In honor of the final Total Rewards post in the series, I thought I’d wrap up the way I began; with a dream post. Street-style is all about making fashion accessible and bringing it down to earth. Sometimes, though, you just want to escape into the world where women buy Rodarte dresses at the drop of a hat. The ability to purchase – and wear – exquisite pieces of art is not in and of itself a guarantee of happiness, yet why do so many women (myself included) lust after them? Perhaps its the magic such a garment represents, which is really nothing more than illusion, even for the woman wearing it. One of fashion’s most important powers is to act as a smoke screen, or a philosophers stone, allowing us to conjure up our dreams with something tangible.

Bottom line? In an ideal world, someday I will be lounging around in this incredible dress. Rodarte’s Fall 2008 collection has always been one of my favorites, not least of all because I went through a horror anime phase in high school. Someday, maybe… we can dream, right?