Chapter Eight

[valadilenne]

Retracing her steps with experience and knowledge would be far easier, and she could have a better look at things without insane people pirouetting around singing about whatever nonsense a “Sheik of Araby” was.
And by people, she means the insane. And by the insane, she means the Hatter. And by Sheik of Araby, he's doubly poking fun at Rudolph Valentino and the song by Louis Prima.

She popped her head up to see a young boy in dark knickerbockers leaning in an effortless slouch against a tree nearby, his dark fringe poking out from underneath the brim of a Gatsby.
This is what a Gatsby looks like: http://www.mensflair.com/ns/media/hat-gatsby-newsboy.jpg The hat is on the left; Robert Redford playing Jay Gatsby is on the right.

The one on the left, however, had a golden slingshot with a purple handle in his hand, the other a toy pop gun in the same violent colors.
Tools in the Animal Crossing series turn purple and gold when they become unbreakable or gain extra powers. I play way too much Animal Crossing.

“Have you asked the Cheshire Cat?”
“I haven't seen him yet. I've only just begun; I don't really know where to start.”
Another hint at the vagaries of time—Alice has talked to the Cat in our timeline, but here she hasn't seen him yet.

the sun was at a slant in the sky and there had been neither here nor there of the person on everyone's mind and tongue.
ROFL ROFL ROFL

the sun's reflection in the large window with gold lettering perfectly copied from the shop sign showed her only beige oilcloth shades
Oilcloth was the precursor to vinyl in the days before plastics became common. They still have beige vinyl shades in a lot of public school buildings; I remember how strongly they could block out the light.

She recognized it from somewhere a very long time ago, and that single memory brought forth the smell of her mother's Cottleston Pie...
Cottleston pie isn't real—it's from a poem by A.A. Milne that goes:
“Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,
A fish can't whistle and neither can I.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.”

no settling of gold dust between the follicles after a particularly high-spirited afternoon too near the lapidary's workbench.
A lapidary is a jewel-cutter or gem expert—presumably he would work with gold, too.

He flexed his fingers, adjusting the gloves—for it seemed her call to reality had been the sound of his palm work gloves going back on with some haste--and smiled his usual genial lightness.
He manages to change the subject pretty quick, doesn't he?

“It's a picture hat.”
“The picture hat?” Alice said with some excitement.
Thomas Gainsborough painted a portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire wearing a very beautiful hat similar to the one in many of Tissot's paintings (which is the one Alice receives).

“Are these all yours? I did not imagine you a milliner, I thought you specialized in gentleman's headgear.”
Hat-making requires a lot of work and a lot of skill—you can't just switch back and forth between women's and men's hats all willy-nilly. The Hatter is particularly gifted, I suppose, though he doesn't make millnery his main specialty, even if he did pluck all the peacocks of their feathers in that episode the Hare alludes to. One thinks perhaps he's been banned from doing things like that in the interim.