i know i am a complete bimbo because when i was lying in bed the past week i kept hallucinating about food and clothes. it's been a long time since i have had a new dress. of course i've had new clothes - but i haven't had a dress made up for me for five years. i keep meaning to, but i haven't been able to spend a proper break at home yet. this summer then. well i'll tell you about it shall i, what i was thinking about in bed, and if you don't want to hear about clothes you can skip the entry. two new cheongsams: one will be a modified cheongsam, you step into it and zip it up the back instead of having to close up the front. it should come to about three or four inches below the knee, with the slits behind instead of at the sides, and with capsleeve trimmed in contrasting, fluttery lace. a silk crepe so that it would fall softly, one with very very small polka dots, in a pale grey-blue or light yellow or maybe a very pale apple or cucumber green. the lace should be in yellow for the blue-grey, olive or moss for the other two. i've seen a qipao-inspired galliano dress that is much like what i have in mind only i can't find a picture of it. i assure you there is such a thing but anyway. the other would be cut very traditionally, but in a very modern fabric and an eyecatching colour - thai silk, not chinese, in a coppery green, or a deep lustrous black-grape, or copenhagen blue, or an intense peacock shade, or silver-green. reaching the middle of the calf, with a stiff high collar (at least 3 inches - none of those wimpy thin rectangular collars) discreetly trimmed in the same colour, sleeveless, with traditional knotted buttons in contrast, and that additional tuck under the chest-line to keep it all close to the body.

and really i want everyday cheongsams in cotton, the kind your mothers wore: vertical swathes of colour of greens and golds and blues! abstract swirls! geometric patterns! tiny stripes in apricot and oyster and pistachio! dots! checks! handpainted flowers! one for every day of month!

and of course now that i am living here i need an dress that i can wear in the winter. something warm and heavy, but not fussy. with sleeves of course. probably a princess cut dress with a sabrina or sweetheart neckline, very tight around the waist, what you might see in 1950s fashion magazines, probably a wide sash around the waist too, the sash in a contrasting colour, and a circle skirt, long but not so long that when you hop onto the train it would trail on the floor or get in the snow, a slight v-shaped back with covered buttons but only decorative ones, i never can button myself up the back. maybe in burnout velvet but it has to be the right kind. but more likely alaskine or ziberline, something heavy and structured, so that the skirt would pretend to stand you see in that 1950s way without me having to dredge up a crinoline somewhere. besides which they have a pleasing, subtle sheen which velvet doesn't quite have velvet seems to drink up light doesn't it and anyway velvet is so boring half the velvet gowns out there especially those with empire waists automatically make you look like a schoolgirl off to a choir competition.

and then there are quite a few pieces of fabric which my mother hadn't used for her wedding which she says i can have. in particular there is a very beautiful black and white piece of silk batik which i want made into a mock sarong skirt with press studs and sewn-down pleats.