Day 11

I nearly wrote a post blaming our big plans for Kate going down the toilet this weekend on Kate's penchant for overindulgence. But I promised myself I wouldn't start talking about the mannequin as if she were a real person, making cracks about "Kate doing this and Kate doing that." Guys who personify mannequins are akin to crazy cat ladies. In any case, our plan to dress Kate up more extravagantly than usual didn't pan out. In fact, we didn't change her clothes at all.

if it's all the same to you (I'm sure it will be) the mannequin is just going to lounge around in a nightgown that Deborah bought for a goth photoshoot. Come to think of it, that never really went as planned, either.

Day 8

"The kid's feet stay in the picture."

Deborah is running low on dresses (clean ones anyway) so she suggested this skirt because it unzips all the way, making it just as easy, if not easier, to throw on a mannequin. It's from Diesel and Deborah bout it as a consolation prize after trying on a coat she loved but couldn't afford.

Sticking with the classic cheesball movies from the 70's theme, I pulled out Deborah's vintage Urban Cowboy T-shirt. Deborah bought it roughly 14 years ago at a used clothing store on the south side of Williamsburg called Domsey's Warehouse. Ironically, just as the new wave of hipster fashion plates were really taking over the neighborhood, the building was sold and Domsey's closed shop. The kids missed out because unlike Beacon's Closet, or any of the countless "vintage" shops around town, Domsey's was cheap. For a couple of bucks and a little work, you could walk out of there with enough clothes to stock your own chi-chi vintage boutique -- which I'm sure more than a few people did.

I think Domsey's is still around in another incarnation -- a smaller store somewhere in Brooklyn. But the clothes are mostly from Old Navy and The Children's Place.

I know I just used the cowboy hat, but it seemed obvious to throw it on again.

Day 7

"I love the eighties, and I hear they're making a comeback!"

As you may know, Deborah designs jewelry. So why isn't there any jewelry on Kate? For one thing, although Deborah enjoys making jewelry, she doesn't necessarily like wearing it so there aren't a lot of accessories lying around. And so far my approach has been to pick up the easiest-to-fit dress I see, throw it on the mannequin and take a picture, without going overboard with a complete outfit or "look." But I realize that it will get boring soon, if it hasn't already, so this weekend I promise to get more creative, and hopefully get Deborah more directly involved. (The length of time it takes Deborah to get dressed in the mornings is directly correlated to the amount of time she has and she doesn't settle on an outfit until she looks up, sees the clock and realizes, "Shit, I'm late." In other words, during the week, she barely has time to dress herself, let alone help me dress a mannequin, too.)

Anyway, speaking of jewelry...

A boutique in Park Slope called Ai Ai Gasa, recently closed shop, but before they did, they were Deborah's biggest client. Deborah would go there once a month or so to drop off her new jewelry designs, and pick up a check for whatever the store had sold, however, the store owner didn't always have the cash on hand, and she would often try to convince Deborah to take clothes on trade. Even when she did give Deborah a check, Deborah often found it hard to walk out of there without spending some of it in the store.

This is one such item. A shirt, or a dress? I'm not sure, but since Kate isn't going to be facing the pervs on the subway, she can wear it as a dress. She doesn't even need to wear underwear..

"You're a maniac," I said, when Deborah first bought it home, expecting her to start dancing like she's never danced before.

(I should get her to pose in it with her oxy-acetylene torch.)

I think she only wore it out of the house once. She tries it on now and then, but it usually gets tossed into the reject pile.

Day 6

You may have seen pictures of Deborah wearing this dress on The Known Universe. She wears it a lot.

Deborah and I were both working right up until our wedding and Deborah was frustrated that she hadn't had time to buy herself a sundress for our honeymoon. "I need a little summer dress," she said. When I had an unexpected day off the day before the wedding, I ran into H&M and bought the most summer looking sun dress I saw.

Luckily it fit.

Deborah bought the hat at a place called "Jolley's Western Wear" in St. George, Utah, on the second to last day of the honeymoon.

"I know it's kind of boring,' I said to Deborah when I told her I was posting this dress. "We'll have to start getting a little more creative."

"We can go shopping for dresses this weekend," she said.

"Uh oh."

"At Beacon's Closet," she said. "Just some cheap dresses, maybe some hats...we don't have to spend a lot of money."

And so it begins.

"I have a feeling my wardrobe is going to start taking an interesting turn," she said.

Day 5

Blue cotton jersey shirt dress. Label reads: "Design History."

Before moving in with me, Deborah lived a few doors down from a popular used clothing store in Park Slope, Brooklyn called Beacon's Closet. She shared her apartment with two guys and didn't have much in the way of closet space. In fact, she didn't have any. But she didn't need it because Beacon's closet not only sells used clothes but buys them too, and rather than keep a closet full of clothes, Deborah used Beacon's Closet as a kind of lending library. Whenever she felt like she needed a new outfit, she'd sell a couple of things to the store and use the credit to buy something else.

It wsn't a perfect system. The store didn't always buy back something they'd just sold a month before, and nothing was more frustrating than trying to figure out the whims of the snotty kids behind the buying counter.

Either way, since moving in with me, Beacon's Closet isn't convenient anymore, and Deborah's last Beacon Closet finds became frozen in time.

She still likes this dress, though, and wears it now and then.

Are these little stories necessary?

Day 4

Like I said, easy on, east off. Here's little no-name number from Deborah's favorite store, Gabriel Brothers (a.k.a. "Gabe's"), an off-price chain with two locations near her hometown in western PA. Her very first job was in the Men's Department of the Gabe's in Belle Vernon, which you'd think would be enough to put her off ever shopping there, but no, if she doesn't make it to at least one Gabe's when she goes home for a visit, she's not very pleasant to be around.

Day 3

A brown cotton dress with pink elasticized waist by "Lacey J Collection" bought at a thrift store in western Pennsylvania.

This little project is a pain in the ass (especially since I suspect it only has one reader) and I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it up. In the meantime, expect to see a lot of easy on/easy off dresses.

Day 2

Vintage blue polyester dress from Cindy Juniors by LeBoff Montreal.

Day 1

No clothes yet, she just arrived.