Okay, get this. Mrs B. in Paris wakes up one Saturday morning to find her husband, instead of wanting to watch Dr. Who (not that there's anything wrong with that), wants to go shopping. Did I mention that "Mrs. B in Paris" does actually live IN PARIS? No? Well, she does. So she goes shopping with her husband. Who, after buying Parisian pants, (that's "trousers" for you Brits) says "oh, honey, it must be hard for you to go to all these stores with me without even looking at anything for yourself." While Mrs. B is boggling from THAT, he goes on to urge her to buy a new dress. In Paris. With a budget four times what she would have set for herself.

Anyway, go click that link to read the whole story, instead of my Cliffs Notes, but this is the dress. Isn't it lovely? And I don't know what kind of additives she's putting in Mr. B's pot-au-feu, but if she can figure out a way to market them, I think she's got a winner. She's my new hero. I mean, I can barely get my husband to put on ANY pants, and she's got hers buying pants in France. Which even if it didn't rhyme, would be the greatest thing ever.

And, for the rest of the story — the crow-megaphone dress? Went to a good home in NYC, with Stephanie at Klosekraft. Whew! Sometimes, when you see a great eBay auction that you know you can't bid on, it's like seeing an especially cute puppy or kitten at the shelter. Will someone kind and loving take them home, or will they have to suffer rough petting at the hands of an oblivious jerk? This dress went to a good home and will have lots of walks in the bright sunshine, I'm sure.

Oh, and just for complete randomosity, I dreamt last night I was making a dress out of those zip ties you use for garbage bags. I was using those narrow plastic straps that hold cardboard boxes together for the weft, and then zipping the ties over them so the long edges stuck out like fringe. Each tie would zip over two straps, and I did a kind of herringbone thing so that the whole mess held together as fabric. Very hard to explain, like most dreams, but I woke up disappointed that I hadn't actually done it and taken a picture to post here.

Oh, it's not all puppies and popsicles here at A Dress A Day headquarters. Not everything that rolls off the assembly line gets worn, or even looked at without a shudder. This is one of my more spectacular failures. So spectacular, that even though this was completed more than a YEAR ago, I couldn't bear to even look at it until now.

It shouldn't have been this way. I've made this particular pattern three or four times, and it always looked pretty good, as far as I could tell. (I made it twice in Liberty prints, one lawn, one Jubilee, and once in a big print of pink roses.) And when I saw this fabric, shimmering happily on the computer screen, I figured, "Oh, fun, HoJo's blue!"

I swear, if I had a time machine, one of my to-dos, right after killing Hitler and visiting Claire McCardell, would be to go back and prevent myself from pushing the "place order" on this one.

It was pretty obvious from the beginning that this was the wrong fabric for this dress; it was too stiff, even after a few washings, and it showed every little spot. Yet I kept on. I didn't try it on at all (why should I have? I'd already made the pattern three times) until I was about to hem the skirt. Then — oh lord. The dress hung as if it were made of cardboard, and the color left me looking like some minor character from a horror movie. Not any character with a name, but someone you see in the credits noted as "Zombie Girl Who Loses Eyeball in Punch Bowl." Yes, it made me look like a bit player in Zombie Prom, which, now that I check IMDB, is not just my fevered invention but a real actual movie coming out this year. (Why didn't they call me? I have my own costume.)

The only redeeming feature of this dress is the buttons. They're vintage, and very nice. I'm not quite sure what to do with the rest of it. I could cut it up for an A-line skirt; if I kept this color (which seems to be my Kryptonite) away from my face it could still be cute. I could just put it in the pile for the Salvation Army (they take anything); I could put it up on eBay (sucker born every minute); I could send it to the producers of Zombie Prom II: The After Party; I could find a farmer and offer it to him for his scarecrow. Lots of options. The only option closed off to me is actually wearing this as is.

Thanks much to Holly at Lucite Box Vintage for the link to this one. She's so selfless, it's not even one of her own auctions!

I love this fabric with an obsessive and stifling love:

I wish I could have met the textile designer. After sitting a safe distance away from him or her, I would casually venture to bring up what creative process had led to shouting stylized crows with megaphones. "It's such an … inventive design! How on earth did you come up with it?" Of course, if the answer was "Well, I see them all the time, along with the dancing elephants wearing propeller beanies," I might shift my chair a little further away and pretend to get a text message on my phone that needed immediate attention. But I sure as heck wouldn't leave without four or five yards for my very own.

However, I can't imagine that I would be able to choose a better pattern for this fabric than this designer (the label is "Ann Sutton"). I love the surplice cap-sleeve bodice WITH the midriff band (perhaps the crows are cheering for the midriff band? Seems reasonable to me) and the lovely full skirt. I should be able to fake this up. This is absolutely a "no, but hum a few bars" style of dress.

If only I had some of this fabric! If you want the whole dress, it's B36 and a $125 BuyItNow — no auction close date, so hurry up!

Do you know what this dress is made of? It's made of reclaimed audio tape. And, even cooler, it's playable. You can hold tape heads in your hands and run them over the dress, and noise will come out! This is so cool the temperature in the room when I read about it dropped eight degrees. (Many thanks to Ursula for the link!)

Now, I'm not suggesting you actually wear a sonic fabric dress for longer than it takes to mess around with playing it — I'd bet it's pretty hot, and the silhouette is not one that I would choose. But as an art object? It's wonderful. I would get one just to hang on the wall, or keep on a dress form.

In fact, I actually have a dress on a dress form in my living room — not a sonic one; a great 1940s beaded taffeta sweetheart-neckline full-skirted dress, and it was one of the first pieces of vintage clothing I ever bought. The woman who sold it to me looked like Morticia Addams, never wore shoes, chain-smoked menthols in this giant abandoned garage full of random items (all of which were flammable in degrees ranging from 'three-acre brush fire' to 'towering inferno'), and kept a roll of bills in her cleavage. I always tried to have exact change. But, that burst of quasi-nostalgia/horror aside, I like the idea of dresses as art and this one is art in two dimensions, as it were. It's art and music. Next step: a dress that is art, music, and moves by itself — dance! Oh, wait, I'm thinking about robots again. Dammit.

Click on the image for more information about sonic fabric. They have messenger bags and suchlike, too.

Helen in the UK is hoping that some kind and helpful reader of A Dress A Day will know where she can find a pattern for a dress similar to this one — a wrap with a full skirt and collar/sleeve options. I know, it should be easy, right? But no.

And if anyone can tell me where to buy broderie anglaise online, I'd be very happy. Preferably at less than "oh-my-god-they-want-what?" per yard.

If you click on the image you can buy the dress featured here — it's a Zara dress listed on eBay.co.uk.

Coming up soon on A Dress A Day … the Esprit giveaway is this week, if I can get everything ironed and pictures taken before Friday. And I'll have the winners of the book contest, I think. Plus, I'm feeling a bit ranty! Watch out!

I saw this yesterday at Darling and the slightly bemused clerk let me take pictures to show you. Isn't it, well, darling?

Check out the very vintage-y fabric:

And the belt, backed with a coordinating green:

I'm not sure if Darling takes phone orders but if you MUST have this, it might be worth calling. I saw a size 10 and a size 4 on the rack. I think this one on the mannequin is an 8. It looked well-made, and the label is London Times. It was $145, which is not outrageous for a dress in a boutique in the West Village!

There were a lot of darling dresses there, unsurprisingly, but what I ended up buying (surprisingly) was a stretchy wide multi-buckle slightly bondage-y belt. I'm feeling the very, very cinched waist for fall …

For an announcement — I'll be reading at the New York Public Library tonight as part of the Literary Magazine marathon, so if you're in the city and would enjoy hearing me read from "The Simpsons: Embiggening Our Language With Cromulent Words," by Mark Peters, come on by. (I'm last on the bill, btw.) Details: New York Public Library's DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Room, 5th Ave. at 42nd St., Saturday, June 10th from 4–6:30 PM.

I'll also be hanging out at Housing Works all afternoon tomorrow, for the Lit Mag Fair (do you sense a theme developing here?) — Housing Works Used Book Café, 126 Crosby Street in Soho Sunday, June 11th from 12–5PM. Remember, come to the Fair wearing a dress and I will give you a free pen. (While supplies last.)

Many thanks to Joy, who sent this in from a July 1960 issue of Katy Keene.

I admit to more than a sneaking suspicion that I am a Bertha! I mean, the polka dots alone are a dead giveaway! Oh, well, if everyone were always tasteful how boring the world would be.

So last night, as is my wont on a Wednesday in NYC, I went skating at the Roxy. And, after going around in circles for a couple of hours, I thought posting a crappy picture of my favorite skating skirt (after having worn it for said couple of hours), taken in a badly-lit hotel room in Midtown, would be an excellent idea. So here it is!

I bought this fabric a year and a half or so ago, on eBay, and originally made a plain circle skirt out of it. I was a little scant of fabric, though, so it was a bit short for my taste. So a few weeks ago I added the waistband, and voila! The Twister Skirt.

I got several compliments on it at the Roxy, usually by people who had just narrowly missed involving us both in a sixteen-wheel tangle on the floor. (Well, they had to say SOMETHING!) Hoo-boy, was the Roxy crowded last night. Think Times Square, at rush hour, on wheels. It was fun, though. The bass was turned up to "defibrillate," and the DJ somehow had a shunt straight from my iPod's "guilty dance-y pleasures" mix to the turntable. He played "Get Into the Groove" and "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "Best of My Love"! I may have to send him a thank-you note.

I was surprised that the Long Island Concussion Enthusiasts' Society was out in such force last night, but they all thoughtfully skated carrying their baguette handbags clenched tightly under their arms, so that when they hit the floor skull-first and forgot their own names, the responding EMT could just pull their IDs right then and there. They also pair up, so that if one skater looks in danger of staying upright for more than thirty or forty seconds, her spotter can squeal and haul her down to the floor where the concussions are more readily available. Because nothing says "Missy's 23rd birthday party!" like a traumatic head injury.

There was also a meeting of the Human Spirograph League — these are the guys (they're almost always guys) who cannot skate in the tame and banal oval that the rest of skate in; they must perform elaborate loops around the floor in highly elliptical orbits. Often backwards. They're like stray planets haplessly interrupted by the sun at a really, really bad time, and so they won't ever have a nice neat orbit. Also, they tend to wear inline skates, instead of quads. One of them nearly took me down, but nicely hauled me along with him for a stride or two so that I didn't suffer the indignity of an official butt-to-the-floor fall. All I can say is, the Human Spirographs? Have tremendous upper body strength. Go figure.

I had a really good time (I always do) and, as usual, left right before I got tempted to get too fancy. I'm a great mediocre skater. I don't run into folks; I don't do the Wile E. Coyote leg-shuffle to keep my balance; I can stop several different ways, none of which involve finding a large immobile object to run into at top speed. I also don't skate backwards, do spins, or too much tricky footwork, because I think the pleasure I would get from doing that stuff (especially when it's so crowded) would not be enough to overcome how just plain stupid I would feel if I seriously injured myself on a business trip 800 miles from home.

So. This is my skating skirt, and that was my night at the Roxy, and sometime in the next six weeks or so I'll get another chance to skate wearing polka dots, and happiness will abound. Can't ask for more than that.

No clicky picture here; I already bought this. Which I'm a bit worried about. Two scarf dresses in the space of a week? That seems suspiciously obsession-y.

Although this one I might actually make (well, considering I didn't buy the other pattern, it will be much easier to make this one). Both views. I love the kicky side pleats on the straight skirt, and the scarf-y version has me thinking maybe, just maybe, I will finally be able to use the car-print Liberty before I die. I swear, I must check that fabric on a monthly basis, on the off chance it's had a growth spurt in the fabric pile when I wasn't looking. I don't know why I don't just label my fabric with the yardage when I buy it; although, since I have sworn never to buy pieces under three yards ever again (with God as my witness, I will never buy blouse lengths again!) it's only these weird outliers from the four-yard average that have me measuring and re-measuring.

The car print isn't the only player in the "Did it Grow?" game. There's a piece of cherry-print rayon that likes to re-wrinkle itself when I'm not looking, so it has to be pressed before it gets measured and comes up short. There's ONE YARD of a gorgeous Matisse-print silk (and by Matisse-print, I mean it has figures from his "Jazz" paper cut series on it, in those brilliant colors) that I must have laid out a dozen blouse patterns on and never made a single cut into. (Maybe someday I'll have a brain injury that changes my entire personality and turn into someone who wears halter tops. Who knows?) There's a pile of shantung remnants in jewel colors that someday will have to be the world's least practical crazy quilt, or a jester outfit, because there's not a garment's worth of any single one of them. (Hmmm. Duro? In shantung? For winter?) Plus many other bits and bobs too pretty to throw away, too small to use, & that I'm too lazy to cut quilt blocks from … it's a puzzlement.