Okay, it’s official. I have a thing for Trashy Diva. My wishlist has become suddenly and alarmingly full, but can you blame me? With their chambray, their gingham, their seersucker, oh my! What’s a girl supposed to do, really, other than develop the urge to put everything into her cart?

So many of their pieces have a lovely southern flare, evoking hot, lazy summer days spent sipping lemonade and sheltering in the shade, even for those of us who only know of these things from books and movies and daydreams. After recently buying and loving their Seersucker Apple Tart dress, I was itching to choose my next purchase. Enter the dress of my chambray dreams, Trixie.

Dress: Chambray Trixie dress by Trashy Diva
Hair Flower: Felicity Orchid Double by Daisy Jean Florals
Brooch: 2 Pack Circle Brooches from ASOS
Bangles: Select bangles from Primark stack (in store)
Wedges: Old season New Look

The straighter bustline of this dress is what most drew me to it with it’s simple but striking folds. The fact that it’s made of a soft chambray with a full circle skirt just makes the package all the better. The back and sides of this dress are shirred elastic, meaning it’s really comfortable and has tons of give. The website states the structured under bodice is akin to a bra, with support helped by the halter straps, but I don’t like wearing my halter straps too tight or else I get a head and neck ache, so I personally don’t feel the structure mentioned is intensive enough to support an ample bossom alone without the straps doing most of the–begging your pardon–heavy lifting there. That said, it’s nice that the bust lining and structure is substantial enough not to show the colour or outline of your bra if you do wear one, which is one of my pet peeves in dresses made of a lower quality than this.

The full circle skirt can take a petticoat as large as you wish, fitting even my mammothly puffy Madeline from Malco Modes, but I like to wear this dress more casually with a medium volume petticoat as pictured. Since I’m not a great lover of halternecks for the above mentioned reason, I’m tempted to sew these straps into the back of this bodice to look like standard shoulder straps. However I do think there’s something lovely about the way the angle of the halter straps frames this bustline, for which I have such a (probably inexplicably) strong love.

I ordered the Trixie in the 14, which the size chart for this dress states as being up to 34inches in the waist. I found the waist flat measures at 33inches, with the shirring meaning it can flat stretch to 36 inches easily, so I there’s much more give in this dress than the chart credits. The bust is listed as 38+ inches which is accurate as I flat stretched it to 42, so that shirring allows lots of stretch there too.

I also feel it sits quite long in the bodice, measuring at almost 12 inches long from the top one cup to the waistband, which hits me an inch or so lower than my true waist, so I have to tighten the halter straps to adjust that. The skirt is 27 inches long, so as I’m 5ft 7 that makes it a lovely modest length on me.

The chambray Trixie dress comes in sizes XS-XXL and costs $163. The Trixie is a Trashy Diva staple dress style, so it also comes available in 5 other colours and prints and is regularly released in new variations. If you love the design of the bodice of the Trixie dress, it’s also available as a Trixie top, currently in 10 different prints and colours, also regularly released in new colourways.

Trashy Diva offer free domestic shipping on orders over $200, with regular promotional periods of that qualifying amount dropping to $50. They also offer promotional periods of free international shipping over orders of $200.