Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

So, last weekend before our delicious dinner at Hui Guan (回館) - which I still highly recommend by the way, they seem to do no wrong - Emily and I went to Dihua Street. In my free time, I've been rambling around their fabric market looking for wedding dress fabrics because hey, what a great reason to get a pretty dress made. By the time I brought Emily along, I had a good working knowledge of where to get what in that area - which street has the most bead and ribbon stores, which sells the most expensive fabrics, where to get funky borders, which stall in the main market has the most Chinese fabrics to choose from...so we managed it in pretty short order.

The tailor I like works in the stinky part of the market next door, but I've had her do stuff for me before and she's done an excellent job, so even though her stall is tiny and the market smells like fish guts, I'm having her do the honors.

I've known for awhile that I don't want a white dress. I have a lot of reasons that I won't get into now (I typed them out and it sounded a bit 'ranty' so I deleted the paragraph). Suffice it to say that I just don't like the white-spectrum (white, ecru, champagne, ivory, bone, cream) dresses that the Wedding Industrial Complex insists we buy. I don't like 'em and they're too expensive, to boot.

So, I chose this:

The main color will be cranberry dupioni (Thai double-weave silk) (top left), with the others as accents, mostly in the wide sash you can see on one of the 2 dresses that I'm using for inspiration.

It's hard to tell but the ivory dupioni (bottom) and vintage Japanese obi match perfectly, the copper is darker and shinier in real life and the cranberry, when in the light, takes on something of a flame color.

For shoes, I want these, though I may also get a pair of heels, since I'll wear them again anyway:


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