Saturday, February 20, 2010

D is for Dresses

The dress is like a woman's chambermaid- it is the closet confidante a woman can have, aside from herself. A dress knows all the secrets- you cannot hide anything from a dress; it sees all your flaws in technicolour. More importantly, it feels all your flaws. Yet a good dress does not reveal secrets. When selecting a dress, one should keep this in mind. How trustworthy is this dress? Of course, one cannot submit this dress to a lie-detector test- dresses cannot talk, they can only show. So I find in cases like these that it is best to hire an old fashioned private investigator to investigate the dress. You can do this by going to a private investigator's door, knocking on it and hiring him with cash handed in a manilla enevelope. In extreme cases, I'd suggest getting the police involved- but really, if you're getting the police involved the dress probably isn't very trustworth in the first place! The private eye will do some background work on the dress first- even an old Chanel dress may not be totally trustworthy, about one in a thousand tends to go rogue. Like the FBI or CIA or RIAA or something, no? Anyway- the background work, then if it passes that the P.I will start investigating the dress in person. He'll walk into the room, feel the dress, talk to the dress, feel it again- frankly, some of these private eyes are perverts. But they do their job, and it's absoultuly paramount that your dress is trustworthy.

I'm reminded of a case where a woman did not have her dress properly investigated before she went and purchased it. As you can imagine, the consequences were quite disastorous. She wore the dress to a rather "important" social function and her photo ended up in all the social pages the next day. Several magazines, I know, took pictures of her in the dress because it was so unflattering. This was before these internet memes- those internet-pictures that go around everywhere. People had to make their own memes, back then. So this stupid woman became a meme in the world of fashion- people would look at the picture of her in the dress, laugh, and take it as a warning. The woman in question- I won't name her, but you probably know her name; she's very well know. Well, that woman in question's social life was destoryed, and she now mopes about her house by herself.

A Dior dress is very untrustworthy. I don't think anyone should buy a dress made by a man with a finiticky moustache anyway. Dior dresses tend to tell the other dresses about their owner, so when the wearer of the dress is in a room with other people wearing other dresses, she looks very demode indeed. Be very wary of the couture. Whilst it may look like a lady, it does not behave like a lady!
Lanvin dresses are generally good. Alber, you know, the designer of Lanvin- he has a heart of gold. Real gold. Melting gold. Pure, melting gold. It must get very hot in there sometimes. They can be quite haughty, so treat them with respect.
I'm fond of Rodarte dresses. The Rodarte sisters are sweet, in the genuine way that one imagines Sylvia Plath to be when she wasn't being depressed. The dresses themselves are sweet. Sweet in an organic way- very natural.
I suppose I'd better include the Japanese in here. Dresses by Rei Kawakubo- Comme des Garcons, tend to be incredibly mysterious. Other dresses are a bit scared of them. It really depends if you intend on socializing at a party or not. I don't, so if I was a woman I'd wear Comme des Garcons all the time. I used to wear a lot of Yohji Yamamoto in the 90s- it scared away a lot of people. Alas, I cannot wear Yohji these days. It is not in "the now." Dresses by Yohji are wonderful- elegant, but spinsters or never married. Mostly the latter.

10 comments:

Domino said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Domino said...

I once heard of a dress that got caught in the persons undergarments. How uncivilized.

-Domino
http://domino-fashionprodigy.blogspot.com

phantom; said...

I couldn't agree more, especially how you've described Rodarte dresses.

OH HELL CLOTHING said...

Oh karl you ARE a card!

Paddy☮ xx
Click here to visit me at LITTLE RAZZI

ZANAH said...

Great post & lovely blog ! :) Mon Mode Blog

ValeryRova said...

The little dictionary of fashion by Dior. I read it. really interesting thing.

Ellie McQueston said...

my dresses are notoriously secretive, it makes my life soo much easier.

http://rcgaloshes.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

dear Karl what do diane von furstenburg dresses emode please if you will. i find ms diane to be quite extraordinary in poise. it seems to me her dress is epitamy of sublime. yes to agree? thank you dear Karl~Carla

Anonymous said...

Hahah cool post about dressed. But dear Karl I know I disagree about you on the couture dresses. The rock and mostly are so well made and you do look like a lady in them you just need to do your hair& make-up right. Also added you to my linklist:) !

Anonymous said...

This gave me a very good laugh-something which I needed at the moment! There used to be such an art to dresses, and people used to actually pay attention to flattering cuts and patterns.