LA’s recent post left me thinking about the contrast between the allure of the LBD (little black dress) and the less alluring notion of BCLLA (black-clad librarianesqe ladies’ attire). LA wrote:
I don’t have much to say about the dullness of these black-clad librarianesqe ladies’ attire. It’s dull. There. BUT I think I might have to adopt “festive and feminine” as my personal summer style mantra.
I wonder where is the practical difference between these two Platonic garment ideas that has fueled their respective connotations. The LBD enjoys notions of simplicity, practicality, and glamor, but the later substitute’s the sheen and opalescence of “glamor” for just the opposite, dullness. The difference between the two ideas seems to be essentially a combination of the following: a) hemlines b) cleverness of construction and c) fit.
Now according to Wikipedia the legend of the LBD specifies that it is “cut simply and often quite short.” The legend of the librarian diverges depending on whether you take the school marm legend (in which case don’t expect to see any knee) or you prefer the promiscuous, minx-like, or naughty librarian stereotype (in which case expect to see much more).
What’s a style conscious, professionally minded, school of information graduate to do? Where the rest of the world sees two categories in which to fit librarians’ attire either a) school marm or b) slut, we live a outside of these distinctions.
Since the cocktail dress characterization of the LBD doesn’t fit within the working environments of the information professional you might wonder aloud “Where’s our LBD!?” I think we should look to a even more versatile approach to this garment one that is more glamor appropriate (perhaps less Lipstick Jungle as the one pictured above), one that is more situated to the real life working conditions for those outside of Madison Ave.
Wikipedia describes the LBD as
Because it is meant to be a staple of the wardrobe for a number of years, the style of the little black dress ideally should be as simple as possible: a short black dress that is too clearly part of a trend would not qualify because it would soon appear dated.
Doesn’t the dress pictured below fulfill all of those requirements?! Yes it does and how!
The garment shown above is a blank canvas. It seems to balance the need for versatility and practicality in a librarian’s LBD while giving a 1-2 punch of moxie. Further still it seems that this dress derives its talismanic quality from is ability to amplify the wearer’s unique and quirky sense of style. Interestingly this dress, which is made with almost no embellishment, bears no likeness to the attire we see in the oft cited source of Librarian fashion plates, Anthropologie (as EV has discussed in a related post). Instead this dress uses the cleverness of its simple design to provide at least a year’s worth of great outfits. The cut of the dress invites interpretation as you can see below.
Worn as a jumper over pants.
Worn as a business-appropriate statement on modern art.
Worn as topper to a steam punk inspired skirt channeling Marie Curie perhaps.
Worn as a Hump-day (by which I mean middle-of-week-I-woke-up-late-and-almost-missed-my-train) dress which was simply accessorized to emphasize graphic impact and comfort. (Although racier interpretations of “hump day” don’t seem out of the question.)
So readers, do the possibilities seem endless to you? If they don’t yet then take a look at the blog dedicated to perpetrating good in the world using this marvelous dress by visiting http://www.theuniformproject.com/year1.
For those of you interested getting your own LBD check out their store at which you can either 1) buy an LBD or 2) buy the pattern and fabric. As soon as my pocket book allows I hope to invest in one myself!
Much Love!
//ecw a.k.a. miss-zola
