Oops! I misspelled help in the title... Okay so I have this dress that I want my character to wear in my book. But I cannot describe the dress. If you know what the style is called or any way I can describe the way it looks (as in how it's cut) then that would be great! here is a picture of a dress like it (the second one from the camera): http://www.flickr.com/photos/partycloz/245531671/ Thank you SOOO much!
it's not 'brocade'... just semi-embroidered fabric... to me, it's a... classically simple strapless gown of pale grey embroidered silk, with an asymmetrical overpanel revealing a less-heavily embroidered underskirt i'm a former clothing/costume designer/seamstress and that's as close as i can get, without a better view and technical input on the fabric...
a strap-less, cinderella-esque eveing gown that wishes to be a wedding gown but can only ever aspire to be a prom dress.
When I read I would rather know how it looks on the woman and how it makes the woman look. Does it prop her breast up showing a lot of cleavage? Does it accentuate her hour glass figure? Does it hid her stick figure? Her strapless, pale-grey dress of semi-embroidered fabric accentuated her thin waist, hugged her hips, and flared out a bit. A V-slit on the side revealed a less embroidered under fabric. But unless she is wearing this dress for a very important reason I wouldn’t want to read a long description about a dress. So, I would drop the second sentence for example, and probably shorten the first. Her strapless dress of pale grey accentuated her thin waist. Also, here is my opinion. If every reader doesn’t imagine the dress differently, it is overly described.
What does your POV character see? If he or she is fashion-savvy, then go for a fashionista description. Otherwise, describe it in terms the POV character would use, what he or she would notice about it. It would sound odd to have a construction worker ogling a lady walking past to describe her as wearing a champagne silk blouse and a knee-length charcoal skirt. He'd notice the tight butt and the way her bazongas are stretching her top. I'm exaggerating a bit, but toi make a point. Always remember that the narrator has a vocabulary that may not simply be the writer's normal vocabulary. If you do research to extend your covabulary to allow you to write the narration, you'll need to go beyond just a few specialized terms. You need to be able to put your head in te same place, to know what detais to notice and which ones to have pass right by you.
I don't like that one. I like the other one better. Ooh! Let's see if you can find the one I picked! Victorie eyed the failed contraption that somehow passed as a "dress" in polite society. A curtain of ruffles cascaded down the skirt, producing the awe-inspiring illusion that the wearer was, in fact, a drape rather than an actual person. Gaudy and outlandish, the colors that marred the polyester looked as though they were the bastard children of Rainbow Brite's love affair with Sherbet Icecream. But, Victorie had to admit shrewdly, the dress served her purpose well. She would sneak into the clown convention at midnight, and then, and only then, clad in her ghastly dress, would she finally enact her revenge on the Circus King.
