An Early Gift

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from etsy showing things I might be interested in. I get them from ebay all the time but don't open them to avoid temptation, but I was curious. It contained something I was very interested in - a vintage Halston ultrasuede shirt dress in my size. I closed the screen and pouted because, well, I'm broke and shouldn't have looked in the first place. A few days later Kerry and I ware chatting about random things and I told him about the dress. He said I should order it and it would be his Christmas present to me. A relative had given me some money (not through Go Fund Me, that's for the kids), so I ordered it. It came Saturday. I opened it with careful excitement - this is the dress that Halston sold 60,000 of for around two hundred dollars in the early 70s. I couldn't wait to see what vintage high-end looked like!

It's beautiful. The color isn't something I would normally get, but it will go with everything. The ultrasuede fabric is dreamy - soft and smooth. It looks like this dress wasn't worn much - no areas that are aged-looking. The tag was unattached on one side, as the listing said, but that's okay and easily fixable.

I was eager to see what the inside of this baby looked like. Right away I saw that the buttons are the cheap plastic kind. Kind of surprising. They're backed, though, unlike something I'd get new. When I got to the seams, though, I wondered if perhaps I was duped.

It looks like something I would make. I know the ultrasuede doesn't fray, but I was expecting something more - and the obvious notches really made me think that this had been handmade by someone and a label sewn in - some older patterns sometimes included a label. But! I came across these tags

that confirmed to me that this is, in fact, a real Halston dress. According to the union tag it's from after 1974. I was about 5 when this dress was made! One of the things that I really like is the attached belt

that won't get lost...although I had thought of wearing the dress with a cardigan over it and using the belt around both. Oh, well. Why are there no pictures of me modeling it? Well, it's a bit snug. I had hoped to wear it to my court appointment on Wednesday, but now I'll work on wearing it on my birthday in three weeks. I'll just exercise a bit more and eat less homemade toffee (yum!). I will wear the heck out of this dress! I did a bit of looking around for fabric to make some more versions. Holy cow can it be expensive! I found some on that's affordable and comes in some great colors. Maybe with some birthday money I can order a few yards. I need to learn how to copy this dress, though. anyone want to come teach me? I think that, with this style and my wrap dress, I can party like it's 1975 every day! On a related note, I've watched American Hustle so many times just for the clothes. I don't even pay attention to the story. It's all about the dresses, baby! Have you seen it? Okay, that's all for today. I have some gift knitting to finish that I'll show you later this week - and court to psych myself up for. Wish me luck!