Fire Sign

Oh, autumn.

I deny thee.

This is how you can tell I operate using a backlog of pictures. Halloween is right around the corner, there's a huge hurricane/snowstorm/harbinger of the apocalypse barreling my way, and I'm posting pictures of a cotton shift I bought in August.

It was that day, that best shopping day ever I was telling you about. I read once that willpower is like a muscle, in that it can tire. (It's not like a muscle that gets stronger the more you use it, though.) Basically, the more you have to control yourself during the day, the more your stock of willpower is depleted.

That's why people go on late-night eating binges. Their (our) willpower muscle is so, so tired. All it wants is a pint of Ben & Jerry's, and is that sooo much to ask?

So I head off willpower fatigue at the pass by giving in to all my impulses. I'm saving it for someday when I really need it.

Like if I find myself in front of some enchanted smorgasbord and it's really important that I not eat any of it, à la Persephone, à la Hansel and Gretel, à la Pan's Labyrinth.

Let's be real, here: Fire Sign isn't my usual style, and I don't know if I would have bought it on a full tank of willpower. As I was buying it at Another Man's Treasure, the owners and I discussed how we would describe the print.

We agreed that it wasn't quite paisley, and that it seemed sort of Indian-influenced, but we couldn't quite settle on anything definitive.

I showed it to my husband. "What would you call this print?" I said. "It seems sort of... hippie-ish."

"That's the word I was trying to avoid," he said, with a eureka! feel to his intonation.

Despite its hippie-ish tendencies, I got a surprising amount of wear out of Fire Sign before the summer was done with us. So my sore willpower turned out to be a win-win.

Natural fibers, you know? Much as I love and adore polyester, sometimes it's nice to wear a material that doesn't get that distinctive aroma as soon as you start sweating in it.

Also, look at that cute yellow lining! Lined dresses are actually the best for sticky summer weather, because the outer layer still floats free and you look so cool and elegant.

Gatsby-esque, if you will. That is why he always looked so cool: I bet all his suits were lined. (And he probably kept the suit jacket on so Daisy wouldn't see great blooming puddles of sweat all over his beautiful silk shirts.)

"Do you always watch for the longest day of the year, and then miss it?"

Well, I miss it now, I'll say that...




All photos by Claire Loeb!