LSDelicious

Here is the weird thing about starting a blog: it is very hard to tell in advance what kinds of pages will get the most hits.

Even in retrospect, aside from the giveaways, it's hard to tell what drives traffic.

Some posts are inexplicably popular.

But sometimes my favorite dresses languish in relative obscurity.

I read a post on a website for fashion bloggers, about increasing traffic by giving the people what they want. I love giving the people what they want! It said to check out the terms that people land on your site using, and write more posts addressing those topics. Unfortunately, I think most of the people who land on my site via search terms might be kind of disappointed.

For instance: "r***-positive clothing." This was disturbing. I don't know what this means, and I don't want to know. Yecch. I'm censoring it because I don't want anyone else to land on Dressopotamia searching for the term.

For instance: "scream 1 the movie all pictures." Can't figure this one either. Maybe because I mentioned Drew Barrymore once?

For instance: "monika chiang." Apparently she's a shoe designer. No idea.

For instance: "mood elevators." Maybe it worked? I hope so.

For instance: "dragon bra." I only wish.

For instance: "paste on dresses." I only wish again.

For instance: "white women wearing wigs." Okay, this person should definitely not have been disappointed. I am white, and I am a woman, and I wear wigs. But they only clicked on one page. What more could they possibly have been searching for?!

For instance: "dumb million-dollar ideas." This person was definitely disappointed. All of my million-dollar ideas are very clever. Like staffing a moving company with male models. Tell me people wouldn't pay extra for that!

For instance: "will shortz." Unless they were looking for a picture of him at the ACPT 2011.

For instance: "cats wearing pearls." This is really the one search term where I see a missed opportunity. I have a cat. I have pearls. Hang on one second.

Kidding! If she were under the table, I wouldn't be able to give you this picture:

Cat wearing pearls

I knew it was a good idea to get her a bed. It's easier to put pearls on her while she's sleeping out in the open.

So pearl-wearing-cat fans of the world, unite!

Now that bit of business has been taken care of, let's talk LSDelicious. I got it back in 2001 at Polly Sue's Vintage, and have treasured it ever since. It's terrific for parties, as it features an elegant cut (my favorite kind) paired with a nutso print (my favorite kind).

LSDelicious is the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of cocktail dresses.

Speaking of the elegant cut, the fake-out frog closures don't hurt.

Neither does that leggy slit.

It inspired my left leg to start its own Twitter account, à la another shapely, social-media savvy limb.

(Psych—Twitter is for the birds. (P.S. Don't you hate it when people write "sike"? I am not a fan of misspelling anything, but I find this particularly galling for some reason.))

LSDelicious does have special powers—night-rescuing powers. Picture it: Buenos Aires, December 31, 2005. Dramatis personae: me, my friend Solveig and LSDelicious. I could be wrong, but I think the whole idea of New Year's Eve is a little shruggy for porteños. ("And then everyone stays up past midnight!" "So, like a Tuesday, then?") Maybe when December is one 90º day after another, the paganesque impetus to say, "The solstice is behind us! Life will begin again!" isn't quite so strong.

It was also very close to the first anniversary of a nightclub fire that killed almost 200 people, so this notoriously party-hungry city was taking the night off, no matter how hard we tried to make it happen and with what strenuous good cheer we ignored twisted ankles and abominably-behaved Frenchmen.

Finally, an old man saw us hobbling down the calle and invited us up to his family's party, where we boozed it up with a passel of elderly Chileans. Night: saved!

Archive photo

All thanks to LSDelicious, which loves to have a good time and will make it happen if it kills us.



All photos by Claire Loeb! Except the ones that clearly aren't.