A dress made for sunshine and good times, Solange is a maxi dress that’s ready for fun. Offering rainbow-but-not-really, it boasts yellow, sky blue, white, pea green, and deep red stripes for a bright, playful print.
Hell Bunny always offers great tropical prints, typically creating one or two new ones every year for their spring/summer range. This year sees the return of the Ukulele print from SS21 but now in pale blue and green tones, and the release of this lush Adelaida print, a darker, earthy take on what I often think of when I think of tropical prints—namely, colour and lots of it. In fact, the Adelaida print doesn’t feature tropical flowers at all, and yet something about the print still tells my brain it’s a tropical print, but like, in a chilled way. Is it just me?? Let’s take a closer look so you can decide.Â
Many of my favourite dresses are Miss Candyfloss, and pretty much all of my favourite yellow dresses are Miss Candyfloss, because they’re a brand who do not scrimp on yellow, which I love them for. So today’s post is all about frolicking amongst the buttercups and soaking up the sun (while slathered in SPF 50 and a sunhat, of course) in the happiest of yellows, in the Selena-Sun dress.
One of the best things about summer, to me, is being able to wear floaty summer dresses. Give me a strappy sundress on a hot day and I will be relieved and happy. In England, of course, you often have to have a cardigan to hand in case the sun comes with a breeze, or just disappears later in the day entirely. But even considering that, a sundress day is a happy day, and this Chiara dress is ready to please.
I have a lot of items in my wardrobe, in all colours and fabrics. There is one fabric style, though, of which I have none, and of which I have been lately wanting to add to said wardrobe; broiderie anglaise. You’ll more likely hear it referred to as eyelet lace, and you’ll even more likely recognise it as a fabric that screams summer to you. White eyelet lace dresses, whether on small girls or grown women, fit beautifully with sunny days and happy smiles. I’d be delighted to add one to my ever-growing collection of pretties, but today I welcome not the expected crisp white of summer to my closet, but something even more exciting–for me, anyway.
Bring on the mustard!
I am not often drawn to any shade of purple, nor to mid-blues. This dress, though–my, my, has it won me over. Ensnared me! Mesmerized me in earnest.
…I really like it basically, okay? So much so that while I’ve been enjoying this winter for the opportunity to dress seasonally in dark and rich colours, to rock winter-only prints like tartans, the one spring dress hanging in my wardrobe that I’ve been dying to wear, even though I’m kind of not really ready for spring yet on the whole, is this Violetta. She has been calling to me for weeks and finally, thankfully, it’s time to let her do her thing.
Here’s the thing; my favourite thing about the vintage silhouette of which I’m most enamored is definitely the full, swishy skirt flowing down from a cinched waist, but sometimes in summer the dedication and discomfort it takes to stay committed to that silhouette is just too much. Sometimes you just need an easy, breezy summer dress that reminds you of your favourite vintage features without all the layers and cinching and sweating. Sometimes you just gotta relax. Enter, Harriet.
I am a yellow lover through and through but it’s a wildly under-utilised colour in fashion in general. Occasionally in the vintage inspired realm you’ll get a plain yellow dress on offer or maybe a print or two, but it’s definitely under represented on the whole. Imagine my excitement, then, when I saw this multi-yellow toned striped cutie available from Joanie Clothing. If this dress were a person, it would have been an ‘our eyes locked across a crowded room’ love story. The reality of that is that I felt the jolt of an immediate ‘Add to cart’ impulse as soon as I saw the product photo pop up on Joanie Clothing’s New In page, but let’s not dampen the romance of a new found love with reality, shall we?
Give me tie shoulder straps or give me death.
Okay, maybe I’m not quite dramatic about my sundresses, but still, I like a bow feature, which this Kelly dress by Hearts and Found offers. Generally speaking, I like everything from Hearts and Found, because come on; customisable dresses in cute prints, perfect cuts and always of pockets? What isn’t there to like about this wonderful woman-owned business? If there are any the Kelly dress isn’t one of them.
I’ll tell you what–there are many ways we Brits are poorly adapted to dealing with hot weather, but for me one of the things I struggle with most is how uncomfortable I find tight seams and waistbands during hot weather. That might sound weird, but just picture it; you throw on one of your favourite dresses in the comfort of your cooled bedroom in the morning, then go out into the sweltering day only to realise a few hours later as you sit sweating at your desk, or on the bus, or waiting for your friend to turn up to your lunch date, that it was a mistake. Because in that moment, while you’re feeling hot and sticky and fed up, you realise that this dress–which was always a bit on the tight side because you were technically between sizes from this brand and you opted for the smaller size because it looked better on, even though you have to wear particular underwear with it–is actually fresh hell.
The waistband, which normally feels like it’s flattering your waist by cinching it in by sheer force of the fabric, is digging in to the clammy skin of your waist, and the bust feels like it’s squeezing your poor boobs, and the whole thing is just too tight and uncomfortable for humidity and summer and oh god why did you do this to yourself, this is not the kind of weather for sucking in and posing and remembering in every moment to be poised. You should have picked out one of your dresses that’s a bit looser, airier, one of those ones you normally have to add a belt to in order to feel it fits properly.
Or, you know, you should have worn one of your dresses that was literally made for you, custom measured in every aspect to fit your body. That, my friends, is what I’ve been doing a lot during our little British heatwave, and thanks to Hearts and Found I’ve been so much more comfortable for it.
Miss Amy May 