My online garage sale

My online garage sale continues with clothes, like this floral-print silk dress, pottery, and jewelry. Just in time for spring.

One must suffer to be beautiful.

The Carnival of the Couture this week is hosted by Sense of Soot. The Topic is Torturous Fashion . . . “a style you have loved with masochism unparalleled.” This is a hard topic for me; other than the usual pairs of sky-high strappy shoes, I haven’t been tortured so much by fashion as by those things women need to put on before they become fashionable. For example, in order to wear the vintage styles I love, I need to approximate a vintage shape. In my case that means donning a waist-cincher or corset or full body cast. So I do, and wiggle into my wiggle dress, and after an hour or so I remember why fainting couches were such an important piece of household furniture for so long.

The fashion aid that really defeated me was the contact lense. I’m blind as a bat, I have astigmatism, I have dry eyes, and I need multi-focals, so soft lenses won't do. While still in humid New England, I lived fairly successfully with little chips of glass in my eyes. Then I moved to windy, dusty, zero humidity Nevada, and I just gave up. However, after a recent viewing of “How to Marry a Millionaire” – Marilyn Monroe in rhinestone cat’s eye glasses – I’ve decided to embrace my inner vintage old maid and go rhinestones and cat’s eyes myself. So the next time you see a woman in a wasp-waisted dress and extreme specs take the time to say “hey.” That bespectacled corseted spinster might just be me

Oh. Darn.

I like this bag.

Dammit.

Although I think it would look better without those oddly prominent brass feet.

And without all those Vs and Ls.

Perhaps in plain denim, or a tasteful banana print, instead?

ETA: The more I look at this bag (which I still like) the more it looks like something a clever person could sew herself out of a pair or two of old jeans. I'm sure the home sewer would lose the fancy hardware along with the damn Vs and Ls, but she'd be saving $1,200 of the American dollars, less the cost of materials.

Oh, this purse has been christened the "Baggy PM."

Every clothesaholic crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.

This week's Carnival of the Couture is being hosted by The Fashionable Kiffen. Her topic rendered me breathless: "What item/style/look do you wish would become a trend? Or what trend from the past would you like to resurrect?" The choices are overwhelming for this style-nostalgia junkie -- I want to see almost everything come back except that which has apparently come back with a vengance this season, the abomination otherwise known as footless leggings.

I know, however, that sooner or later everything filters through women's fashion again, and luckily for those women who are too impatient for designers to get it right, vintage is an acceptable option. Alas, it takes a lot longer for men's clothing to change, so it's unlikely that men will make a regular habit of wearing evening clothes in my lifetime. What a tragedy, nothing makes a man look better than a classic tuxedo, and white tie is absolutely swoon-worthy. More important, nothing makes a man look less like K-Fed than a sharp set of evening clothes, as the two starlicious gentlemen (Robert Montgomery on left, Clark Gable on the right) pictured demonstrate. They make that hussylicious woman between them look better, too. *lesigh*

Forsaking All Others is available on VHS.

Catholic highschool flashback.

I came across this bishop-sleeved, mock turtle-necked dress patterns during one of my frequent ebay vintage pattern searches. See it gave me one of those "I've been here before" tingles, but -- where? Why would I remember this entirely too prim and proper garment? Then my low-wattage light burned a little brighter, and I realized that this must have been the pattern my mother used to make my high-school graduation dress.

We the graduating class of Sacred Heart Academny were instructed that are dresses had to be white so they wouldn't show under our white academic gowns. (I'm sure the nuns also wanted to cultivate an image of virginal purety among the senior class, too. After all, our parents didn't pay all that tuition just so we could be edumicated). My Mom heard and obeyed, and made this dress up in white polyester crepe. She did a beautiful job, right down to the many self-covered buttons on the cuffs, and the dress fit beautifully, although I did think the puffy sleeves made me look fat.

When I got to school I discovered I was the only graduating senior actually wearing a white dress. I guess my classmates thought their last day on campus was as good a day as any to declare their independence from Sister Mary Flowerpot, and, as usual, I didn't get the memo. I always was a backward child.

In the event you're feeling the need for a dress that could be worn to the most orthodox temple wedding (Mormon or Jewish), you can purchase this pattern at Lanetz Vintage.