Yep, someone has this dress on hold at Aesthetically Vintage, and sadly, that someone is not me. (Maybe they have it on hold until they can get into a 24" waist!) But isn't it lovely? The print is birds, with nests and eggs. (This motif is everywhere now; I think I've seen it in the home decor sections of every major magazine over the past six to eight months.) I love the collar, too, and if you click on the image you can see the nicely pleated skirt. It's only $65! I wish whoever has it on hold would buy it already, and stop taunting me.

The rest of the site has some nice things, but [warning, rant ahead] there's a giant animated logo. Why do you need a giant animated logo? Or, for that matter, flash animation on your splash page, as there was on another vintage site I looked at yesterday? You do not need a splash page. A splash page on a website is basically a commercial for a place — a place your customer IS ALREADY VISITING. Give it up.

If you are going to run a vintage clothing website, you do not need flashy (or Flash-y) web design. Your needs are very simple. First, you need very clear, focused, well-lit pictures of the garment. Seriously, and with no excuses. Don't blame the camera, or warn that the colors are different — get the right picture. If you are not a good photographer, practice until you are, or get help.

You need good measurements of the garment. Don't just say "looks like a modern size 8," or (worse) "fits me and I wear an 8" because I guarantee you I could find a dozen women who all own a piece of clothing marked "8" and have none of them fit in your garment. Give measurements.

Also, if at all possible, show garments on a mannequin or dress form. Live models are fun, but the focus turns to the model and is often distracting. And if the model is bigger than the dress, the effect is awful — and I don't want to buy it, because I'm worried about strained seams. You can get a good, lightweight, adjustable dress form at fabric stores for less than $100, if you wait for the sales.

You need a good search & navigation, especially if you have more than a few items. Don't make users go back to the home page to switch categories (especially if there's no link to the home page on the item pages)! Also, don't make me click five times to see details about a dress. Put the measurements, basic condition, and price right next to the picture–after I know that, I'm more willing to click through for more pictures and information.

Be consistent in your measurements and descriptions, so that if someone is looking for B36, all the items say B36, not "36 Bust" or "bust measures 36 inches." Pick one variation of "1950s" "1950's" or "Fifties" and stick with it. Relatedly, learn to spell — I'm not asking you to be perfect, but if you want people to find you (especially on eBay or Froogle) and you say a dress has a "peplim", people looking for "peplums" will pass you right by. Your third-grade teacher was right — spelling counts. (Yesterday I saw a dress labeled "Marilyn Munroe". Who the heck was that? She had good taste in dresses, though.) If you absolutely cannot spell — find someone to help you. I could probably send eight copyeditors your way TODAY who would work for clothes.

Speaking of eBay, I know lots of folks have lovely retro images that brand their listings, but if your backdrop takes longer to load than the actual dress image, I may have already clicked off the page. Use one image, as a banner, not a backdrop, please. And for god's sake, don't have it rotate, flash, or dance the hornpipe. Why would you want to draw attention AWAY from what you're selling? Do not use rainbow text, fancy fonts, or all-caps. I don't care if it's easier to type; for large numbers of people silly formatting and all-caps writing still equals "crazy as hell", or possibly "I'm thirteen!". And if you say "if you are a bad bidder I will kill your dog" or similar over-the-top threats, I'm also going to pass you by. I know there are lots of bad bidders on eBay, and I've gotten burned myself, but don't start your listing with the assumption that everyone who chances across your auction is looking to scam you.

It's not that hard to build a vintage site or eBay store. Lots of people have done it. The trick is in saying "No." Every time you want to add a feature, or an image of something that's not for sale, or some gewgaw or trick, ask yourself "Will this sell a dress, or does it just look cool?" If the answer is "It just looks cool," say "No, thank you."

One last thing — if your site features NOISE OF ANY KIND–sound effects, songs, yodeling, whatever–I will never visit your site again, and I will purge your URL from my cache, so I won't even get back there by accident. It will be as if you never existed.

[I did warn you it was going to be a rant. Thank you for your kind attention.]

Do you dress to avoid pain or to bring pleasure? I really believe that these are the only two motivations behind people's sartorial choices. The people who dress to avoid pain (whether it's physical or social discomfort they're avoiding) are purely reactive. Their clothing decisions are always AGAINST something, never FOR something, and it drives me nuts.

I just want to go up to those poor lost souls, like some dress missionary, and ask "Sister, did *anything* about what you're wearing today make you happy? Or was it all about avoiding the possibility of unhappiness?" If you want to go to Chicago, you don't get there by going away from St. Louis, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Milwaukee … you get to Chicago by going towards Chicago. If you want to love what you wear, you can't get there by just avoiding things that other people hate, or that you fear they might criticize. Someone's always going to hate what you're wearing (and if it's culottes, or a Juicy Couture tracksuit, that person will be me).

The first time you wear something you really, truly love, something that gives you so much joy you don't even care if blind people cross the street to tell you it's ugly–something really interesting happens. When you wear something that's really yours, that shows who you are, and not just what you're afraid not to be, people react to the truth and the honesty more than they react to the actual clothing. Funnily enough, most people LIKE truth, and they LIKE honesty, and at some gut level they recognize that you're becoming more yourself, and they give you compliments. Often, lots and lots of compliments. Even if it's something they'd never, ever wear themselves — say, a skirt covered with multicolored polka dots that looks like nothing so much as a slightly repurposed Twister mat and a blaze-orange hoodie — they still recognize the joy behind it, and they respond to that. And not just people you know. Strangers on the street (yes, even in New York City) will stop and compliment you. (And there's nothing as nice as random validation from strangers!)

Wearing what you love is not all a Mentos commercial, though. Occasionally someone will not only hate what you're wearing, but go out of their way to tell you so to your face (as much as I hate Juicy, it would never occur to me to tell someone SPECIFIC, in PERSON, "I hate your Juicy tracksuit and everything it stands for." That's just plain rude. Hate the sin, love the sinner, invite the sinner dress shopping; I may disagree with what you wear but I defend to the death your right to wear it, etc., etc.) Just by wearing what you love you will have built up such a store of happiness that such comments just drift by you like dandelion fluff. Especially when (as is so often the case) you see that what THEY are wearing was designed by Fear for the Fear Fall 06 Collection, with accessories by Fear. Why should you take someone seriously who doesn't even dress to maximize happiness?

If you're unsure whether you're dressing for joy or out of fear, here's a test. Picture your favorite dress. Picture yourself running into someone wearing the EXACT SAME THING. If you think, upon seeing your doppelgnger, "OMG, I have to go talk to her, I bet we would get along great"? Joy. If you think "Oh, hell no, bitch better WATCH OUT"? Fear. Easy-peasy. (I can get you a wallet card with this on it if you want.)

Click on the image to check out this joy-giving, life-affirming dress (B38/W31, with a SAILOR COLLAR) — in fact, somebody please buy it before I do! My closet is too full of joy already …

Did anyone else ever read Katy Keene? I would read her in the Archie Comics when I was a little girl, and for a while, right after college, I deputized Mr. Dress A Day to look for them whenever he saw a box of old comics. (Not that he ever found any, the boxes being mainly stocked with homoerotic Batman/Superman adventures …)

Katy Keene was a fashion designer (or sometimes a model, or sometimes, I don't know, a pin-up astronaut, these are comics we're talking about) and her clothes were all designed by her readers. Yes, that's right. They let glamour-freak little girls aged about 8 to 14 design what Katy Keene wore. Lamé at all hours of the day, crazy fur, ruffles on top of ruffles on top of bows. Bling of all kinds and all nations. Check out the image above — if this is what Katy (and her arch-rival, Gloria) wore to a DOG SHOW, what do you think they wore on dates? Let's just say, that, if Katy were real, the price of marabou would have topped $100/barrel.

Now Archie Comics has brought Katy Keene back, and put out the call for readers to design for her again. Which is a good thing, because frankly? The girl needs help. (That's her on the left.) I know Katy Keene has a career (as opposed to Betty and Veronica, who have been living at home for roughly sixty-five years) but that doesn't mean she has to dress like a working girl! Seriously — this is SO wrong. What happened to the organza frills of yesteryear? I think we need to do a guerrilla takeover of Katy Keene. If we overwhelm them with outfits that don't scream "I was Hooker #3 in the movie Angel," perhaps we can push the comic back towards the pretty, albeit WAY over-the-top, ensembles that Katy used to be known for. Click on the image or the link for the address. (Be warned, the Archie Comics site looks like Archie Andrews himself designed it. Or possibly Jughead, between bites.)

Dear Madam,–I know enough of your sex to be aware that you will be staggered at the idea of bundling down to the seaside without certain solemn preparations and waste of time.
Moreover, feminine instinct will say, “First make a new dress and then go,” and this is the usual order of events wherever women are concerned.
But here it would be objectionable on many accounts. I will make you a proposal.
If you will write to me from your new address next Tuesday evening, I will beg your acceptance of a piece of dark blue serge which will make an excellent seaside dress for yourself and daughter.
Cutting and making this will help to relieve the weariness of being in a strange place. Don’t waste time. Go with a good heart; and don’t doubt that your husband will get better; and that you will yet enjoy bright days. All the brighter for this dark cloud.

Yours sincerely,

Charles Reade

From “An Author At Home” The Gentleman’s Magazine, 1882.

[Charles Reade (1814-1884) was an English novelist and playwright. He also worked as a reformer against prison abuses and abuses in psychiatric institutions. This is a letter written to the wife of one of the men he helped.]

I know I keep coming back to the wide waistband, but with a pattern like this, who could blame me? I wish that this weren't a B32, or that I weren't too lazy to scale it up, because it's just perfect. I think I would even make the jacket with this one, and I never make jackets (see "too lazy" above).

Let's see, what would I make this in? Well, I'd like it in a HUGE houndstooth print for fall (yes, I haven't finished–make that "really even started"–summer sewing yet, and I'm already thinking about fall). You know, a houndstooth where the repeat is about twelve inches? That huge. For summer, I think a very crisp pique (you have to get that A-line skirt to stand out, somehow). If I did pique, I'd pipe the band and the neck in a contrast piping, of course.

There's also this one, which has an interesting crossover midriff band, which, on the narrow-skirted version, I can't help picturing done belt-style in leather. (Nevermind that sewing leather would basically be euthanasia for my sewing machine.) I'd like a big floral for the full-skirted version …

These are both up on eBay, source of all good things, right now. Click on the images to go to the listings.

I was pointed to this site last night and there were lots of lovely dresses there, but this is the one, by Helen Cherry, that I was still thinking about this morning. Obviously, the fabric is very close to my beloved Liberty of London, if not actually from their looms, and the shape is elegant and simple. I wish the picture was clearer, because I really suspect a little smocking or tucks at the waist, which would be just the kind of unexpected, witty touch I'd need to see to even think about paying $400 for a dress.

I used to think that if I were fabulously wealthy (and if you really think about it, I actually am, compared to 99% of the world) of *course* I'd hire someone else to sew up my dresses. No more hemming, no more redrafting, I'd just dump the fabric and a rough sketch on someone else's sewing table and show up for a fitting or two. But the more I think about it, the more I realize how much I'd miss the process of actually putting dresses together, of feeling that exhilaration when the sleeve cap slides in nicely to meet the armscye, and the fascination of watching the way the needle bites into the fabric, drags the thread down to meet the bobbin, and then runs away again.

When you think of it that way, I'm reluctant to pay $400 for a dress, not because I think it's an unconscionable amount of money (it isn't, really) but because I'd be paying someone $400 to have my fun instead of me. It'd be like hiring someone to go on your vacation for you and then showing up two weeks later to collect the snapshots.

So if this dress calls to you as an object (and you wear a size 4, 6, or 8), click on the image to go buy it. Where would you wear it? What would you wear with it? If this calls to you as both an object and a process — how would you make it, and make it your own? I think, for this one, I'd extend the shoulder line a little for a bit more sleeve, and I'd maybe trim the neck with a wide bias band of the same fabric — I love that look where a fabric with a strong vertical element is banded with the same element on the diagonal.

For summer, I'd love to wear this with a little 3/4 sleeve cardigan in that same blue, with my favorite Fornarina cream-and-blue spectator ankle-straps. In winter, brown tights and shiny brown leather round-toe wedges and a thicker sweater … I'd probably hit Toho Shoji on Sixth Ave to get cheap blue ceramic beads to make a choker to go with it, too, and then take the necklace off before I walked out the front door, as I always do. Or maybe tawny topazes …

This week's Carnival of the Couture is hosted by Style Graduate, and the question is:

For this week's Carnivale, I want to know what runway look you would wear as a Halloween costume. And no cheating; it has to be an outfit actually sent down a runway by a designer! So go forth, fashion bloggers, and find photos of your costumes!

I checked the rules VERY carefully, and nothing says you can't use Alexander McHenry! (Or Galliano, either, that would make it much too difficult.) So, I present to you my runway outfit/costume for Halloween: Quarterback in the Lingerie Bowl, in a uniform designed by the Rev. Howard Finster.

This is the Pink Team's uniform, of course. If you click on the image you'll find what the Blue Team's uniform looks like, too.

It's a shame this was from the Spring 2005 show and is no longer in production, because I would TOTALLY wear this for Halloween. It would certainly top my previous favorite Halloween costume, which was "Bond Girl" — I made a silver satin mod-style dress and carried a toy M-16 spray-painted silver. (That was also the year Mr. Dress A Day went as J. Edgar Hoover — he had a brush cut, and he wore wingtips, hornrims, a fedora, and … an orange polka-dot dress. Genius.)

My next choice was "Mad Max Beyond Glasgow":

It's the duck's guts!

I thought the deer-head print dress was going to be the weirdest print we'd see for a while, but then Lisa sent me this one yesterday. This is just a cute little halter dress with matching bolero (I'm showing the bolero picture, because the buttons are so adorable), right?

Check out the close-up view of the pattern:

This would be the perfect dress to wear to a cryptozoology conference, don't you think? Imagine the fun you could have — people could have Bigfoot sightings while they were talking to you! (If actual cryptozoologists want to jump in here and let me know which unattested hominid species this fabric might be portraying, I'd be interested to hear your theories.)

There must be a lost episode of "In Search of …" that deals with these fun guys, right? I'm sure it was slotted to run right between the ones on Jack the Ripper and Loch Ness. Lots of stock footage of Pacific islands, shot from the air, while Nimoy's voiceover intimates that IF these guys existed, THIS would be EXACTLY the kind of island they'd be running amuck over.

The dress itself has some slight flaws, but nothing like what you'd expect, considering the original owner probably had to flee the island in terror. Click on the image to check out the eBay auction. It's 34/28/40, and has a BIN price of $199. Well, a price in dollars of $199 — what price you will pay for angering the ancient gods by wearing this has yet to be determined.

I don't usually start out by showing you the back of a dress, but the back of this dress is the whole point. Look at that–I don't even know what to call it! Tail? Peplum? Bustle? Whatever it is, it's 100% pure drama, and not the bad online-journal kind.

Even better, this dress is up for auction by HousingWorks (thanks, Margaret, for the link!) the NYC charity that works to provide housing and services for homeless people living with HIV and AIDS. They have several thrift stores in NY, and run the Housing Works Used Bookstore and Cafe (where, incidentally, I will be June 11th for the Literary Magazine Festival–show up to browse the hundreds of literary magazines on sale for $2, all proceeds go to Housing Works! Wear a dress and I'll give you a free pen.)

Back to the dress. The label is "Bernard Perris, Paris" and its measurements are given as "28 waist, 32 shoulders, 32 bust, 38 hips, 35 length" which seems suspiciously small in the bust for a dolman-sleeved dress, especially compared to the hip measurement (you'd expect at least at 34 or 36 inch bust) but stranger things have happened. Bidding right now is at $116.50, not at all bad for a dress this interesting! Go click on the image to see the front of the dress and views of the cuffs and underside of the peplum.

I have to say I'm fascinated by this design element, and I am not even a big fan of the sheath-and-overskirt look. It just seems so fun to wear! I can see someone in this dress at a crowded party, laughing, drink in hand, and every time she moves that peplum flares out and flashes white. Can't you? Is it going to BE you?

I'm sorry, did I not say that loud enough? I said, NO CULOTTES! I swear, culottes are the work of the Devil. And I don't want to hear any guff about riding bicycles or horses or whatnot — a real lady can ride a bicycle in an actual skirt, not some bastardized waste of fabric designed to bunch where things shouldn't bunch and split where things shouldn't split.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but someday I think we'll find out that the same secret Trilateral Commission/Knights Templar/Elks Club-type group is responsible for culottes, carob, that guy you always think is Bill Paxton but isn't, corn syrup, David Blaine, and the vice-presidency, and that only by refusing to wear culottes will we manage to thwart their evil plan. And you know it's evil if it involves culottes.

In fact, I'm wondering if some misguided misogynist too chicken to show off his spindly shanks in a Utilikilt (guys: if you have the legs for this, it is a "do"–except not the leather one, eeewwww), in some fit of rage, designed the culotte. "If I can't wear a skirt, no one can!" (Cue evil laughter, the kind that ends up in an asthmatic coughing fit, and a "no, no, really, I'm okay, I just need a sip of water.")

You know, the lesson of the culotte is this: be what you are. If you're a skirt, embrace the skirtiness of your essential being. If you're a pair of pants — deal with it. Don't be straddling that pants/skirt fence. Don't be a sartorial mugwump. Choose a side, dammit! (The culotte does not have a side. It is all middle.)

(I'm very tempted to buy this pattern from eBay, just to make sure no one makes it. Like those police programs where they trade baseball tickets for guns. And, did you notice how none of the women in the illustrations have a direct gaze? Do you know why? Shame over being forced to wear culottes, that's why. Shame.)

So, one more time for the cheap seats: NO CULOTTES!