I spuddle.

It’s time for more fantasy shopping because why not?   I like shopping and also imaginary shopping.   I also like to pretend that I DO look like Kate Walsh because my mum told me that I did the other day and she’s not one to dish out compliments randomly or with an ulterior motive.   She was very adamant (as in “convincing or sure” and not as in “Adam Ant” the 80s pop sensation) and even though I know she’s deluded and might need a new prescription, I am now fantasy shopping as though I am a tall and willowy creature who stars on a prime-time TV medical drama, and not, in fact, me.

Here we go:

1.   From revolveclothing.com, the perfect seventies-style long dress for summer.   Wear this while sipping brightly coloured drinks poured over ice while you wait for your steaks or mung beans or whatever to be done on the grill.   Bare feet are required, as is a floppy hat and Simon and Garfunkel and some kind of strawberry fair.   Or Scarborough Fair.   Or something.

My laptop is burning my leg. Is that worrisome?

2.  This little jersey dress from JCrew.com may just be the perfect summer dress.   Long enough to cover the back of your knees if you’re me and have bad scarring and veins because one day you went for a walk with someone and someone’s two  dogs and you had the little dog on a leash and she had the big dog on the extendable leash and the big dog saw a squirrel and took off running and that leash wrapped around your knees and cut so deeply into your flesh that the backs of your knees are now ruined for short dresses forever.   Also, it hurt a lot even though the leash ran out so fast that it didn’t bleed, it actually self-cauterized from the friction.   Horrible.   The point of those leashes is that you press the button and it stops the dog from taking off after tree-dwelling rodents!   That’s the point!   There are brakes!    On the leash!   So no one gets hurt!

Where was I?   Oh, the perfect little jersey dress from JCrew.com.   If it ever goes on clearance, I will certainly buy one.

This colour is called Dark Mushroom. Who names these things? Nice colour, gross name. Or maybe I just think that because I'm allergic to mushrooms.

3.  I was spelunking around on eBay because I often do for no reason and I have old search terms including Frye Campus 8.5 (because they are the only boots that don’t hurt my maimed feet) and Velvet Graham Spencer Dress (because there was a dress they did last year that I loved like mad and never bought).   I also love this one.   It’s even in my size.   I am holding my own hands now to prevent myself from clicking that Buy It Now button because I would Wear It Never.   But in my imaginary life, I wear it at the beach, barefoot, and it billows prettily around my legs and nowhere are my children hiding behind it, wiping their Popsicle drippings or snotty noses onto its lovely greenness.

It also might look like a long green nightie but for whatever reason, I don't care, and also can't decide if it's "nightie" or "nighty".

4.  I actually don’t like the colour of this dress but I like the style because obviously right now for whatever reason I crave a long dress that I’d never wear.   I also want the life where I’m sitting elegantly on a low wall in the setting sun and my hair is all tangled and pretty and my kids are cherubic and it’s clearly the tropics somewhere and no one is shouting at me or doing what The Birdy is doing right now which is rubbing her brother’s shoes on my legs.    In the picture on the website, there is the model and the kid, in case you think I’m just babbling about nothing specific, which occasionally I do, but in this case I was referring to the picture on the site that I cannot link to because Anthropologie.com apparently does not want people to share or copy their beautiful imagery because heaven forbid that people might go to their site and actually buy something that they saw on someone’s blog.  

This dress is blue but it ought to be brown. Brown would make this dress closer to perfect. Or maybe green. Sort of an olive-y green, I think.

5.  I really don’t know what the deal is with websites that don’t allow you to link to their images or copy their images or whatever when they are actually SHOPPING WEB SITES.   Here is a PSA to people who design such things:   People covet and blog and link and list and other people SEE and covet and actually BUY because they click the link.   Bloggers are like free advertisers for YOUR PRODUCT!   When you make it so the images can’t be copied, you suck.  Sorry to be blunt, but it’s true.    You do.   Suck, that is.

Undeterred, I’ve found two dresses that I covet that fit my categories on Bluefly.com.   The first one is perfect in every way, if it were 1979 and I were Bo Derek.   But let’s pretend.   Let’s also pretend that I spend a lot of time running bare foot through fields of daisies, overlooking the fact that if I did that, I would likely step on a bee, go into anaphylactic shock, and die.   At least my dress would be pretty.   Oh, in this scenario, we are also pretending that I take a size XS, which I actually don’t, unless XS means excess.   Sadly, this dress is only available for miniature skinny people and not for real women like myself and Kate Walsh.  And Bo Derek, for that matter.  Who wears an XS?   Someone who should buy this dress, that’s who.

I would only be brave enough to pull off this much pattern if I lived in St. Lucia or was, in fact, Kate Walsh.

Because that dress wouldn’t actually fit me, I bring a second dress into the number 5 spot because it’s my blog and I have that kind of crazy power.   I will try not to go mad with it, but you know how it is, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The runner up in this slot is this dress, also from Bluefly.com, different designer.   It has wide enough shoulder things to wear a bra under it, which is important.   Believe me.   It is.   And it’s pretty in a hippie kind of way.   Just like ALL THE OTHER DRESSES ON THIS LIST.   This one is made for rich hippies who are sitting by the pool sipping drinks brought to them by a man with a tray.   You must wear very large sunglasses while wearing this dress, and a large floppy rimmed hat.    Your nails must be manicured subtly and perfectly and you must be tapping them on the glass-topped table as though you are about to do something really important when in fact you have nothing pending and likely will sit there all afternoon getting slowly more drunk.   Until you take off the dress and swim a few laps, probably needing to be rescued by the drink guy because swimming and drinking is a pretty bad combination, regardless of how pretty your dress is.

This reminds me of a shirt that I got in Grade 7, which would have been 1981, and seeing as nothing about the 80s was OK in terms of fashion, it makes me wonder if I really like this dress at all or am just tired of looking at dresses that I'm not going to buy on the internet.

Let me know if you buy any of these dresses, in what size, and if I can borrow them if I’m ever partaking in the sort of activity that demands the wearing of any of these dresses.

Thank you.

Filed under: Shopping