What’s old in fashion is always new again — and I would certainly rather steal from the Regency period than from the 1980s. While the west coast hipsters gradually descend into ’80s-ville and drag the rest of us with them, I’m fighting the trend and trying to stay true to my own style. The biggest style issue I’m facing right now is the search for an evening dress for the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart/RITA awards ceremony. It’s a posh, glittery affair, and since I’m a Golden Heart finalist this year, I’d like to look my best.

But where, in the name of all that’s holy, can I find a dress that is both demure and cutting-edge, classic and modern? And is there any magic potion that can make me look taller than 5’0″? I can’t find anything for my height problem (other than unwearably high heels), but I may be onto something for the dress…

During the Regency, vertical stripes were in. The dress on the left is from 1810, and you can see the usual odd tradeoffs made by Regency women — anything above the ankle was much too scandalous to be shown, but one’s breasts could (and should!) be displayed just above a precariously high waist. For evening, sleeves could be quite short, but some desultory attempt to cover at least a bit of the shoulder was de rigueur. While this lady has taken one of her gloves off (she’s such a shameless hussy), gloves were always worn when out of doors, and ladies usually wore quite long gloves with their evening gowns.

Sadly, I don’t own any hats or bonnets; I haven’t even had a baseball cap since I was in high school, and since I wasn’t invited to the royal wedding, I haven’t invested in any grand hats or fascinators. I may be living the hip Regency writer life, but there’s little use for dress hats when my social life typically consists of going out for casual dinners. But, the vertical stripes are quite flattering for someone of my, er, modest height. And, I’ve always found the empire waistline to be more flattering for my figure than anything else — so perhaps stealing from the Regency will work for me.

During my search, I stumbled across this dress from Betsey Johnson. I usually avert my gaze when I walk past her store in the mall, since most of the dresses seem to just barely cover one’s girly parts and I have nowhere to wear them to even if I wasn’t afraid of a Britney Spears circa 2008 display of all my goods whenever sitting down or exiting cars. But, this dress is lovely. It’s made of taffeta, which existed during the Regency, and it has the lovely striped theme that I’m looking for. It also has a banded empire waist like so many Regency dresses, without giving me a thrust-up shelf of cleavage that would be utterly wasted on an audience of 2000 women with hardly a male in sight. It’s hip, fresh, feminine, interesting…and, sadly, $450. A Regency heiress wouldn’t bat an eyelash at that, but I’m not quite an heiress, so I suppose it’s back to the drawing board.

Are you looking for a dress for a special occasion? What have you found? If you’re not looking for a dress but would like to contribute to my dress fund, please feel free to email me