It's got Indonesian shadow puppets on it, for crying out loud. And it might even fit me. I am plotzing, swooning and jonesing for this frock.

The colors, the stripes: all delicious. I believe the puppet featured on the bodice represents the universe.

As you know, I really love puppets. I love big puppets and the tiniest toy theatre puppets. I would run away with a puppeteer to live a life of penury as long as it was filled with marionettes dancing, or peeking out of trunks and window curtains at me. Hell, even sock puppets, if well-manipulated, can look heartbreakingly alive. But shadow puppets really do it for me.

I've seen only 2 live shows of Wayang Kulit, but they were transformative and thrilling shows indeed. The Indonesian Consulate hosts regular gamelon performances, but only rarely with shadow puppets.

My life has been shockingly devoid of puppets the past 5 months and I intend to remedy this as soon as humanly and humanely possible. In years past, I've always managed to catch a production of the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre here and there.

I recently watched The Cameraman's Revenge, along with some other animation by Ladislas Starevich. The 1913 stop motion film actually uses dead beatles and other bugs, animated by affixing false legs to the thorax with sealing wax. Mr. Starevich is credited as creating the first narrative puppet movie, and though the entomological element sounds icky, this tale of martial troubles and infidelity among bourgeois insects is absolutely adorable. I can't believe that children were ever the intended audience though.

In an alternate reality, I'd make puppets of some sort and coax them to life.