The U.P. LBD: $150
I'm back in the US of A, and my temporary drought of inspirational shit that I want to buy but am not has been remedied, and in spades. Our country may lack in some areas - culture, charisma, production of svelte children - but temptation-peddling is not one of them. Not a day has passed without some mental battle being waged between my inner consumer and my not-yet-concretely-employed guilt center. Daily, I'm fairly certain that everything would be okay if I just caved in a bought some beer, a hybrid car, a $7 loaf of artisanal whole grain bread, and some spunky new clothes. Which brings us to the UP LBD. There's this brilliant project, where a lovely woman wore the same style of dress (I think she had 7 identical ones) every day for a year, only changing the accessories and other clothing pieces she jazzed it up with. The over-arching idea being to deliver a swift kick in the nuts to disposable, non-sustainable fashion, and to raise a bunch of money for kids to go to school in India. Great, right? I adore this idea, partly because of the sustainability bit, but mainly because the fashion-impaired part of me really, really likes the idea of having a very defined framework to buy clothes and dress within. I tend to be much more creative when I've got some constraints. Also, the vast majority of my current wardrobe is really sad and ratty-looking, and if I'm going to be teaching come September (some serious wood-knocking, here), I'm going to need some wardrobe CPR. See how nice that all works out? Nose-thumbing to the fashion industry, a hip new look, presentable for the children? But the catch: The UP LBD (The Uniform Project Little Black Dress, as best as I can figure) will set me back one hundred and fifty bones, and I'm fairly sure that my hoo-hah shan't be covered by it's microscopic design.
Curses! Off to find a seamstress. Or dust off my sewing machine and learn how to make a buttonhole.
