I don't know what it is, but I've seen this Cynthia Steffe dress three times now and it resonates with me more each time. Maybe it's the lasered lace on the sleeves and hem of the overskirt, which is so girly and dainty combined with the serious gray flannel.

This isn't quite wearable the way it is — even leaving out the fetish gloves, and how fun will it be to see what Google ads the words 'fetish gloves' bring to this page, huh? Maybe I should start seeding these entries with completely random words, like 'pumpkin jambalaya' or 'customer-centered light-arms manufacture' — I'd rather see 3/4 length bell sleeves with the lacework at the hems than these little cap sleeves, but if just that one tweak were made I could see wearing this all the time, with tights and short boots.

Gray is one of my favorite (non)colors — ask my mom sometime about how worried she was about my all-gray wardrobe in the seventh grade; I was a kind of Goth-lite, or maybe I just looked like someone had drawn me in pencil and then half-heartedly erased me — and I'm really feeling it again this year. I just bought a heather gray cardigan, and I think I have some hugely wide-wale gray corduroy to make an autumn skirt of, and I have some pink cotton satin that I was going to pair with some yellow lace in an eyeball-wrenching tour de force of Bollywood homage, but now I think it would make a great party-dress Duro with simple gray banding, instead. And I have a charcoal 1960s shift I should really finish up, too, and a gray pencil skirt cut out and waiting for a waistband, and a gray A-line skirt cut out and waiting for construction … and, oh, a gray flannel circle skirt! I really need to make one of those before autumn gets too far advanced. (I know, I know, it hasn't even started yet!)

Looks like it's back to seventh grade for me! Only this time without the orthodonture or the algebra, thank god.

Several of you have sent me a link to this lovely dress from Boden, which comes in at least three colorways, most of them brown. I am intrigued by this version — I like the higher neck and longer skirt as being more likely to insinuate extra inches (vertical ones, not horizontal ones!) onto one's frame, and it's rayon so it should be nice and flowy.

I must admit to having a bit of a grudge against Boden as their gift exchange policies are a bit nuts — if someone is so kind as to give you something from their catalog, and if, for one reason or another it doesn't fit (literally or metaphorically), instead of just swapping things for you they have to refund the giver's card and then re-charge it, which makes one highly reluctant to initiate any kind of return process. (Which is perhaps why they do it that way.)

But on the other hand, I do have a lovely light twill coat from Boden in a crazy orange, blue, and khaki floral pattern that I wear to DEATH in the fall and spring. It goes well with my stripey orange skirt. I love floral and stripes together. I bet there's some online sanity test somewhere that takes points off for admitting that, along with "I often make silly faces when I'm alone" and "I often imagine what things would look like upside down and inside out."

Boden does tend to sell out quickly, so if you want this (at $128) I'd order fast. Half the colors and sizes are already on a three-week wait, although that would get you your dress right in time for the first possible moment you could wear it, at least here in Chicago.

I'd like to make one of these in a similar cut, only in two different patterns of men's charcoal wool suiting. Maybe even with flap welt pockets. I think it would be deliciously ironic, although that's not quite what one should plan one's fall wardrobe around. Maybe that's a question on the test, too: "I often dress to tickle a sense of humor shared by very few."

Dana just sent me this gorgeous little number that's listed now at Scissor Happy. If only it were slightly bigger! I love the combo of the full skirt, midriff band, and mandarin collar, and, by golly, it looks like the judges of the dog show do too, because you can't tell me that they went by the merits of the pup alone for this one … oh! maybe it's a DRESS contest, and she just brought her dog along for support!

Check out the other stuff at that site — they also have one of the easiest and quickest vintage patterns I've ever made up, Advance 6675. Seriously, you could make it in your sleep wearing boxing gloves. My copy was missing the directions and it STILL went together like a dream. Well worth the price, if it's in your size.

It's only thanks to Nora Needles that I even saw this dress, and now I'm wondering how I could possibly justify purchasing this. It's slightly too big for me — that's the only thing that's holding me back. Well, that, and the fact that wearing orange polka dots all day might make me so gleeful that I wouldn't be able to get any work done. You know, with all the giggling and the skipping. And the fact that I'd spend the next thirty-five years of my life looking for orange ankle-strap shoes to match. (Oh, it's a sad, sad life I lead …)

This morning when I woke up and ran out for the paper (the copy I grabbed didn't have the magazine, boo, hiss — good thing there's another copy waiting for me at home) there was that smell in the air that says summer is ending. Just a hint of cool crispness — nothing obvious, no sere leaf floating to the ground in front of me, no bus rumbling by displaying an ad for cable-knit tights — just that scent in the air. So how could I bid on such a squeezed-orange hot-July-nights dress like this when (if previous Augusts are anything to go by) I'll be thinking about buying wool jersey in deep colors in roughly seventeen days?

If you are in some place where autumn won't arrive until the Halloween candy is on clearance sale, or some place where you're just starting to think about the arrival of spring, go click on the link to see the auction. And if you find the shoes to match, let me know. I might want to buy a pair just in case …

I love the short-sleeved version shown here, especially with that hat. What kills me, though, is that I can't think of any modern equivalent to a dress like this. What does a woman wear these days that is so simple and yet so un-girlish? Low-rise jeans? Please.

I'm thinking about this as today is my 35th birthday (yay!) and, even though I'm glad that I can just toss on a pair of sneakers and jeans any time I so choose, there's not an equivalent freedom further up the scale. Why is there this big gap now, where people are either wearing jeans or a cocktail dress (or, actually, jeans and a top that looks like the top of a cocktail dress, instead of the cocktail dress)? Where did all the intermediate stages go? (I mean, besides my closet.) It is a puzzlement, to be sure.

Anyway, now that I've achieved ostensible maturity, I plan on wearing a LOT more dresses like this, to fill in the gap. I also plan on doing these things: calling people "my dear boy"; saying "in MY day, a lady wouldn't be caught DEAD in that"; and indulging in completely unwarranted nostalgia for the mid-to-late 1980s.

Isn't this adorable? Karen just sent it to me, and, although I'm not much of an apron person (if by "not much" you mean "have fewer than two dozen") I'm very tempted by this auction. I'd be even tempted-er if it were my size (it's B28-30; click on the image fast if you want to visit the eBay auction, because it ends before bedtime).

Mostly I'd want to get it just to lengthen it to a dress. Doesn't it look very Duro-y? I love the princess lines and the pockets. I'd do it in blue gingham with pale blue solid for the pockets and tie, widen the tie and probably do a solid band around the bottom. And then I'd go make a pie in it. What more could you want?

Suzan Ereslan sent me this dress, which was her final project for her Personal Expression and Wearable Technologies class at the Interactive Telecommunications Project at NYU. (Man, when I went to school you couldn't do a degree in Interactive Telecommunications. You were lucky if you had a telephone, much less "Interactive Telecommunications." And we had to walk uphill, in the snow, both ways, to even USE said phone. But I digress.)

Suzan writes: "The dress has touch switches that are located at various erogenous zones on the body. These can be taken off and placed according to the wearer's particular specifications. When someone touches the wearer in the right spot, the lights around the bottom light up, indicating that the toucher is on the right path. The longer the switches are held (or the more that are found), the longer the LEDs stay lit, and they cycle through a series of colors and speeds from flashing to a nice, throbbing pulse."

Sounds like this makes things too easy for one's partner? Well, that was the idea:

"The name of it (S-Dress) is a play on words–I was inspired by estrus, the swelling and reddening of the genitals in mammals other than humans, which alerts the male of the species that it's mating time."

Personally, I'm seeing a version for wear on public transit, that sets off a siren and tear gas if you feel a hand on your ass. Maybe a Taser bolt, too. Anyway, what an interesting idea. I don't think there's enough clothing that lights up, whatever the reason for it.

To see pictures of the inner construction of the dress, click on the image — it will take you to Suzan's Flickr set.

Well, I'm shopping eBay Australia again — maybe I'm thinking it's some giant study-abroad, student-exchange program for sewing patterns? — and this one is tempting me. Specifically, the little polka-dot number. Now, I've carefully arranged all my pattern-shopping experiments to allow for the significant amount of polka-dot interference, so I'm pretty sure what caught my eye was the ruffle. (I know! Ruffles!)

Sorry the picture is a bit wonky; I don't have my regular suite of image-editing tools here today so I'm unable to lovingly caress every pixel to show you the best possible view. If you want to see it larger go click on the image and you'll be right there at the auction.

I'm not sure why; perhaps I'm still reeling from the sensory assault that was the September issue of Lucky, what with all those patterned tights and fussy little blouse bows and whatnot (I swear they're having some kind of internal contest and the stylist who puts the most unlikely accessory with any particular outfit and manages to get it photographed wins); perhaps the combination of PINK plus polka-dots trancended all my careful laboratory controls. Maybe I'm still thinking about that bertha collar on Queen Victoria from the other day. All I know is that I am entranced by the way that ruffle straddles the boundary between collar and sleeve.

If you are too, and you don't mind removing precious national sewing heritage documents from another country, you can buy this for $6.09 US. It's a B34, and shipping seems reasonable. And so does making it in pink polka-dots.

You know, sometimes, when you're being worn, you don't pay all that much attention. I mean, you're there, where else would you be, but you're not all the way there. Me, I was thinking about whether or not we'd walk home and get me all sweaty on a day that was too warm for late April, or if we'd try to get on the streetcar, which would still be hot but take less time. So I didn't realize anything was happening other than a regular old day at the office until I felt the drops.

She was typing–she did a lot of typing–but it was much slower than her usual rat-a-tat pace. There would be the crash of a single key hitting the platen, then a drop, then a pause, then the crash again. For a minute, I wasn't sure what the drops were–had she spilled coffee, and, more importantly, was it staining me? It was only when she started rummaging in the desk for a handkerchief that I realized she was crying. Crying! That's one of the worst things you can do in a dress, you know. Every time you cry in a dress you grind sadness right into it, deep down into the fabric, and it never comes out. Laughing in a dress — now that's good. The laughter lodges between the warp and weft in little bubbles, like champagne. And kissing, kissing in a dress sets up a kind of vibration in the fabric that keeps wobbling there forever. But crying, even the drip-drip silent kind, that just grimes a dress up. I hate it. She'd never cried in me before.

She put the handkerchief on the desk and started typing again, same as before. Crash-drip-crash. Crash-drip-crash, until the door to the office opened and Miriam came in. I like Miriam; she's kind. She wears bright patterned dresses, which is good because they hide the ink drips and salad-dressing spots that seem to always happen to office dresses.

"Aw, honey. I came as soon as I heard."

She looked up from her typing and said, "There's nothing to hear. Not about me, anyway."

"You know if he had a choice it would be about you. But the name on the door reads Wilton, Simms, and Wilton, and the way it works is that the first Wilton gets to tell the second Wilton what to do. Up to and including 'doing' Miss Simms."

"Miriam!"

"Well, you know it's true. Her daddy bought him for her sure as that car she drives into walls and that pony she falls off of and whatever else she wants and can't handle. Money might buy her a husband, but it won't buy her happiness."

She still had her hands on the typewriter and she hit a few more keys, but the drips stopped.

"Come out with me and Johnny tonight. He has a friend in from Kansas City; I think you'd like him. His name's Bill and he has an aw-shucks face and he'll buy you cocktails and wish they were ice-cream sundaes. He's exactly what you need after all these San Francisco sophisticates."

"I have to get this into the paper before the edition closes. Social column runs tomorrow, you know."

"Social column? What … he asked you to type the announcement? He's not just a weak fool, he's a cruel weak fool. I'm sorry … I know you had hopes of making a man out of him. But you can't build a house out of marshmallows."

"I think that's what's the worst part." Drips again. Now I was spotted all up and down the front like a leopard.

"Now, I tell you what. You finish that, and you type one more thing, and then you come out with us tonight. I won't have you moping in your room, thinking about that newspaper coming out tomorrow."

"I don't have anything else to type, after this."

"Oh, yes, you do. You know Alyce Chanteres, over down at Bateman's? She's quitting to go on that China trip with her aunt, and if you go down there first thing tomorrow you'll get her job. Her cousin's the man who does the hiring and she'll make it right. You know she will. They pay better, too. So you finish that nasty piece of commerce you're working on now and then type out your resignation. I bet he thought he'd still have you here to gaze upon every day, as a relief from that beak he'll have to look at across the breakfast table! Won't he be surprised to find that on his desk in the morning instead!"

"Is Alyce really going now? I didn't think it was settled."

"Saw her at lunch. She said I was the first person she'd told, since her aunt decided for certain last night that'd they'd go."

"Well … "

"If you don't type it I'll type it for you." Miriam went to the other machine and twirled in a piece of paper. She spoke as she typed, doing both with the same flourishes. "Dear Mr. Wilton, Jr.: Herewith is my resignation, effective immediately. Sincerely, Candace Lennington." "Oh, won't the old man be cross when Junior has to explain why you left!"

"You're right. I'll do it." The crash-crash turned into the rapid-fire hammering I was used to, and then she was pulling the page out, folding it, and cramming it into the waiting envelope.

"Is that Bill tall? I hope he's tall." She smiled weakly.

"He's a regular giant, a beef-fed colossus bestriding Kansas and Missouri both. Now, go fix your face in the washroom and we'll get rid of that yellow journalism on our way to meet the boys."

Bill was very tall, but he was clumsy, and he spilled a drink on me. By the time I was cleaned it was time to put me aside for her light summer dresses, and then in the fall all of a sudden she was spending an awful lot of time checking for letters from Kansas City, and writing ones addressed to same. She didn't type them. When she left to follow the letters, she gave me to Miriam, since she wasn't going to be working in an office any more.

So here's the mystery: this type of dress (worn by Queen Victoria here) is supposedly (according to this source) known in America as a "Boston dress."

However, I can't find any other confirmation (other than that book of paper dolls linked above) of this term. Anyone want to take a shot at seeing if it's in any of the full-text newspaper databases? Or JSTOR? Or Making of America?

The person with the oldest printed citation/example will get a copy of the Victoria and Albert Paper Dolls book (not a copy of the Winterhalter portrait, sadly).

Have fun looking!