Death in Venice. I resisted posting this one. Especially since it is weighing in at a whopping $475.00 at www.redboxwintage.com. And with a tiny waist of 25", well, I can only admire from afar. It is difficult to tell from the photos if this dress is truly blue/green with brown, or if the magenta in the close-ups is not just a whim of the camera.

A souvenir print? Perhaps. But wouldn't one feel utterly ridiculous in a dress printed with gondolas while riding a gondola? Or would it be totally appropriate? Is the novelty print by necessity removed from what it depicts?

I would wear this dress without a crinoline. Add maybe a pearl bracelet, some bone-colored sling backs and a straw handbag (yes, even after Labor Day, am I not madcap?), then I'd be off to Cafe Trieste, my favorite cafe in San Francisco. I'd sit in the sun coming through the windows and write. I'd give some sort of lecture that afternoon, this seems like a perfect dress to give a lecture in, doesn't it? I'd talk about the production of Bakelite, or subjectivity in Dziga Vertov's cinema, or William S. Burroughs, that type of thing. And in the evening, off to one of those dinners with friends were everyone says something memorably funny. Since this is a simulation, the dress would be bigger in the waist, enough for me to eat lots of pasta and still be able to ask for the dessert menu.