Okay, I was googling for a "candy corn dress" (as you do) and I came across this. Which is nothing like what I wanted, which was some justification for my plan to make my own candy corn dress, which would be a very simple full-skirted dress pieced in broad stripes of white, yellow, and orange, with brown piping. Subtle, you know, so people couldn't really tell if I were in costume or just had atrocious taste. Because that's how I like to play Halloween–right on the line of "Costume? Or just crazy?"

Last night I went to my little boy's school Halloween party. I went, by request, as Princess Leia, although I don't really have the hair for it. So I was just in a long white belted cassock with a toy gun stuck in my belt. Anyway, I noticed that one of the teachers had nice saddle shoes and a full skirt and I was thinking "great outfit" until it hit me that it was, in fact, a costume. So perhaps the "crazy?" part of "Costume or crazy?" can also be applied to the observer.

Of course now I know a really easy costume for next year, even if I don't make the candy corn dress, because I could dress 1950s out of my closet without even TRYING. (I have two pairs of saddle shoes. I buy them from here.) And that would also suit my goal of having folks be unsure if I were in a costume or not ….

Anyway, if you have someone in your life that would be thrilled to dress as a candy corn fairy (besides me, of course) you can buy them this costume for $39.50. Unfortunately, the wings, bag, Deely-bobbers, and shoecovers are sold separately, and you will have to arrange for the loss of front teeth yourself, although I consider that last an essential part of the costume!

Madelene is NOT giving up. Here's another version of the almost-perfect DVF dress, in silk this time, from Nordstrom. $475.

So this one is a bit closer … I'm not sure how I feel about the ruched sleeves — you might need to come from the land of the skinny-armed people for those to work, and the weird collar tab is, well, weird, and of course there's some lace at the bottom of the skirt for no good reason other than it was about to go bad and they had to use it up or let it go to waste. But that's easily fixed. Ten minutes with a seam ripper and you're good to go.

I still wish it were bottle-green.

File this one away for next summer — so cute and only $60! I love sweetheart necklines, so pretty without being too revealing.

Speaking of revealing, I was googling for "peacock dress", because I had idly remembered that I wanted to find one of those flapper peacock dresses. Instead, I found this body-paint "dress." Probably not safe for work.

Anyway, please turn your attention back to the polka-dot dress. It's completely not appropriate for the rainy cold weather we're having here now, so all the more reason to consider it, at length, now, and bookmark it for next summer.

One thing — the nice folks at mignonette in Brooklyn are very proud of their dress fitting ALL THE WAY UP to a size 12/B34! Sigh. Because we all know there's NO ONE in Brooklyn who is bigger than THAT. Ah, well, if you really like it, write them and see if they'll grade their patterns up to at least a size 16, preferably to 18 or larger, because this is a style that's really great on bigger gals.

I try not to post here during the day, but hey, it's lunchtime, and my mom sent me a nice email the other day after I posted about how "fun" I am to shop with.

Anyway, my mom (who reads my blog because she loves me, obviously) told me that not only does she shop that way (which I only vaguely remember, since she was very wise and started giving me a clothes allowance when I was about twelve, so I could make my own sartorial mistakes), but her mother, Chico, also shopped that way. (Chico, sadly, died when I was four or five, so I don't remember her.)

You would have loved to seen Chico at bazaars — Bangkok variety. [My grandparents were stationed in Thailand and Burma in the 1950s.] Lots of sign language and laughter. Stateside she'd do the whole shop and then she'd take something to a salesperson and say that she would like something just like what she was holding except in blue and with a long skirt — did they have something — maybe in the back – like that? They'd give her a look and say yeah — you're holding it … but occasionally it would work! And it would be so funny…

So there you have it. It's genetic. (Code for "not my fault.")

QWP–"Quoted with permission"–although probably getting permission to quote a private email from YOUR OWN MOTHER is pretty much a given!

You know, it's not all Peter Pan collars and pockets here at Dress A Day headquarters. Sometimes, when looking for more gorgeous pictures to put up for your delectation, I run into trouble. That is, I find something that not only do I have to post, I have to buy.

Like this one, which hit all my trigger points: midriff band, kimono sleeves, jewel neck … the little jacket is cute, too, isn't it?

I know the risks, and it's all worth it. I'm willing to take a bullet (okay, an overstuffed sewing room) if that's what's needed to keep this thing going.

Isn't this gorgeous? Doesn't it make you want to wear flowers on a rubber band at your wrist and drink punch? Don't you wish you were in a gymnasium decorated in "Early Crepe Paper", listening to um, "Open Arms," by Journey? (My name is Erin, and I went to high school in the 1980s.)

Geez, I'd better stop before I turn into the Annie Potts character from Pretty in Pink. (I'm so conflicted about that movie: one the one hand, SEWING MONTAGE SCENE! On the other, worst.dress.ever. Also, I don't care what anyone says, Duckie had it all over what's-his-face.)

It's a teeny size but so adorable, and it's super-cheap for a pattern this great — $16! (from seller FullGarage on Ebay, click on the picture to check it out.) I LOVE the bodice, if I weren't so damn lazy about grading patterns I would buy it and put it on a pencil skirt as a cocktail dress.

Look at the gathers at the back of the skirt … so pretty, and so swishy when you walk. In the good way. Make this in taffeta for maximum swish! Or crepe-back satin, with the dull side out for that front bodice drape …

I love the Garnet Hill catalog, page after page of calm, well-rested women in bright sunny rooms, all of them either on their way to or from yoga class or their creative jobs doing creative things (also in bright sunny rooms). There are never any messy, inconvenient MEN in GarnetHillLand, and the children are kept segregated in their cheery, brightly-colored creche, raised by the unsleeping and sympathetic robots. Ah, a preview of the future! Sigh. So what if from time to time their shoes look a little HR Giger for my taste? And if perhaps there is a little too much attention to applique?

This dress is only $158, which is cheap for Garnet Hill. I *love* the fabric, and the little sleeves, and the vee neck; I wish it were a little shorter — it would be really cute if it hit just below the knee, but this style might be difficult to alter. Maybe if you took off the ruffle and shortened the skirt and then reattached it … which I would never, ever get around to doing (I have pants older than my son that I have yet to hem) which is why I'm never buying this dress. But don't let that stop YOU …

Okay, this has "quota" written all over it, right? Somebody ran out of ideas for interesting necklines, saw her pinking shears, and, in desperation, hacked this one out.

Which is a shame, because once you get past "OMG WHAT BIT YOUR NECK??" the yoke on the skirt is really cute, and actually almost modern.

Anyway, it's from Lanetz Living (again) and you still have a few days to bid. You can certainly alter it to remove the sawtooth effect without too much trouble.

The other thing I love about this illustration is that it TOTALLY looks as if the woman in the red dress was originally a brunette, and that they drew a blonde wig on her. "Hey, there's no blonde on this envelope — blondes sell patterns!" "Just draw it on top. Nobody will notice." "It kinda makes her head look freakish." "I said, NOBODY WILL NOTICE!"

You have at least a couple days left to bid on this — plenty of time to make yourself into the kind of hard-nosed girl reporter (with a secret soft spot for the Son of Krypton) who would wear this asymmetrical dress. Think about how great it will look as you dangle from the scaffolding of the newest skyscraper in Metropolis, your screams bringing (yet again) the Man of Steel …

BTW, Lois is the one on the right, in the gray. The woman on the left (in the print, doing the parade wave) is the wife of Mayor Berkowitz of Metropolis, before the tragedy. (And yes, I had to Google that, so sue me if I have the wrong era of Superman.)

The auction also includes one of those day dresses/shortalls from the 1930s that requires you be the same height and diameter as your average telephone pole. I swear, I tried to make one of those one time — it had rickrack, I was weak — and I couldn't even get my head through the neck opening. In fact, it is still hanging downstairs, mocking me. It's so cute! I made it in mattress ticking! I keep meaning to DO something with it, but I can't wear it (I get less and less telephonic every year) and who wants a half-finished dress?

Anyway. I digress (like that's something new). Lois. Dress. Superman. Although, contrarian that I am, I kinda prefer Clark Kent. He can hold a conversation, and isn't always flying off somewhere to divert the flow of lava from a volcano or talk Bizarro down. (Although, come to think of it, he also has an annoying tendency to disappear, as well. Hey, wait a minute …) Superheroes in general make bad boyfriends — the Flash? Canonically a bad boyfriend. Aquaman? Well, he's married, so I guess at one point he was a semi-decent boyfriend, but then again he's royalty, so perhaps it was arranged? Bats? Ha. Two words: "young ward." And I'm not even going to mention Booster Gold … wait, that was a digression too, wasn't it? Dammit.

From our friends at Lanetz Living (and sent in by Ursula — thank you!) this lovely dress.

It is (as you can see) adorable; it is also (as you can see) a B32. For some reason (and this seems silly to us today, where tweens and their moms wear the same candy-colored velour sweatsuits) the girlier fashions of yesteryear are confined to the smaller sizes. I may be an actual matron, and I may be, in fact, matronly, but damn, I reserve my right to wear Peter Pan collars until death separates me from them.

Another thing I love about this pattern is the notes on the envelope. I have a couple of dozen high-Mod 1960s suit patterns I bought at an estate sale a few years ago. It was right after my son was born and it was one of my very early solo outings, which filled me with both exhilaration ("I am OUT IN THE WORLD AGAIN!") and terror ("IS MY PRECIOUS CHILD OKAY?"). In a rush to get home and nurse, and in a spirit of pure greed, I offered the salerunners $25 for the entire box of patterns, without even going through them, and they said "SOLD." It was pure chance that there was anything in there at all that I liked, but it turned out to be a treasure trove. (It was full of Vogue Designers!) The woman had been a professional seamstress, and all her pattern envelopes were annotated. "Take 1/2 in. from side seams." "For Mrs. Kotalski." "Narrow shoulders — taper 1/4 to seam." All done in what I assume was golf pencil, from the crabbedness of the handwriting.

I write little sewing notes to myself, too, but I write directly on the tissue paper, because by the time I get the pieces out of the envelope and pinned, I will have forgotten what I wrote on the envelope. "ADD 1/2 in. WAIST/SHORTEN BODICE 1 in." are my most frequent annotations, sadly. "SHORTEN SKIRT 2 in." is another — most vintage skirts are longer than I like mine to hit. "Don't forget waist stay!" also shows up from time to time. I have one favorite pocket pattern piece that I add to those poor dresses that are congenitally pocketless, and since it lives on my bulletin board, I also mark skirt pieces "ADD USU POCKET" and that reminds me I need to retrieve the pocket and cut it out with the rest of the garment.

Occasionally I find a vintage pattern that has been altered exactly as I would alter it, right down to shortening the skirt, and I have a flash of fondness for the original owner. How much I would have liked her! I think, conflating, just a for a moment, physiogonomy and taste with personality.