The Little Black Dress
Disclaimer: The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

I have been fantasizing about a little black dress. I don't usually fantasize about clothes. I choose my outfits carefully and try to look nice and professional but I don't go out of my way to find clothes that don't choose to come to me. I don't enjoy shopping. I haven't bought many clothes here in Romania and I don't intend to go hunting for my little black dress. I'm just going to wait for it to spring fully realized from my imagination.

It's a dress with skirt like a pencil skirt, but short. Maybe just above the knee (making it the shortest skirt I've ever worn) with a slit up the left side to the place on the thigh where one would wear a garder. The top is sheer black material that you could see through so I could wear a red lacy bra under it. The kind of bra I've never worn outside of my imagination because lace itches, it really does. But the bodice of the dress is cut like this black shirt I have at home that I got at JC Penny's with a scoop neck and what Sam said was a flattering cut on me around the bust. I can't really describe it any better and I don't have picture. If it's possible to mix that cut with some panels in the bodice of the dress - that would be nice to give me some nice verticle lines, but I don't know if those two designs can be combined.

If not I would take the sheer bodice with the flattering cut and cover the whole thing with fishnet going down to where the skirt begins above my hips and cut on a bias away from the slit in the skirt. The dress would have long fishnet sleeves that end at the wrist. Or maybe long sleeves of black lace if there are panels and no fishnet over the front.

It's the kind of dress that I would wear to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. For this dress I would tint my hair redder with henna a month after the last time I tinted it. I would wear this black dress with the reddest lipstick and too much black eyeliner. If I had my makeup kit I would put ALL the highlight on my face like I did with my Ben Nye beginner's kit from Theater 146 when I saw Rocky Horror in Milwaukee. I would get some severe garnet earings. For this dress my black men's sketchers or my flat doc martins wouldn't do. With proper fishnet stockings (with back seams) i would have to wear some clumpy high healed boots (because all of physics is against me balancing on stillhettos). I would forgoe proper back support and donn the healed boots that not only make me look taller but make my legs look longer, and therefore they should only come to above the ankle and should lace up the front in away that suggests bondage. (You ever zip up some boots? I have and I find as soon I walk they find a way to come unzipped.)

I was so pleased with my fantasy dress that I drew a picture, but right now no amount of shaking the picture at the machine in front of me will get the picture into the computer.

The picture brings me to an interesting question. Why am I thinking about a fantasy little black dress? Is it because I've been working hard and I think I need to treat myself? Oh, don't get me wrong I treat myself all the time with cups of coffee, Schwepp's Bitter Lemon and spaghetti with meat(less) balls. Believe me when I was alone in the dark last week there was a day (or two) when I needed a candy bar.) However the fact that I can tell you I want to wear a dress like this and that I ate a bag of sweet buscuits for breakfast in the same post does say something. (That and you don't know what sweet busicuits are.)

But I don't ever treat myself with clothes. Maybe I feel like rewarding myself in a more lasting and tangible way. I hearing a story about some Peace Corps volunteers who had returned fro service in Nicaragua and a friend was really surprised that they hadn't rejected materialism - in fact they wanted to buy stuff more than ever! But I can't buy this dress even if I had the money because it doesn't really exist.

As I said before I think I look nice here wearing the hand me ups I've received but I don't often feel like I look like myself. But this dress doesn't look like me either.
I've stated in an earlier blog post (23-10-07) the emmense cultural and personal importance of Rocky Horror (which to my horror I may have to miss the second time it's performed in Translyvania due to a meeting I can't miss.)

I'm not claiming to understand the game, and nor have I become a player, but reflecting on the changes I've gone through here in Romania, and reflecting on the fact that I actually feel like wearing something I described above, it might have something to do with this: "I feel realeased/ bad times decesed/ my confidence had increased/ reality is here/ the game has been disbanded/ my mind has been expanded..."

Someday I'll have a dress like this. To wear to the premire of the stage production of The Rocky Horror Show when I've directed it. Perhaps I'll also wear it to every rehearsal.