Fashion Victims

[dem]

This looks neat. Anyone read it?

Lael Littke - Prom Dress (Scholastic, 1989)

Blurb:
Robin is too poor to buy a new dress for the prom. Then she finds a perfect, beautiful dress in the attic of her mysterious employer’s house. She “borrows” it to wear to the prom…and dances into her worst nightmare.

Then Felicia finds the dress. The price she pays for wearing it is more than any girl should pay…

But Nicole is too smart to be caught by the dress. Isn’t she? Poor Nicole!

And then there’s Gabrielle, Robin’s little sister. Did she find the dress? Or did the dress find Gabrielle?

Can anyone stop the fatal attraction of the…Prom Dress?

More fatal fashion fails;

Stephen Vincent Benet - The Gold Dress: (The Last Circle, 1946: Avon Fantasy Reader #5, 1947). "She's got a new hairdo, too, and a bare-neck dress. Bare-necked and bare-armed .' she said with a sniff. 'Heathen, I call it."

Gentle New England ghost story. Louella Weedon, a spinster, notorious in life for a strong stubborn streak, won't rest in her grave until she's retrieved the glitter gown and matching slippers she never dared wear for fear of scandalising the neighbourhood.

Andrew James - Sweater: (Jennie Gray [ed], Udolpho #28, Spring 1997). Man has fetish for girls dressed in his best blue turtle-neck. It's outlived several.

J. Wilmer Benjamin - The Man Who Saw Red: (Weird Tales, Nov 1933: Terror by Night, 1934). A murdered man's necktie haunts his killer to insanity.

[dem]

Peter Tinniswood - The Top Coat: (James Hale [ed.] The Thirteenth Ghost Book, 1977: The Second Bumper Book of Ghost Stories, 1978). At close of World War II, Hallam Braddon accepts a teaching post at a private school in an impoverished German town. Those who wear the ginger tweed coat left behind by a former tutor have a habit of disappearing. Strange denouement. Frau Lietner is a dark horse and no mistake.

Frederic Beecher Perkins - Devil-Puzzlers: (Devil-Puzzlers & Other Studies, Putnams, 1877: Basil Davenport [ed.] Deals With The Devil, 1958). Ladies' fashions may have been a mystery to the very worst of Victorians but on this occasion they save a man's soul.

James Reynolds - Badminton in Bloomers: (Ghosts in Irish Houses, Paperback Library 1968). One evening, a delivery boy from Cappoquin was driving his cart up the driveway towards the house. Suddenly his horse shied and reared, snorting, to his hind legs. As the boy sawed wildly on the reins, he saw dancing along the drive in front of him, two tall old women. Slung across their shoulders and hanging in a loop between them, they carried what looked like a badminton net, very much in need of repair. As they skipped off among the trees, shrill laughter died away through the ash branches.

Later that night, when the puzzled boy recounted his story in the pub at Cappoquin, one old man, enjoying the peaty smoke of a black cobeen pipe, nodded his head. “Sure, now, and that'd be the two Miss O'Haggertys. A great pair they were entirely,the like of little childer grown old and tall. Arragh, they haunt the place now, just as they did in life."

Post-mortem adventures of twin terrors Fiona and Rena O'Haggerty of Shireen House who scandalised a county with their modish fashion sense and wild behaviour. "Non-fiction."

While we're on the subject of "authentic ghost stories" this next is possibly stretching the haunted/ killer apparel theme, but a delightful read for fans of the traditional spooky tale.

Jay Russell - De Cold, Cold Décolletage: (Stephen Jones [ed], Dancing With The Dark: True encounters with the paranormal by masters of the macabre, 1997)

[dem]

Stephen Gammell The White Satin Evening Gown

R. H. Barham - Jerry Jarvis's Wig: A Legend of the Weald of Kent : (The Ingoldsby Legends, 1847). Appledore, 1761. A fatal case of daemonic possession. In a rare moment of of charity, lawyer Jeremiah Jarvis gifts a mouldering hairpiece to Old Joseph Washford the gardener to protect his bald head from the sun. Honest Joe's world comes apart as the evil pigtail drives him to theft and murder.

Alvin Schwartz - The White Satin Evening Gown: An undertaker's assistant steals a dead woman's dress, with ghastly results for the next girl to wear it. (Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, Scholastic,1981).

Anon - The Funeral Dress: (Justice Traps the Guilty #11, Aug. 1954). "A TRUE Detective Spotlight Mystery." Ohio, 1924. The small farming community of Hardscrabble is the dreariest place on earth and nobody ever seems to have any fun. Nurse Mamie Done's solitary pleasure is showing off her pretty black satin dress. The problem is, she only gets to wear it to attend funerals. Mamie buys arsenic, does her bit to speed up the mortality rate.

Harold Lawlor - The Girdle of Venus: (Weird Tales, Sept. 1947). It was a narrow jewelled belt of gold mesh, heavily encrusted with sparkling gems, possessed by strange properties. Baby Wilcox buys the diamond-studded belt from a mischief-making old pedlar for a mere $10. Men fall at her feet whenever she wears it. Husband gets peeved. Supernatural comedy. Zero fatalities, true love conquers all, despicably upbeat. Not quite what we are looking for.

Esther M. Friesner - A Beltaine and Suspenders: (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Oct-Nov. 1994) Arthurian fiction, apparently. Available to read on-line, but it is a wise man knows their limitations.

[ripper]

Aug 23, 2018 6:42:54 GMT dem said:

This looks neat. Anyone read it?

Lael Littke - Prom Dress (Scholastic, 1989)

Blurb:
Robin is too poor to buy a new dress for the prom. Then she finds a perfect, beautiful dress in the attic of her mysterious employer’s house. She “borrows” it to wear to the prom…and dances into her worst nightmare.

Then Felicia finds the dress. The price she pays for wearing it is more than any girl should pay…

But Nicole is too smart to be caught by the dress. Isn’t she? Poor Nicole!

And then there’s Gabrielle, Robin’s little sister. Did she find the dress? Or did the dress find Gabrielle?

Can anyone stop the fatal attraction of the…Prom Dress?

More fatal fashion fails;

Stephen Vincent Benet - The Gold Dress: (The Last Circle, 1946: Avon Fantasy Reader #5, 1947). "She's got a new hairdo, too, and a bare-neck dress. Bare-necked and bare-armed .' she said with a sniff. 'Heathen, I call it."

Gentle New England ghost story. Louella Weedon, a spinster, notorious in life for a strong stubborn streak, won't rest in her grave until she's retrieved the glitter gown and matching slippers she never dared wear for fear of scandalising the neighbourhood.

Andrew James - Sweater: (Jennie Gray [ed], Udolpho #28, Spring 1997). Man has fetish for girls dressed in his best blue turtle-neck. It's outlived several.

J. Wilmer Benjamin - The Man Who Saw Red: (Weird Tales, Nov 1933: Terror by Night, 1934). A murdered man's necktie haunts his killer to insanity.

Prom Dress's plot sounds so familiar. I don't think I have read that particular story, but certainly something having a girl finding an old prom dress and bad things ensuing, though I can't put my finger on where I read it. It does remind me a little of the outline for Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987), in which a girl finds the prom accessories of Mary Lou Maloney, who was burned to death at her prom 30 years previously. Girl uses accessories and unleashes the vengeful spirit of Mary Lou.

[cromagnonman]

Sept 1, 2018 10:11:11 GMT ripper said:

Aug 23, 2018 6:42:54 GMT dem said:

This looks neat. Anyone read it?

Lael Littke - Prom Dress (Scholastic, 1989)

Blurb:
Robin is too poor to buy a new dress for the prom. Then she finds a perfect, beautiful dress in the attic of her mysterious employer’s house. She “borrows” it to wear to the prom…and dances into her worst nightmare.

Then Felicia finds the dress. The price she pays for wearing it is more than any girl should pay…

But Nicole is too smart to be caught by the dress. Isn’t she? Poor Nicole!

And then there’s Gabrielle, Robin’s little sister. Did she find the dress? Or did the dress find Gabrielle?

Can anyone stop the fatal attraction of the…Prom Dress?

More fatal fashion fails;

Stephen Vincent Benet - The Gold Dress: (The Last Circle, 1946: Avon Fantasy Reader #5, 1947). "She's got a new hairdo, too, and a bare-neck dress. Bare-necked and bare-armed .' she said with a sniff. 'Heathen, I call it."

Gentle New England ghost story. Louella Weedon, a spinster, notorious in life for a strong stubborn streak, won't rest in her grave until she's retrieved the glitter gown and matching slippers she never dared wear for fear of scandalising the neighbourhood.

Andrew James - Sweater: (Jennie Gray [ed], Udolpho #28, Spring 1997). Man has fetish for girls dressed in his best blue turtle-neck. It's outlived several.

J. Wilmer Benjamin - The Man Who Saw Red: (Weird Tales, Nov 1933: Terror by Night, 1934). A murdered man's necktie haunts his killer to insanity.

Prom Dress's plot sounds so familiar. I don't think I have read that particular story, but certainly something having a girl finding an old prom dress and bad things ensuing, though I can't put my finger on where I read it. It does remind me a little of the outline for Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987), in which a girl finds the prom accessories of Mary Lou Maloney, who was burned to death at her prom 30 years previously. Girl uses accessories and unleashes the vengeful spirit of Mary Lou.

Its doubtless not the book you had in mind, but there is a novel called THE DEVIL'S DRESS by Ann Stubbington. I haven't read it but I know of it because the author is/was married to the war writer Colin Stubbington who was my next door neighbour but one when I was a lad. Good books he wrote too.

[dem]

Sept 1, 2018 10:59:43 GMT cromagnonman said:

Its doubtless not the book you had in mind, but there is a novel called THE DEVIL'S DRESS by Ann Stubbington. I haven't read it but I know of it because the author is/was married to the war writer Colin Stubbington who was my next door neighbour but one when I was a lad. Good books he wrote too.

The wife of your ex next-door-neighbour-but-one's novel has been on my wants list for nine years ...

Blurb: The Devil's Dress

... but then, what hasn't?

[ripper]

Sept 1, 2018 10:59:43 GMT cromagnonman said:

Sept 1, 2018 10:11:11 GMT ripper said:

Prom Dress's plot sounds so familiar. I don't think I have read that particular story, but certainly something having a girl finding an old prom dress and bad things ensuing, though I can't put my finger on where I read it. It does remind me a little of the outline for Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987), in which a girl finds the prom accessories of Mary Lou Maloney, who was burned to death at her prom 30 years previously. Girl uses accessories and unleashes the vengeful spirit of Mary Lou.

Its doubtless not the book you had in mind, but there is a novel called THE DEVIL'S DRESS by Ann Stubbington. I haven't read it but I know of it because the author is/was married to the war writer Colin Stubbington who was my next door neighbour but one when I was a lad. Good books he wrote too.

I've not heard of The Devil's Dress, but it's another to put on my ever expanding list of books of interest.

[dem]

G. L. Raisor - The Old Black Hat: (Night Cry, Winter 1986). Goody-goody Sarah finds a "magic" shiny black top hat and puts it on Uncle Bill, which certainly livens up his funeral ....

Alvin Schwartz - The Brown Suit: (More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, 1986). Never complain to the undertaker if your late husband has been readied for burial in the wrong clothes.

E. F. Benson - Dummy On A Dahabeah: (The Story-Teller, June 1913: The Flint Knife, 1988). A game of whist aboard a boat on the Nile. A highly flammable dress brought Mrs. Brookfield's life to an abrupt end, but she'll not let the incident disrupt her cards.

Hyang Ro Kim

James van Hise - Weird Lingerie Tales: (Locus #308, Sept. 1986). Article. When the brief (2 issues) Brian Forbes incarnation of WT went tits up.

Read it on Sevagram. A. E. Van Vogt blog

[dem]

Clyde Mitchell (Randall Garrett & Robert Silverberg) - The Mummy Takes a Wife: (Fantastic, Dec. 1956). Mad Sorcerer secures the Belt of Osiris around waist of a mummy bound for Miskatonic University. As top Egyptologist Dr. Avery Armitage hesitantly explains to avid daughter, Linda, the diamond-studded girdle is reputed to confer immortality and "tremendous physical and - uh - amorous powers."

Anonymous - Pink Tights (Scary For Kids. com, March 2016): A prolific serial strangler has a thing about them. You can read it on Scary For Kids which also features, among several other horror & creepy shorts, truncated versions of Oscar Cook's Boomerang (as Earwig) and Edogawa Rampo's The Human Chair.

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

Peter Strickland's new film, In Fabric, tells the story of a cursed dress as it moves from owner to owner;
deadline.com/2018/08/in-fabric-first-look-peter-strickland-marianne-jean-baptiste-toronto-film-festival-video-1202454585/

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

Jun 5, 2018 20:13:43 GMT helrunar said:

I know it's off topic, but the funniest story in Steve Coogan's 2001 miniseries Dr Terrible's House of Horrible is something called "And now the Fearing," which is a spoof of the Amicus film Vault of Horror (hmm, that title seems strangely familiar). And the funniest snippet in "Fearing" involves a killer Danish modern coffee table. I laugh every time I revisit that thing.

cheers, H.

I'm a big fan of And Now The Fearing, which manages to make an effective little portmanteau in only 30 minutes. The only thing that could have improved it, to my mind, would have been to have Geoffrey Bayldon in it as the lift attendant.

[dem]

Guy de Maupassant - The Mother Of Monsters: An impoverished mother-to-be accidentally hits on a lucrative sideline when she fashions a rudimentary corset from wood and rope.

Donald Olson - Esther's Dress: (Eleanor Sullivan [ed] Alfred Hitchcock's Tales To Send Shivers Down Your Spine, Davis, 1969: Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, May 1970). "These cats around here are all worked up because she's wearing the same dress today she wore yesterday and the day before ... The way they talk you'd think there was a law against it." Mr. Hempel's new secretary sets off the look with the same brown shoes, same bow in her hair, same yellow rosebud corsage (this last, obviously, fresh every morning). At first everyone believes she only has the one dress, but no. She has an entire wardrobe of the same garment. Esther's dress is the scandal of the office until the rumour mill finally provides some dirt on the Lady in brown. Seems she and Ade Kelly were fired from their previous job over an 'illicit' love affair. By the time we learn the terrible truth of their poisonous relationship, both are dead by their own hand.

[dem]

Donald R. Burleson - Callahan's Coat: (Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg, Martin H. Greenberg (eds.) - Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, 1998). The fuses blow during a lightening storm, leaving the widow alone in the dark. Despised late husband's old brown coat comes at her across the room ....

Phyllis Eisenstein - Boxes: (Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg, Martin H. Greenberg (eds.) - Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, 1998). Someone is sending unmarked packages to Bob and Sheila. The first contains a plastic raincoat and a slip of paper, "inspected by No. 22," the second, a purple wig. They learn from bitter experience not to dispose of these items ....

Yvonne Navarro - Rosner's Hat: (Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg, Martin H. Greenberg (eds.) - Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, 1998). A street thug finds a grimy, beat up Fedora in an alley infamous for it's appalling murder rate ...

Robert Devereaux - Pullover: (Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg, Martin H. Greenberg (eds.) - Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, 1998). Frizell's "old reliable" purple jumper turns treacherous.

Will be generous and grant this next borderline case status.

Mrs. Elizabeth Longenecker - The Phantom of the Bonnet Woman: (Ghost Stories, July 1929). The Reading, Pennsylvania farmland is haunted by the 'Hoot Frau,' a phantom woman-bird hybrid with huge eyes, a long, sharp beak where it's nose and mouth should be and talons for fingers. A long flowing dress and a huge bonnet complete the look. "True," obviously.

[dem]

Thanks to Cauldron Brewer for nominating this next, a Fashion Victims classic.

Cornell Woolrich - I'm Dangerous Tonight: (All-American Fiction, Nov. 1937: Vampire's Honeymoon, Carroll & Graf, 1985). "One night in Paris the devil whispered to the dressmaker - and so was created the flaming red gown that changed ten tangled lives."

Nigel Taylor - Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes: (Mystery Tour (Winton, 2018). Could be they contribute nothing to her diabolical powers, but best play safe and avoid Hammer starlet Penny Beswick when she's wearing her signature turquoise hot pants.

Possible contenders;

R. Thurston Hopkins - The Scarlet Girdle: (H. Norman Evans [ed] Tales of the Uncanny #2, World's Work, April 1938). No possible about it - we don't need to have read this to know a dead cert when we spot one. Author = Thurston Hopkins = it's haunted.

Bron Fane (R. Lionel Fanthorpe) - Girdle of Fear: (Supernatural Stories #101, Badger, Dec. 1965). Bron Fane's fast moving supernatural adventure thrillers have earned him an undeniable place among the Masters of the Macabre. His latest contribution Girdle of Fear recounts the strange sequence of sinister events which surrounds a mysterious little boy.

Admittedly, very little in the above to build a case on, but, as the Reverend explained to Steve Holland in 1st Paperback & Pulp Fair Souvenir Booklet (Zeon, Sept. 1991), "It was ... necessary to keep the back cover intro's vague because I hadn't yet thought up the plot."

[helrunar]

Great drawing!

It would seem that Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe aka Bron Fane aka multiple other pseudonyms writes/pontificates/edits/appears on telly in lieu of bodily functions:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Fanthorpe

Wife Patricia is his manager. No doubt she runs a tight ship.

As I am sure we all know, the word "girdle" is sometimes misleading in older fiction. Up until some time I am unable to determine (1930s?) it commonly was used to refer to a belt.

I can remember my aunts and other older female visitors to our home complaining about what may well have been a "girdle of terror" back in my long ago childhood in the vanished 1960s.

cheers, H.