Ah, Vested Gentress. The name alone sounds like a pun. Or the last couplet of an almost off-color limerick. And only a year ago I thought their prints were just a wee bit too silly for me. How I could have thought such a thing, especially while wearing a dress printed with lurid eggplants and radishes? Well, we all have our blind spots, I suppose.

Now how I kick myself for not snapping up a Vested Gentress label for $15 when I saw in a thirft shop last summer. It was a beautifully lined white dress with a screen print in light green and lavender showing cartoony-looking lions and hippos in a jungle. True, it was way to big on me, but I could have worked with that. In the end, it just wasn't true love. C'est la guerre. I am happy to think that someone else snapped it up and perhaps wore it out dancing at the (alas, now defunct) Bulgarian Bar, or even--I dunno--stuck it in her backback and went to Thailand or Cambodia. Maybe she is riding a scooter in it right now and thinking about revolution. For some reason, I imagine her to be in her early 20's, and very optimistic, quick to laugh, probably keeping the dress casual and fun by wearing it with sneakers.

I just hope it wasn't bought by some designer who is holding it prisoner in a warehouse just to be used as an idea for a future collection. They do that you know. Brand name designer types are the biggest collectors of vintage that no one gets to wear or enjoy. I'd love to see Tim Burton do an animated film about these kidnapped dresses busting out of storage and taking to the streets looking for women to wear them. Or better yet, Czech animator Jan Svankmajer. Famous for stop-motion animation revealing the private life of objects, Svankmajer would be the best choice.

This dress pictured above is another one that got away. It has been sold. For all the deatils, visit: http://anothertimevintageapparel.com/stock_HS.htm

I would not have been able to resist this dress. Not even if I thought I looked like a horse's ass in it. I am plotzing, it is so adorable. The horses on the front are winking, the side ties at the bottom mimic the horses' tails, and of course, the show stopper: the horses' behinds on the back.
I would resist the temptation to put my hair in a braid with a orange bow at the end. Or would I?