The Birds

Another day, another inspiring/cautionary tale.

I found The Birds in the summer of 2001, looking at its vast expanse of polyester (it was at least three sizes too big) and seeing only the perfect color combo of its print.

Weakness

I was worried that working on Dressopotamia would encourage me in my most expensive vice (if you have to ask what that would be, may I gently but firmly direct you to the titre, the photographies and the raison d'être of the blog you are currently resting your eyeballs upon).

Lucky Twin

One of my motivations for starting this blog is that I was pretty sure that my ambivalent feelings around some of my dresses would crystallize into, "I am going to give this away." I was pretty sure, for example, that Day and Nightie, Red Fish, Blue Fish and Audrey One would not make the cut. But I have new hope — one of these days, I am going to make alterations to Day and Nightie! One of these days, I am going to wear Red Fish, Blue Fish to another party! One of these days, I am going to take Audrey One and... actually, I am probably going to give that one away. You can have it if you promise to keep the epaulets intact.

I was also pretty sure that Lucky Twin was going to end up as a giveaway.

Shady Lane

Shady Lane evokes a vague sense memory for me. Every time I wear it, I flash back to a mystery time when I was riding in the back of a pickup truck, feeling the sun on my face and arms. 

Filthy Martini

When I bought Filthy Martini, it was a huge shapeless dress with long sleeves and cuffs. Now it looks like this:

It's a pretty good argument for getting things tailored when you need to. Filthy Martini cost $12 in (probably?) 2002, it probably cost about $30 to get it tailored, and I've worn it about a billion times since then (one hundred million times a year), so the amortization on that works out to $0.000000042 per wear. Definitely worth it.

Cloud Cuckooland

Cloud Cuckooland is one of those pieces, the awesomeness of which leaps to the eye.

What Big Teeth

I cut a wide swath through vintage shops; if I have doubts, I tend to buy the item anyway, unless it's ridiculously expensive. No regrets! Sometimes I just know that the piece will be perfect with some alterations—and I am always right. Unless I am planning to do my own alterations, in which case the garment languishes in my "sewing box" indefinitely.

Adventure Garden

In my collection, I have a few pieces that I bought early and wore often. Adventure Garden is one of these; every other picture I have from my early 20s features a guest appearance. (There are two other pieces that I love(d) as much, which will of course get their own posts.)

I was so excited! And I didn't even know how long Adventure Garden would be by my side, or all the cities we'd go to together (Madrid, Berlin, Paris, Prague, Buenos Aires, probably some other places that I don't remember because I didn't get any photos of me and Adventure Garden doing our thing). I was mostly excited because it cost $12 (at SLOW, which was the most amazing place for a young vintage-hunter-in-training right around 2000).

Day and Nightie

No false modesty: I have a lot of winners in my closet. But I also have a few... I don't want to call them losers, because that's mean, and also they are inanimate objects. But they're not quite contenders. Maybe with some alterations, we could see, but they're... junior varsity.

Take Day and Nightie, for instance. I picked this one up back when World of Style Vintage had a storefront on Newark Avenue, along with another piece I'll get to later. In theory, it's right up my alley.

I mean, look at that print, right? Colorful, hand-drawn, varied—a nice mix of organic and somewhat geometric shapes. But when it comes to the cut...