Every woman needs a red dress. This is a truth universally acknowledged–or, at least, it should be. Personally I believe every woman may only need one, but it’s best to have three: one cocktail dress, one casual day dress, and another that’s somewhere in between, simple enough to be dressed up for evening or down for day. I own a sarong wiggle dress in red for evening, a red sailor style dress for day, but somehow I’ve never quite found my in-between. Ah, until now.

I recently discovered that Tatyanna.co.uk is beginning a sale today, Friday 14th November, which is awesome because this is a site that stocks a lot of my favourite high quality reproduction brands, and of course who doesn’t love a sale? One of the items that is in said sale is a dress I have now fallen in love with: the red Milan dress by Heart of Haute.

This dress is sleeveless deep V-neck swing dress, fitted at the waist and coming with it’s own matching fabric covered belt. As I’m a UK 14 Tatyanna.co.uk sent me the size L, and it fits perfectly. I really feel it accentuates my waist well, something not all dresses do and thus require some additional attention of an extra good belt to cinch me in, but the Milan fits me well enough I can leave the belt off if I wish. Another surprising thing is that I, of the petticoat addiction, actually like the way this dress hangs on me even without a petticoat–shocking, truly, as I never leave off my pettiskirt. This is especially good to know for summers that are too hot for extra layers, and for when I want to make this casual enough that a petticoat would nix that intention. It still looks fabulous with a petticoat, of course, and that’s how I photographed it for you, to show it at it’s full glory as per my usual style.

Continue reading →