Herewith another dress from the annals of advertising, this one sent by Rose (not a vegetable, a flower!) from the NYT. (Click on the image to read the story.) Seems that Wishbone salad dressing wanted dresses made from … salad, and Chris March, a costume designer, made their wish(bone) come true. (Let's leave aside, for the moment, that the product being promoted is a SPRAY SALAD DRESSING. I hope it works like spray paint, not just looks like spray paint, because the idea of kids buying salad dressing to use for tagging just makes me so happy I can't stand it.)

I have to say, this is much much better than the Celestial Seasonings dress, and, if I had access to, say, several hundred pounds of discarded silk vegetables? I would be making something similar. (C'mon, do you think someone who gushed over this dress would balk at taking it to the next level?)

I love the overlapping lettuce leaves on the skirt — the bodice, I'm more "eh" on. Also, I don't think you should mix velvet and lettuce … charmeuse would have been a better choice. Velvet is a winter fabric, and vegetables are definitely summer.

Actually, I'd love to make a turnip dress, with a frilly green collar, deep red-purple at the shoulders, and shading to white at the bottom. And then I would walk around all day holding my breath, waiting for someone to "get it". Do people even eat turnips anymore? I mean, aside from effete baby ones? Me, I love a good turnip.

Okay, to sum up: Promotional dresses are good press and make nice blog entries. Don't mix velvet and lettuce. Question: Who eats turnips?

This is from La Redoute, which I haven't checked for a while. I went there because I was starved for a summer dress that wasn't completely sleeveless, and I figured–aha! The French, they would understand that the woman of a certain age, ahem, perhaps would want a dress of a more mature sensibility, without sacrificing any allure.

This one isn't entirely besleeved, and it has about a football field's worth of décolleté in the front, but, c'mon, you have to admit it's really gorgeous — not "cute," but gorgeous. It also comes in black, but I think it's more unexpected in this deep blue. I think you could wear it with cream-colored wedge espadrilles, or nice flat brown leather sandals, and be chic either way. I don't like the ribbon around her neck, and I do understand that the picture makes it seem as if the guy behind her is frog-marching her to what must be either an amusement park or an interrogation chamber (not clear from the look on her face). I like the voile trim around the neck, and the fact that it seems to be a generous wrap, not a stingy one. There's nothing worse than a stingy wrap.

Did I mention that it's $39.99? No? Well, it is. And to maximize your shipping dollar, La Redoute also has really cute shoes.

I was sent two books to review a couple of weeks ago, which is not that unusual, really — I'm often sent books for review, it's just that they have titles like Situations and Individuals, not like Some Like It Haute. (Although, Colleen from MIT, if you are reading this, I really am planning to review Situations and Individuals, mostly because I desperately want to know what "His subsequent argumentation provides a unified semantics for the donkey anaphoric and bound and referential uses of pronouns" means.)

Ahem. So, as I was saying, I was sent two books to review. The first was Some Like It Haute , which I was looking forward to — it's about a fashion writer! in Paris! for the shows! — but which I was disappointed by. I was hoping for something like a fashion Dick Francis, one of my fave mystery writers. Although Francis was a jockey and all his books have something, more or less, to do with racing, he made a point of researching other things (like wineselling, small plane piloting, and glassblowing) and having his stories develop naturally from what he learned about those things. You read one of those and you ingest an awful lot of fascinating facts, painlessly. (Plus all of his heroes are Competent Calm Men, which I have a weakness for.) Unfortunately, Haute's author, Julie K.L. Dam, is no Dick Francis. Her fashion references could have been made with anyone with access to six months' of Harper's Bazaar, and the plot has all the emotional resonance of an episode of Scooby-Doo, and about the same amount of "wacky" coincidences. Plus, the heroine blows off her work for a guy! I know, I know, the focus of chick lit is not the job of the chick, but if you are going to make the entire setup of the meet-cute the chick's job, you might want to have her take it SERIOUSLY.

So it was with some trepidation that I took up
Finishing Touches, another example of the genre. That trepidation was entirely unwarranted. Finishing Touches is a touching, real story–a good old-fashioned STORY story, one that doesn't rely on the wacky, or the dropping of brand names so relentlessly that you expect Jimmy Choo to share the copyright. I have so little time for pleasure reading that I want to spend my book time with the same sort of people that I'd like to spend real time with–interesting, human people, not people who might as well be Pez dispensers, full of barely-flavored sugar with interchangeable heads. Finishing Touches is full of multidimensional people you'd like to know, especially the heroine, Jesse, who grows and changes in ways that don't involve her closet. There's real sorrow in this book, and real happiness, and neither comes in the way you expect it to. Certainly worth reading, and I'll probably look up Deanna Kizis's earlier book, How to Meet Cute Boys.

So without stopping to choose my way, in the sure and certain knowledge that it will find itself–or if not it will not matter–I begin: the first memory.

This was of red and purple flowers on a black ground–my mother's dress: and she was sitting either in a train or in an omnibus, and I was on her lap. I therefore saw the flowers she was wearing very close; and can still see purple and red and blue, I think, against the black; they must have been anemones, I suppose. Perhaps we were going to St Ives; more probably, for from the slant of the light it must have been evening, we were coming back to London. But it is more convenient artistically that we were going to St Ives, for that will lead to my other memory, which also seems to be my first memory.

From "A Sketch of the Past", by Virginia Woolf. In The Virginia Woolf Reader.

Jilli sends this stunner our way, with the caveat that it doesn't play nicely with petticoats. If this makes no sense to you, understand that Jilli is the proprietress of Gothic Charm School.

Obviously, what this dress *is* suitable for is riding on Vespas–but then, what isn't? If I had a Vespa I would ride it INDOORS. I would live in a warehouse just so I could ride it from my bedroom to the kitchen and back. Forget that "when I am old I shall wear purple" nonsense; I figure that as soon as my odds of having a ministroke top my odds of being in an unfortunate Vespa accident, a Vespa I shall have.

I suppose the Vespa here is some kind of semiotic shorthand for "I am La Bella Italienne! See, I wear the fabric of brown to set off my skin of olive!" but the problem with using a Vespa in fashion ads is that NOTHING is as cool as a Vespa, so people think, "oh, yeah, nice dress but–LOOK AT THAT VESPA!"

Anyway, this dress is on clearance (well, $99, reduced from $198) at Barrie Pace, a catalog I have not seen much of since I left the Southland. There are lots of other things on clearance that all seem very wedding-friendly, not only for guests but for bridesmaids-sans-butt-bow and mothers of brides and grooms. In fact, there were a couple other dresses that I liked a bit more than this one. Why don't they get pictured? No Vespa.

Thanks to La BellaDonna, it looks as if I will have to run out to the fabric store tonight and pick this up — McCall's 5137. I'm pretty sure, though, that I'll have to make it in a size much smaller than my usual one, because the online catalog gives the finished bust measurement at a size 6 as 44 inches. There's a difference between "easy and flowy" and "Barnum & Bailey", you know.

I'd also lengthen the sleeves in view C and shorten the skirt. You know, god forbid I make up a pattern the way the drafters intended. I'd totally never be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, at this rate. (Get it? "strict constructionist"? Oh, Supreme Court humor, why don't you ever work?)

Also, the neck bands do not continue to the back (chintzy!) and there are (in my opinion) completely superfluous back center seams — I'd get rid of those by cutting those pieces on the fold.

Anyway: product cycle time. I first posted about Duro Olowu on 11 November 2005; this pattern was probably released in the last few weeks, so a six-month turnaround time isn't too bad! So, McCall's, if you're listening, by November of this year I want a pattern for a pencil skirt with a very wide, reinforced waistband. No front seaming, no fancy hems, just skirt + waistband. Front scoop pockets okay. (I know I could draft it, but I'm lazy! And anyway, don't you want my $5?) Kthxbye!

Check this out — this dress was actually sent to me on a postcard inviting me to a Trina Turk trunk show in Chicago. (The postcard was addressed to "Mr. E." but that's okay.) The site tells me that this dress is called "Siam" and is $278, available in May (and also available in turquoise, but no pictures of that, sadly).

Somehow I feel that by the time I figure out how to make my ideal version of this dress, the whole Duro Olowu moment will be over. I better get crackin'. Good thing I won that pattern I posted the other day — now if it will only come, say, tomorrow, I can begin to make some progress of one kind or another.

Speaking of progress, with any luck I'll be posting a few interesting things in the next few days, including a DRESS GIVEAWAY CONTEST. Yes, two lucky readers will get a free dress. A hint: the name of the brand giving away the dresses anagrams to "stripe".

Yesterday I was lucky enough to get a copy of Blueprint magazine, the new magazine from Martha Stewart. I got it right from the source — someone at MSLO — and she said, as she handed it to me "This is a magazine for YOU!"

Boy, was she right. I'm their target demographic, their ideal reader. In fact, it's so dead-on I'm a little worried that they've had a team of crack magazine planners following me around. The magazine is only 160 pp, but I dogeared about every other editorial spread to go back to … that's nuts!

However, two things made me think that I had to recommend it to all of you: first of all, the bio of the Blueprint fashion director, Katie Hatch, reads, in part, "Katie took the Singer into her own hands when she was 7 to make clothes for her Barbie … she became Blueprint's fashion editor, a job that's as tailor-fit as her wardrobe, most of which she sews herself. 'I like one-of-a-kind things,' says Katie, who is still finishing three new dresses." And the quote above her name reads "I believe a woman can have a rich inner life and still love clothes."

The other thing is — the magazine contains a pattern (well, a link to pattern that is on the Blueprint website) for a DRESS. A dress you can MAKE. (It's the undarted column dress with a drawstring/tie closure at the neck pictured here.) It is super-easy and can be made by hand, without a machine. Considering I cannot remember the last time a mainstream consumer magazine (I'm not counting Bust or ReadyMade here) offered a dress pattern, I was pretty impressed.

Other highlights — a double spread of fancy notecards (is there anyone who doesn't love notecards?), a couple of pages on how to make your own charm necklaces and bracelets, eight day-to-evening dresses (I *will* be knocking off the Sari Gueron dress, only not in putty, thank you, I'm thinking more a deep turquoise), and their guide to shopping in Paris included a listing for a fabric store. Oh, yeah.

Some of the price points on the items featured are pretty high (one of the notecard sets was $1,034, for *100*) but there were also more budget-friendly pieces, such as how/where to blow up a digital photo into an inexpensive (yet really cool) poster-size piece of art. (Of course, this makes me think again of poor, doomed Budget Living which I loved … of course, they were always doomed, how do you attract advertisers to a magazine where the whole concept is "People! Don't spend too much money!"? But it was great while it lasted.)

The only thing that could make this magazine better is a girly gadgets column. Oh, wait, they had one about portable scanners. Cool.

You can go to their site for a free trial issue. It's $18 for 6 issues. If you want the direct link to the dress pattern for the dress shown at left, click on the image.

Melissa, who sent this, swears I've shown it before, but I can't find it (I REALLY need to add those pattern number tags).

This is a Butterick reissue, so you can buy it in your size, instead of altering the vintage version. (If you wait for the big-box fabric store sales, you can probably get it for $2. In fact, all Butterick patterns are on sale at Hancock Fabrics this week for $1.99.)

I think this would be an excellent pattern to help you use up your stash of smaller pieces — if you make the two-tone version, the contrast part is less than 2 yds, and the main body is about three. Since most of my patterns fall about laughing if I try to make them up with less than four or five yards of a single fabric, I'm seriously considering this one. I have to start using up those smaller bits … of course, what I saved in using up fabric I would spend in trying to find interesting bias binding! I have two complementary pieces of cherry-print quilting fabric that would be adorable in this dress, if I have enough. Or maybe that bright pink seersucker I keep pulling out and putting away again …

Here's the line drawing, and my question: Where would you put the pockets? Obviously, it needs pockets, but where? Patch ones are such a pain. I think I would do two small in-seam pockets hanging from the wrap waist seam — just big enough for a lipstick, a driver's license, and a couple folded bills.

Here's the first of the several photos taken of the dress I made for and wore to the GEL 2006 conference … thanks very much to Laura (of 15secondpitch.com) for taking it and sending it to me! (I especially like the obvious #2 pencil sticking out of my yellow Luella-for-Target bag.) There's another picture, too, taken by Martin Hardee of Sun, up at his blog.

This dress is is the same dress, in a different fabric, that I made in late March, which is a slight variation of the original pattern, which I blogged about in early March, which is the the pattern I bought in January, after swearing I wouldn't. I am nothing if not obsessive. (Thanks to Francis for egging me on to buy the pattern in the first place.)

Also, today is my one-year blogiversary! Yes, 366 posts ago, I started blogging about dresses. And then you started reading! I originally thought that about five and a half people would read this blog (which was fine by me) but as many as THREE THOUSAND folks have come by on any given day … thanks so much for all the great comments, all the links to breathtaking dresses, and especially for all the kind words and encouragement over the past year.

Stay tuned for more dresses, fabric, Jack Purcell sneakers, and Secret Histories … watch this space.