Seriously. It seems that two weeks can really spark a new trend in Hollyweird formalwear.

Case in point: Marisa Tomei. She's so gorgeous... what the hell possessed her to don a dress that makes it appear as if an alien or well-sculpted shrubbery has begun growing down her back?

From the front, curious... but not so bad...



Then... she turns and AAAAAAYYYYYYYIIIIIIII!!!



But while she was one of the worst offenders, she was by no means the only. America Ferrera:



( Shrubbery and more behind the cut )

My personal favorite of the night, Evan Rachel Wood. Love (LOVE) the color and cut. Love the striking purple accessories, love her hair and makeup, love, love, love.



And this can be filed under So Not Fair, example #1



And So Not Fair, example #2



Note to Susan and Julia-- dammit, you give us all a helluva standard to try to live up to.

Because I'm twisted this way.




Thanks to cashmerepett for the Link o'Love

Thanks to szandara looks like I have nextthis year's RITA dress. *g*

Because seriously, when a vintage shop has fallen on hard times and has a 50% off everything sale... it's kind of my civic duty as a fashionista to help out, right?

Right.




Civic duty, I swear!

Okay, so when I was mocking SJP last week, I posted a picture of the dress I'm wearing to the RITAs.




Now, my issue is jewelry. Way I see it, I either need a very dramatic necklace or a very dramatic pair of earrings (not both, though, because that would be overwhelming, especially since I don't have a very long neck) and I was thinking with the lovely creamy white of the skirt and jet black of the bodice, that pearls, offset with either onyx or a striking colored stone would work.

Now, personally, I'm more likely to wear dramatic earrings rather than a necklace, because I'm VERY picky about necklaces. I don't like big and chunky for necklaces—for drama I'm far more likely to go with several strands of something moderate (like triple or quadruple strands of pearls with a really striking clasp).

I had found the perfect pair of earrings. They were Chanel, faux pearl, jet, and crystal... I thought

Turned out they were real pearl, onyx, and diamonds. And twelve thousand dollars. I very calmly handed them back to the salesgirl, backed slowly away until I was out of sight, then pretty much screamed.

I do this every single time, I swear. *smacks self*

Anyhow, what I need from you lovelies, is links. I've already checked out places like 1928 and, meh. So I need some ideas of where to go searching for classic, yet unusual pieces that might look perfect with my pretty dress.

cupcake_goth, I'm lookin' at you, in particular. I know you've got the skinny on some links.

*bats eyelashes and smiles*

ETA: To give some idea of the sort of thing that I might go for:

I really like both of these, but neither one is really The One, you know?



Now, this necklace or the earrings (which I covet like a coveted thing) could easily be The One if I had gobs of disposable income. But seeing as antique Munghal Indian jewelry doesn't exactly come cheap, I'll just have to covet from a (very far) distance. @@




ETA Again: Because cocoskeeper has introduced me to a Very Very Dangerous Site.

( Possible selections behind the cut )

It looks as if two themes are emerging: I'm really liking red as a possible accent color for this dress and it would appear that in some way I'm looking for ways to echo the beading at the waist. Funny how the mind works, no? What do you guys think?

The cut is beautiful, I love the unusual colors which are of the type that tend to look vomitrocious on many, but surprisingly flattering on me and the subtle sexiness. However, the sleeves... *sigh* Those sleeves would no doubt cut my upper arms off in the worst possible place and make my arms look oogy.

Shallow end of vanity pool, party of one.

Yeah, well...

I browsed one vintage site too many.


Early 1950s James Galanos.




I am SOOOOOOO weak. Seriously. It's a sickness.

Strangely, this fits. Gakked from stephanielynch

You Are a Lemon

You have a very distinct personality. And if you're not being sweet, you're a little hard to take. You're a bit overpowering, especially in one on one situations. And while you are very dominant, sometimes your power is needed and appreciated. You can liven up a dull situation, and you definitely bring a fresh outlook. You are a bit of an acquired taste, and you tend to grow on people over time. People feel refreshed and rejuvenated after spending time with you.

Horrorscope for today:

Virgo Horoscope (Aug 23 - Sep 22)

Perhaps you have reached a phase in your life when work starts to lose its prominence. Of course, you must be dutiful enough to meet your responsibilities or everything could fall apart. But in order to do something extraordinary, you might have to push your own personal envelope and take a risk. Talk about your fears now, for it will be harder to deal with them later.

Talk about my fears? Ha. How much time d'you have?

Looking through my closet the other day, I realized I have writeritis with respect to the contents. At one end of the spectrum, I have a passel of sweats and tees, way over at the other are cocktail/formal dresses. Not much in the middle. So I've been trying to bridge the gap a bit more with some daytime dresses and everyone and their mother is having a decent sale, so I bought these:



Ought to get me through conference season, especially since I'm going to so few of them this year, relatively speaking.

This dress? That I thought I had ordered?



Was apparently sold just a couple of days before I ordered it. They still haven't updated the site to reflect the sale. Bad site, no biscuit.

However.

This is me we're talking about. I was disappointed, yes, but not deterred.

I was lying in bed, scrolling through one of the sites one evening, when the hub went "Whoa, back up."

He looked at the picture, looked at me, looked back at the picture, looked back at me, then let loose with another "Whoa."

That's pretty much all I needed for I am a shameless 'ho and anything that makes my husband say "whoa" like that?

Yeah, total no-brainer. So we will be going from timeless elegance to, well...

this:

Yes, I caved.




1970s Mary McFadden.

Signature Fortuny pleating.

The colors remind me of the desert.

And the price was scorchingly good.


ETA: To see if I like the way these shoes look with the dress.

The Empress, AKA aimeejmc hath done it again and turned me onto a nefarious site.

Nerfarious, I tell you!

AntiqueDress.com

Such pretties! And she honed right on in on the dress that would most make my little heart go pitapat:



Because she knows me, she does, Evil Empress.

And of course, I started looking around and oh! Such Pretties!

Like this one:




And am I bad for wanting this semi-slutty Bob Mackie? Somehow, I'm not sure it's me, per se, but I'm sort of irresistably drawn to it. The sequins, they are like crack, I think.



I'm thinking the RITAs perhaps will be a vintage affair for me this year...

Because seriously, vanity...

Had a wedding shower to attend today. In spite of my back, I couldn't bail because it's the south and well... we just don't bail on wedding showers unless we're just this side of dead. Especially when it's for your husband's cousin, who is an absolute doll.

At the same time, I could've gone simple with the clothes-- black slacks, flats, and a Cute Top, because I have plenty of those.

We all know better, right?

I will say this, though-- wearing the heels for a few hours made my back feel a little better. Probably since it has a direct effect on my overall posture and I'm more conscious of how I'm standing and even sitting. That actually may have been more an effect of the skirt-- can't sit like a ball player in a tulip skirt.

But it was such a pretty dress and the heels...

Yeah, yeah... vanity... I'll probably pay tomorrow.

( Go ahead-- point and laugh. With the pointing. )

The pretty red dress that I bought to reward myself for the Bronze medal finish in the Florida Book Awards?



Didn't fit.

It was clearly designed for a person with the World's Shortest Torso, because if I put my boobs where, you know, they're supposed to go-- the waist wound up somewhere in the vicinity of my rib cage. If I put the waist where, you know, my waist actually is? The top of the bodice covered maybe, half of my nipples. Not a good look unless you're a stripper.

But the shopping gods, they were shining on me today. (Good thing, considering the day I had yesterday and the week, overall, that I've had.) Because when you can exchange one thing (that was on sale to start with) and come out of it with five items and money left over? That's a good day, baby.

( Frippery behind the cut )

New week-- it's going to be a better week.

The Empress, aka, aimeejmc did a Very Bad Thing yesterday. She introduced me to a lovely, lovely, dangerous site, TheFrock.com.

Couture, vintage, clothing, in stunning condition and all things considered, fairly reasonably priced. Swear to God, if I had scads of disposable income and you know, a career that had a few built-in red carpet or high formal appearances, that would be all she wrote.

Anyhow, I spent WAY too much time browsing yesterday-- being me, I first hit the Designer and Couture pages. Yeah, um, the silver beaded Sonia Rykiel goddess gown on page 14 and the ivory satin and red beaded Pierre Balmain at the bottom of page 6?

Yeah-- I'll be saving my pennies and hoping for a late career in film or music to blossom. See, the thing that makes this site so very, very dangerous for me is that forty, fifty years ago? My proportions were a perfect sample size 6-8 so the measurements for probably ninety percent of these gowns? Waaaaaay tempting. One of those secrets they don't tell you about the fashion industry-- twenty-five years ago? Sizes like 2 and 0 and this latest-- 00? Didn't exist. The sizes when down to size 6 for Misses clothing and then you had to go to the Juniors dept. to find anything smaller.

Reason I know all this is because I grew up in the fashion industry-- my mother made her living for many, many years as what's known as a Production Pattern Maker. This is the person who takes the designer's sketch and makes it work by creating a master pattern from which a sample is cut and sewn and then, after the flaws have been worked out, creates another master pattern. And that's what's used to cut the designs for mass-production. One of the companies she worked for was an evening gown company called Rose Taft. For years, they made not only evening gowns, but gowns for pageant contestants. Not cut on such a high volume as some of her other jobs, but you'd be amazed at how many pattern pieces can be interchanged between gowns to create a new gown without having to go to too much effort.

Anyhow, this is my very long-winded way of saying that once I got through drooling over the couture clothes, I toddled over to the Mid Century section. That's a little bit of a misnomer, since they had clothes that clearly went into the seventies and eighties there-- and how do I know this? Well, I get to page twelve of that section, stopped, and thought-- I know that dress. Then I read the description and realized that indeed, I did know that dress. It was a Rose Taft that I had probably seen some iteration of during my childhood. Of course I picked up the phone--

"Mom, you'll never guess what I just found--a Rose Taft dress on an online site."

"What's it look like?"

"Green chiffon, three layer skirt, top layer is assymmetrical, waist is natural, cut straight, not on the bias, bodice is also cut straight--"

"Spaghetti straps and a rhinstone sunburst coming from the left side of the waist, right?"

"Right."

"Yes, that's one I worked on."



(Woman's got a memory like a steel trap, I swear.)

If it wasn't probably the worst shade of green on the planet for me to wear, I'd be whipping out the checkbook right now. It's still tempting, if only to have a piece of my mom's and tangentially my, history, but I do have a couple of Rose Taft gowns of my own in my possession.

And there's still that ivory and red beaded Balmain to save for...

You knew I'd celebrate my Bronze medal and my final from last week, right?

It's a bit of a change for me-- I rarely buy anything in this color, but I kept coming back to it.

What do we think?

Last week, I was on some pretty powerful meds. Never mind the reason why-- I'm doing fine and no longer need them, but last week, I did. And of course, the term "pretty powerful meds" is misleading when it comes to me because I am the World's Biggest Lighteweight.

How lightweight? Half a dose of DAYQUIL and I'm down for the count. Let's just say what I was on last week was considerably stronger.

Yesterday, I received an email from one of my very favoritist places on the Interwebs, Bluefly, AKA Clothes Crack.

This email read, "Your order, placed 2/22/07 has been shipped."


My order placed 2/22/07? WTF? As far as I knew, on 2/22/07, I was out of my head on meds. Apparently, this is not enough to stop my fingers from doing their walking, nor is it enough to knock the credit card number, complete with security code from my brain.

Apparently, I went shopping while on my happy meds. Thing is, I had no clue what I bought. I looked for the confirmation email, but apparently, my subconscious didn't want me to see what I'd bought, since it appeared to have deleted that from my files as well.

Oh goody, surprises! The husband did not find this as amusing as I did, since in his words, "When you're sober, you immediately hone in on the most expensive item without even looking, but then, you're at least conscious enough to not buy it-- I can't begin to imagine what you did under the influence of drugs!"

It showed up today and really, it wasn't that bad. It was actually a very charming dress, Betsey Johnson, aqua and cream day dress-- not a color or style I would normally choose for myself, so I guess this is where the drugs came into play. The unfortunate thing is, it's a bit small through the rib cage, since I have a pretty massive rib cage compared to my waist, so back it goes.

Bummer. But it's kind of funny to see what the mind does when heavily medicated...

It was my Super Bowl of fashion last night-- settled in bed with my tea and cookies and just had an orgy of couture-gazing. Had some pleasant surprises (Helen Mirren is and always will be the Queen) and some not-so-pleasant surprises. (Nicole, what were you thinking, girl?)

( Further observations behind the cut-- with pictures! )

( Then there were the ones that I was on the fence about )

( The ones that utterly worked for me. )

Well, that's it, unless I see any other pictures that trigger thoughts/memories. Anyone wanna weigh in? Tell me I'm crazy? Go for it!

Well??

(And yes, I cut my head off, but my hair was doing bad things. Trust me.)

I love everything about it-- I only worry that the pattern may overwhelm me. (I've noticed this of late with certain patterns) and the jade green that's the base color will have to have more blue than yellow in it so that it doesn't give me that lovely jaundiced complexion.

But it's soooooo pretty.

What do we think?