Dear Thief of Time (Dress 194)

Dear Thief of Time,
You're absolutely, without a doubt, one of my five favourite Pratchett books. Susan is one of my favourite characters, and it's really got potential to be one of the next SKY1 adaptations. (Pardon my nerdsplosion here)
So when the main plotpoint is the trapping of the anthropomorphic personification of time (a woman) in a clock, this dress sort of seemed appropriate.
All my love,
IP

Dear Graziella (Dress 178)

Dear Graziella,

Your support of your son is heart warming. For all that you don't understand a lot of what he does, you try, in your way, to encourage him in his love of theatre and film. I assume it is you that bought him the clapperboard.
All my love,
IP

Dear Collectors Everywhere (Dress 133)

Dear Collectors Everywhere,

You have these strange obsessions- you require the most meticulous of specifications in your collecting- autographs must be framed, and mounted, and photos, and strips of film; oh my! Even though he only collects books (which doesn't count. Really! It's exempt in every way... can you tell i'm justifying my own, embarrasing National Geographic collection?) Jorge has a couple of autographs- bought from those collectible poster stores I imagine, and they have little strips of film in them from the films the actors starred in- kindof silly when they're mounted on blue board and you can't see what's on them!

Silly it might be, but it's responsible for today's dress.
All my love,
IP

Dear Phyllis Dietrichson (c/o Barbera Stanwyck) (Dress 130)

Dear Phyllis,

In high school I studied your film Double Indemnity, an intense and visually gorgeous Film Noir, tagline: From the moment they met it was murder!

(image credit)
Nothing sticks from the student of Film Noir like the good ol' Venetian Blinds trick, signifying mixed emotions and internal crisis...

In honor of Phyllis, queen of mixed signals and the tiny touches that make an outfit complete (remember... this is the 1940s, when sexual repression meant an anklet was the height of titilation!)

A dress fit for a murderous widow; hand-painted, each dress is individually 'shadowpainted'. White dresses are made, and then put on plastic-covered dress forms, each dress is taken to a white room where a light is shone through a filter that imitates venetian blinds- the dress is then hand-inked at a particular angle and with a unique light focus (some dresses would be sharp focus, meaning that the light is close to the blinds and very bright, or soft focus is achieved by soft light a distance from the blinds.)

All my love,
IP

Dear Marylin, (Dress 98)

Dear Marylin (and others so endowed),

You actually weren't that busty. Really... I did an assignment on Gender recently, in the artwork of an artist who photographs himself in the guise of other famous photographs, or paintings- he's really interesting, but after having seen his version of a photo of you, the original was surprisingly meek-chested (NB: both contain nudity). Anyhow, what with reading how to lose friends and alienate people I was thinking about old hollywood and the pictures my boyfriend has in his room- Marlon Brando, Audrey Hepburn, Sofia Loren, and dear ol' Marylin. and therefore: a dress for the busty. (even if she wasn't really.) Dress in black and white cotton, with a big bow at the back of the 'belt' section.

All my love,

IP.

Dear Frida (Dress 63)

Dear Frida,
You always entranced me- warm, strong in conviction and passionate. I walked in on my boyfriend's sister watching part of Schindler's List (which I'm embarrased to say I've never seen...) and saw (what I think was) the stunning Caroline Goodall, playing Frau Schindler- a picture of restrained german femininity. I wanted to show that beautiful crispness of her features with a quiet element of Kahloesque rebellion underneath.
(Sorry for the breif blog- but I'm off to keep watching.)

(Dress Specs: pearl beads, with a lace below (b/w pearls and the collar) silk body, hand painted veuns in green-black.)
All my love,

Dear Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin (Dress 11)

Dear Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin,
One of you, I think is hilarious. The other- not so much (could have something to do with the cruel and unusual massacre of one of my favourite plays ever... Cruelty to Rostand: IP says no.)
My point: 1/2 awesome, 1/2 awful, to the power of Academy Awards= pure butt-kissing-hollywood-schmoozing-BOREDOM. We get that Meryl's amazing. We get that you hate Zac Efron and Whatsisface Lautner because they're youthful. We get that ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE who got nominated needed to be mentioned and fauxcomplimented... Even Neil Patrick Harris, song and dancemeister extrordinaire was boring. How is that possible?
But it gave me time to look at the pretty dresses, and the bending motion of the song-and-dance number Vegas Showgirls' fans inspired the corset-boning in the back of this dress.

Off the shoulder burgundy crepe with architectural (metal) boning to enhance the curve of the back.
Now: Alec, man up. Stick with 30 Rock, that's your forte.
All my love,

Dearest Sean Ellis (Dress 4)

Dearest Sean Ellis,

There was this girl walking through the university in a pretty green and white polkadotted dress, and suddenly there sprang to mind this image, Sean Biggerstaff leaning on a freezer, staring, one arm propped up; as a galaxy of frozen peas melt at his feet.
(Cashback, Sean Ellis 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTG7u1R6cUQ&feature=related
(See 1:50-2:05 in particular)
So gather the spots on your dress pretty girl, and you can have a galaxy of peas:
All my love,

Dear Mr Jarmusch (Inspiring.)

Dear Mr Jarmusch,

I think you're almost entirely right.

(Via OutsaPop)

All my love,

IP.