Glamour, in the same office building] apart because the jeunes filles at Glamour, in addition to possessing a high quota of noses that Vogue might dismiss as "eager, retroussé," are also given to wearing shirtdresses, college-girl circle pins, smiling in the elevator, and saying, "Hi." A Vogue lady once described the Glamour staff as "those peppy, Hi people."
One day a few years ago a wide-eyed, newly hired Vogue secretary went bouncing into an editor's office with a package, and said "Hi"–at which the editor is supposed to have cringed, and finally snapped, "We don't say that around here!"
… Vogue has to be careful. The upcomer might use the word cute instead of panache; she might talk about giving a party instead of a dinner; or describe a suede coat 'for weekending with the station-wagon set' rather than 'for your country home.' Or talk of going to a jewelry store instead of a bijouterie. Most maladroit of all, she might talk in terms of a best buy rather than an investment, or a coup. Or refer to a ballgown as–one shudders to think of it–a formal.

From "Vogueland", by Gay Talese.

Yes, I'm still obsessed with the Duro dress. I was temporarily satisfied with the Hippie Chick pattern, but it wasn't quite right. I may fuss with it some more–take up some of the gapping in the neckline and make it in a stretch fabric, too, but I'm still seeking another candidate.

Trolling through the online catalogs of the big pattern companies didn't turn up anything but this (New Look 6515) which I might try to modify into a dress. Really, you can slap a skirt onto any top, without too much trouble. I figure I can just change the neck facings here into a band, and widen the band at the waist until it's as wide as the one on the Hippie Chick dress, or maybe even a touch wider, and then just match it up to the skirt from that dress. I'll probably feel like widening the neck band, too, although doing it without crashing into the shoulder seams and the underbust gathers might be a problem.

I'm thinking about doing it in this fabric, with red or turquoise banding. Or turquoise banding with red piping! We'll see.

Whew. I mean, Fashion Week (oh, I'm sorry, OLYMPUS Fashion Week) was fun, but have you ever gone on vacation and eaten nothing but fancy food, and come home craving steamed vegetables, plain salads, and brown rice? That's how I feel right now.

Not that this is exactly a brown rice dress, but you know what I mean. I am writhing with disappointment that this is nowhere near my size (if you are a B32, click on the picture to go to the eBay listing). It's Suzy Perette! It's got a midriff cummerbund! And it's got a crazy skirt that I would never make, much less wear, but that would give me enormous pleasure each time I looked at the pattern envelope.

Of course, the only problem with looking at this often is that eventually, like toxoplasma, this pattern would change my behavior to further its own survival and I WOULD end up making and wearing it, and going "What? What's so funny?" when people giggled as I went by. (For the full effect, imagine vertical two-inch-wide rainbow stripes!) My only hope is to infect all of you, so that eventually there's a critical mass of us and we end up here.

I was going to ask if anyone had a line on this in a B36, but maybe I shouldn't, now.

Okay, I didn't pick this dress just so I can begin and end my fashion week postings with Cynthia Rowley (OCD much?). I chose it because — well, look at it!

First of all, I can't really tell if the three pale stripes are appliqued ribbon, inset solid fabric, or inset sheer fabric. Any would be fine. I love the effect, full stop. I suppose, from a technical point of view, I'd prefer inset solid fabric as being the biggest challenge (and thus the most designer-y).

I love the clear bright red, too, and the high round neck, and the little sleeves. And, of course, the pockets. How happy am I with the emphasis on pockets this coming season? Let's just say the last time I was this pleased over something so essentially inconsequential it involved Denis Leary dressed as a fireman.

I would not follow the serving suggestion shown here and wear it with those boots (which someone obviously ganked from the set of POTC2) although I might keep the tights, to wear with the other current trend I smile on approvingly, wedge heels.

I love this shape so much I can see it a couple other ways. A soft gray flannel, with ivory or red inserts, maybe? Or a rich peacock teal with pale blue inserts, to wear with patterned tights and suede shoes? And of course you'd wear a trapeze-y soft coat with a round collar over it. I leave the selection of an appropriate bag as an exercise for the reader.

Isn't it lovely? I love the neckline, and the fabric, and the way it hangs, and the use of what looks like velvet piping. This is the kind of dress that feels great to wear — you won't be wondering what's hanging out that should be in. I hope we see this dress out and about a lot in party season — I hope she makes a tea or floor length version, too, although with the stiff fabric it would be a bit baroque.

I don't think I'd wear any jewelry (except old-gold and topaz dangly earrings). With a floor-length version I'd wear barbaric old-gold or brass cuffs set with large irregular (unfaceted) stones. Cabochons. Tiger-eye cabochons — what do you think? And certainly not with black tights and shoes — deep deep brown velvet shoes with old-gold bows.

In white brocade with white velvet piping this would be an exquisite winter wedding dress. In white eyelet with twill piping it would be a lovely summer party dress, although I bet you'd have to underline the eyelet with organza to get the right weight (I know, I know, eyelet should be limp, but I love stiff eyelet). In red floor-length velvet with satin piping it would be a costume for Deadwood. (It's always possible to pervert a great design with bad fabric …)

I think tomorrow will be the last Fashion Week post, and we'll be back to our regular schedule of dresses that at least make a pretense of being wearable and affordable …

Several people, including Betsy and Grant, sent me this link to design your own tartan!

Being a Scot, I already have a tartan (and someday I might actually figure out which one it is), but I heartily endorse this. The future is NOW!

I believe the tartan on the left is the Coburg tartan, which Queen Victoria designed for Prince Albert (he of the eternal can imprisonment) as a consolation for his not being Scots, I mean, as a celebration of his Germanity. Now you don't have to be a queen to make your sweetie a tartan! Click on the image to visit the site.