Mosquitoes are out in force today, so my patio-sitting moments may be numbered, sadly. OR I'm going to have to learn to coat myself with citronella, OR light the citronella candle I bought for the purpose.
I talked yesterday evening to our son out west: he's stationed with a hotshot fire crew in Great Falls, Montana, but after two or three weeks of training will head out with his squad this week, either to the Southwest or to Colorado, depending on where the need is greatest. This is it: for northwesterners, anyway, the start of the fire season. The southwest, obviously, has had it going on for a while now.
Outfit choice for Mass:
Vintage 90s linen Liz Claiborne maxi dress, bought on Ebay for Easter 2021. Longline blue marl cardigan (some pattern clashing, I guess) bought completely unethically on Amazon in January 2021, innocent of any natural fibers, but it's lightweight and I like it in spite of everything. Here I like that it gives me a vertical line that sweeps past the horizontal line of the belt, which I bought at Texas Thrift this past January, as an exemption to my no-buy rule, and like a lot, not least because it's real leather. Fake Birks on my feet. Wet spot courtesy of some stains I discovered on my dress, surely dating from Easter, possibly blood from my skinned knees that seeped through when I was kneeling at the Vigil. Anyway, cold water and Grandma's Secret have taken care of them (and they didn't show up much, which is one good thing about patterns), and linen dries fast.
The bright sunlight washes out the colors and patterns. Here they are, more accurately:
And me in them:
Feeling very garden-party, which is nice. Linen does that. I should really remember to wear this dress more than once every six weeks.
PS: Still feeling kinda sorta tempted to break my no-buy for a marine-blue long Maggie . . . If I get paid sometime soon, that might just seal it. I might let myself buy both that and a Sofia when she appears. M A Y B E.
LATER:
On the patio with Dora after Mass and lunch, tinkering with a poem whose meter really kind of boggles me --- pentameter, but with a lot of anapests and dactyls, impossible to pin down a consistent pattern. I've changed out of my long linen dress, which is lovely for church and events, but not great for lounging. Since the Maggie dress has been on my mind for the last twenty-four hours, I've put on one of my bamboo faux-Maggies, with green bike shorts underneath:
I do like this dress a LOT. I find myself reaching for it more and more as the weather warms up. It's lightweight, breathable, soft, and pretty moisture-wicking and odor-resistant. I always feel good in it. I know I'll wear it constantly this summer in all kinds of circumstances: beach, backyard, hiking trail. Its one drawback (well, aside from being obviously more flimsily constructed than my Wool& dresses, but for eight bucks, waddya want?) is the length. I don't mind that it's this short, but I really can't wear it to church without a skirt underneath. And I really would not wear it in any kind of professional setting. As a casual dress it's versatile, but it's only versatile within the bounds of the strictly casual dress.
I really hadn't thought about the Maggie dress before. Honestly, the main reason I hadn't thought about it is that it doesn't look good on the model on the website. That is: it looks good on the plus-sized model. On the not-plus-sized model the fit is wrong. She's tallish (5'6, according to the site), so I can see why she would have chosen a medium regular-length dress. A small would probably be too short. But the dress looks too big for her through the shoulders and bodice, like a nightgown.
I don't know why Wool& can't get their dresses to fit their models better. I've already belabored my objections to the Brooklyn as pictured, how literally none of the photographs I've ever seen of that dress convince me that its wrap bodice fits anybody. Actually, that's true of most of the customer photos of that dress that I've ever seen. I hate to say it, but it. does. not. look. well. designed. Somebody in the Facebook group observed that the country blue Brooklyn looks like some kind of medical scrubs, and now I can't un-see it. Even on people who have otherwise looked as good as it's possible to look in that style, it's just not a win. This is NOT the fault of the many beautiful and varied women who wear the dress, either. It just comes off as a good idea that doesn't translate into a reliably wearable, flattering design.
Meanwhile, I've gone trolling around looking for pictures of people wearing the Maggie, and truly, 9/10 of those people look better in that dress than the not-plus model does on the website. This tells me that it can and does fit well. If I bought it, I'd buy a long, not a regular --- I'm finding that I would like, if I don't absolutely strictly need, at least one more well-fitting versatile dress that doesn't totally clear my knees. A medium long would probably hit just below my knees, which would be nice. My Camellia is a medium and fits well through the top -- it's definitly not too big. I'm thinking that probably a medium Maggie would not be too gape-y in the neckline or too loose in the sleeves. I'm not as thin as that model on the site who's wearing a medium. If the Maggie fits more or less like the Camellia, but with sleeves --- and I know it's the same fabric --- then I think I could safely order that size and know how it would fit.
Having these thoughts partly because I'm impatient. The dress I have been fixated on all this time is listed as becoming available in July. I'm worried that it won't be, or that it will sell out fast in my size --- OR that the fit will be weird. I know how my Camellia fits, and I like it. If they sold a Camellia in marine or cobalt, I'd probably just buy it. A Camellia that doesn't read entirely as a summer dress would be a useful item in my wardrobe. BUT a short-sleeved scoop-neck dress in a darker color could work for me just as well, especially in a longer length. I wouldn't wear it for hiking --- I have my bamboo dresses that I don't mind abusing some, since I only paid, on average, $10 for them. They have performed very well on the hiking trail so far, and I don't have to obsess about whether or not I'm snagging or pilling them. But I could see wearing a Maggie for so many other occasions and activities, like virtually anything. I could see being on a conference panel in it, for example . . .
Pondering, pondering, being VERY tempted.
ALSO:
Doing what's good to do when you ponder acquiring something: to wit, getting rid of things. Since I sent all my last-year's outbox contents to Goodwill last week, there's plenty of room in the box for more. I promptly added all the sneakers I too clearly do not wear, but today I culled a few more things, including a grape button shirt whose color I love, but whose cut and fabric (microfiber) I do not love. Some synthetic underwear still in good shape (and clean) went in. Today I provisionally added one of my floral skirts, which I only wear with a tunic; on reflection, I haven't liked those outfits all that much. I mean, they're not awful, but they have the appearance of trying for something I'm not sure I'm really pulling off. Meanwhile, that skirt is more see-through than I would like, and it's synthetic. It's not great in the summer.
So I put it in the outbox, where it will stay for probably a long time while I think about it. On the whole, I prefer dresses to skirts, because I just generally prefer one piece to a top-and-bottom affair. I own skirts for the variety they afford, and because I have to do something with all these shirts I have, but on the whole . . . looking back over my style album, especially in the last ten months or so, what predominates, but dresses? On an everyday basis, what do I choose to wear? Dresses. Not skirts, unless I make myself. Not pants, very often --- again, unless I make myself, though sometimes it is honestly nice to wear pants. I wholeheartedly adore my floral linen A-line skirt, but I'm not sure I'm that devoted to any of the others.
Will it stay or will it go? I think I'm going to be looking hard at my closet and asking that question, whether I buy a new dress anytime soon or not.