Quill pens, ink wells and over-seeing owls. Pieces of music and pipes also adorn this stunning library print with exquisite detail and bright colors. Wouldn't this make a lovely dress? You can get it here, for sale by Ownbackyard on Etsy. I also love the styling on this room and the ceramic cat is a priceless touch.

Also, a library print apron in silk with Charles Dickens' Old Curiousity Shop.



















This is too pretty to wear as an apron. Treasure Island, Little Women and The Songs of Sappho are a nice touch as well. But it is Thomas Mann's Joseph in Egypt that really sends me. It is available here from Playback.

Do you call it a Library Print, a Bookshelf Pattern, or the Bookworm's Delight? The lack of established labeling conventions for these prints make searching for them difficult. I'd like to agree on library print.

This greyscale library print on rayon is the loveliest I have seen in quite some time. A library print must have other elements besides book spines and here we have some very active-looking statuettes (art deco ladies in crash helmets with arms akimbo)and some vases, but the real tour de force comes from the addition of the electric fan. The vintage radio too is a great touch, though more muted, its horizontal lines mirroring the stacking of books. But the fan in all its circularity is what elevates this print to greatness.

This terrific blouse is available for sale here, from Adrian Company Vintage, who has posted these pictures on Etsy. While the print is spectacular, and it appears to be a very wearable medium, over-sized 80's blouses can be difficult to wear. I'd pair it with a rather short skirt to elongate the silhouette widened by the boxy top. I'd be tempted to keep the rest of the ensemble greyscale as well.

I have long been looking for a library print book bag. This is a print that has been made into various bags.


















This one was part of last summer's collection by WoodWood in Denmark. I like the placement of the print on this bag and how the vertical books move down along the body on the strap, but that style of bag is difficult for a short woman to wear (the long strap would leave the bag itself somewhere around my knees). The same print was also available last summer in a tote bag at the Morgan Library gift shop, which I keenly regret not snapping up when I had the chance. The closest I've been able to find in this photoprint of some book spines from Thomas Jefferson's Library.



While this bag is reasonably priced and available through the History Channel, of all places,and looks bookishly practical, nonetheless I don't believe in wearing novelty prints that one cannot vouch for or discuss coherently. U.S. History routinely fails to interest me and I often horrify the young Akhenaten with the gaps in my knowledge. Akhenaten, my young Egyptian paramour, can name more U.S. Presidents (and in chronological order) than I can. In order to comply with my own rule about standing by one's novelty prints, I'd have to visit the Library of Congress (the originator of this tote) and read a book or two about Thomas Jefferson just to keep from embarassing myself. And what if I am cornered on the subway by a Constitution enthusiast? For the love of Maude, isn't all of that a heavy trip to put on a tote bag?

Then I got to thinking about U.S. Presidential Libraries. Do they all have gift shops? Do they all put out tote bags? Have I hit a vein of Library Print items? Is this the motherlode?

Sadly, no. I was really hoping for a Nixon Presidential Memorial and Library Watergate Commerative tote bag, but there is no such animal. I would have settled for a Nixon in China tote, but Tricky Dick's library is one of the few without a gift shop. Most of the Presidential libraries are administered by NARA, National Archives and Records Administration. The gift shops are fairly standardized with pens and caps with the particular president's signature or a famous quote, a section for books by and about the president, and a kids section with model Airforce1 planes and tiny t-shirts that say "Future President". Perhaps a section with costume jewelry reproductions of pieces worn by the first lady. The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library and Museum has the New Deal Store where you can pick up mugs commemorating 75 years of Social Security. There are also busts and sculptures of both FDR and Eleanor. But my favorite so far would have to be a 6 inch statue of FDR as the Sphinx. Apparently based on a caricature of FDR it must be seen to be believed.

Photo from Hillbillyfilly


A lovely and unique Egyptian print skirt. Hieroglyphics and Egyptians, venerating and offering stylized gifts to what looks like Hathor holding someone's hand. The hieroglyphs themselves appear to be upside-down, but that is a minor quibble. I love the sketchy feeling of the drawings, that loose mid-century style illustration.

This would look adorable on you. It's got a 28 inch waist, and a 28 inch length, so it's too long for me. But perhaps you are taller, nu?

Happy New Year and l'shana tova. I hope 5771 is a good year.

Ah, goslings, again I've gotten behind on everything: periodicals, scandals, health care reform, correspondence of all kinds. I haven't even been shopping with my usual elan. Akhenaten, my young Egyptian lover, fears for my health, considering this current lassitude. If I had my druthers I'd curl up in a silken cocoon that was edible (tasting like rose-infused Turkish Delight, or mashed potatoes, depending on my mood) and there I'd snooze like a pupa, occasionally awakening to nibble, until spring. Or at this until that holiday is over. The one that starts with an X. I can never remember what it's called. I can summon sufficient enthusiasm only to practice the banjolele and watch silent Greta Garbo flicks. And of course my favorite winter sport which is drinking hot cocoa. Maude help me, I've already got the winter blahs already.

And my over stuffed closet has been put on a starvation diet, so I haven't been eyeing the racks much. I'm keeping myself off ebay, and staying away from my usual haunts. But as I am always on the lookout for Egyptian kitsch, and couldn't resist this Cleopatra Play Suit. It's an original uncut sack dress on sale by Etsy seller Stellaranae. And it is a rare one indeed. I positively salivated when I saw it. The text alone is priceless, and the muted colors create an ancient Egyptian tableaux. The truncated limerick absolutely slays me. I want it engraved in gold on my closet doors. Too often I face my enormous wardrobe and see nothing to wear and would like a queenly response such as this. One could say the text goes too far, that there is no need to proclaim that this is a Cleopatra PlaySuit, but it is precisely that self-reflexivity that makes it so charming. Now the mask and asps are genius. I imagine coming up with some way to turn the asps into a hand bag and the mask into sunglasses (magically, of course). I love that it is printed with a trompe l'oeil faïence collar, and that the pyramids appear to be sporting TV antennae. Come in closer to see that the sphinx on the bottom is having her coiffure tended to with an enormous can of hairspray. And just when I think I couldn't love it any more, it declares itself a play suit. Putty, I tell you, I am putty in the hands of this sack dress.

I would be sorely tempted to wear this. Not just on those "Nothing To Wear"/Comb Down My Hair days, but everyday and all the time. I'd like an army of these dresses, some lined so they could be worn with tights and a turtleneck underneath for winter. An extra few for pajamas, even. But in this case, truly, I think the best use of this uncut sack dress is to be framed. To be contemplated upon getting dressed every morning.

But wait, there's more: Stellaranae has another, just as charming.








I'd be an old bag in a sack in this one for sure. Go check this one out. More unabashedly Pop Art, I love the proscription: Trim with Ermine for Formal Wear. I would love to have a sack that could be dressed up for evening and down for day and even has instructions for doing so. I like how the text here is repetitive and slightly off, as if poorly translated. I like the broadsheet style, evocative of the printing of advertisements in the early 1900s. And I do think there are days when I should be wearing a frock that says: Handle With Care.

Again, I'd be tempted to cut and wear this one, but agree that it would be best preserved uncut and unworn.

I feel like there must have been others in a series. Cotton sack dresses for all moods and means. What could they have been? Other historical figures (Catherine de Medici? Boadicea? Lady Godiva? Judith beheading Holofernes? Are those too obvious? What would a Joan of Arc Play Suit look like? Would Catherine de Medici come with poison?) What other feelings could be channeled? Was there a Fight the Power dress?

I love the idea of a personal uniform. As with the work of artist Andrea Zittel. But I don't have one myself and often have to re-invent the wheel each morning. With the cold snap I've taken to wearing Whiplash Sweaters, you know, the sort of light colored turtle necks that look like neck braces, with loud shirts and boots.

What are you wearing these days? Is it your ideal uniform? What would your equivalent of the Cleopatra Play Suit be?