When I love a dress I’ve been known to get it in more than one colour. It’s a practise I heartily recommend, because if an item of clothing makes you feel good you’ll wear it over and over again, and having it in additional colours means you’ll wear them all the time too. So, it probably shouldn’t surprise you to see that today we’re looking at the Scarlette dress…again. I reviewed it in black a couple months back and fell completely in love with it. I’ve since worn it to my sister’s long-delayed bachelorette party because I wanted to feel chic and pretty that night, and that’s how Scarlette makes me feel. When I first saw it on Dolly & Dotty’s website I had been equally as tempted by the navy as the black, making it a tough decision as to which colour to choose for that first review, but when I loved the black as much as I did, owning the navy sort of…became a bit inevitable. Behold, it is now also mine! But to mix things up for you, today I really wanted to emphasise that this dress can be worn casually too, and not just dressed to the nines for special occasions.
Tag Archives: vintage inspired
Alison, A Change [Hearts and Roses London]
Y’all, hold onto your butts, because I’m wearing PINK. If I weren’t surrounded by beautiful bluebells, full of joy and spring, I might have worried that hell had frozen over. But no, it’s all good, and I really am wearing pink. A muted, very dusky pink, it must be said. Why? How? Short answer: sometimes it’s good to try something different. Long answer: um, let’s look at the pictures first…
Hazel for Spring [Hearts and Roses London]
The ‘Florals? For spring? Ground-breaking’ line delivered with perfect stone-faced sarcasm by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada is truly iconic, and I get it. If you’re talking high fashion, yes, there really are things that are considered too cliché to be indulged, but for the average person we don’t care what’s expected or avant-garde, we just want to wear something comfortable that makes us feel good. And cliché or not, in spring seeing all the blooming flowers makes me happy; wearing brighter colours after months of enjoying richer, dark shades makes me happy; and wearing a cute floral print when the sun is shining makes me happy. Florals for spring will never be shocking because it’s a classic, and I’m not gonna argue with a classic.
Matchy Matchy [Miss Candyfloss]
There are many things Miss Candyfloss do beautifully, one of them being that they produce gorgeous matching sets–sometimes it’s a jacket and a skirt, an expected pairing that many vintage inspired clothing companies offer. But sometimes it’s a jacket that matches a jumpsuit, or a dress, or even two dresses. For vintage lovers it allows us to create an outfit that feels authentically vintage and sartorially elegant with ease. Today we’re looking at just such a set, the Kimmie-Gia dress and Samira-Gia jacket.
Dainty Li’l Jennifer [Lulu Hun]
Sometimes I miss being able to wear high heels, mostly when I see a really delicate style, as it’s just harder to find dainty styles in a lower, sturdier heel. There’s something about footwear brands that assume those of us who wear lower heels automatically want a bulkier, blockier style overall, and that’s simply not the case–I wear low heels because my left foot has never quite been the same after I suffered with a stretch of Plantar Fascitis a few years ago, not because I don’t like stylish, pretty, lovely things. At least when it comes to summer wedges we low-heel wearers don’t automatically get relegated to a frumpier footwear category, since espadrilles and all the other usual summer suspects look just as cute with a lower wedge as with a towering one. Lulu Hun, however, have gone one step further in pleasing me this season by releasing Jennifer, a gorgeous pair of wedges with a strappy open toe that makes up for all the slinky little strappy stilettos I can no longer wear. Roll on summer!
Veronica in Ivory [Lulu Hun]
Long gone are the days I could wear a towering, dainty heel that was barely strapped onto my foot by a criss-cross of skimpy straps–well, about 4 years gone, really. These days I appreciate the distinct lack of a threat of a twisted ankle provided by a thicker heel, an enclosed vamp, a solid ankle strap. Give me stability or give me flats! All that does not necessarily mean frumpy, ugly shoes, thank goodness, though admittedly finding pretty, sensible heels is harder than finding, say, gorgeous death traps. Lucky me that vintage inspired brands are brilliant for finding the kind of heels I need, and the Veronica heels are one of my all time favourites.
Solana for Summer [Hell Bunny]
It’s official, we’re entering my favourite time of year, that sweet spot between April and May when both the blossoms and the bluebells are out. I shared some bluebells loveliness with you all over the weekend, so today it’s time to give the blossoms a little more of their due as we look at a dress that is, actually, pretty much pure summer–I don’t have any tropical palms or banana leaves to hand though, so the blossoms will have to do while we all pretend I wasn’t cold shooting this dress at 8am in the April early morning wind. (Please, I do it for you.)
Margaret Fulfilling Dreams [Joanie Clothing X Horrockses]
Early in my journey of dressing in a vintage aesthetic I began to feel a pressure that to be a real pinup one had to wear true vintage clothing. Not exclusively, but certainly that owning some true vintage made you a ‘proper’ pinup, compared to buying modern made reproductions. The problem I quickly discovered, however, was that that wouldn’t be an easy feat for me; even back then, as a size 14/16 who lived in the English countryside, finding vintage pieces I liked in my size and within my budget largely meant spending a vast amount of time online searching, as I didn’t have easy access to thrift stores and vintage shops. On the rare occasion I found a dress I wanted that would fit me, it was either wildly outside of my budget or I got outbid. It didn’t take long before I accepted that the only vintage pieces I would be able to acquire with ease would be accessories, so I got comfortable in the world of vintage inspired and reproduction clothing, leaving behind any shame that my 100% modern clothing made me any lesser in any way. Continue reading
Orange You Glad for Valencia [Hell Bunny]
The items I feature here on my blog tend to fall into two categories–one, this item is something I’m obsessed with because it utilizes a bunch of my favourite design features and my preferred aesthetic; or two, this item is more unusual compared to my typical choices and yet I love it anyway. Today’s piece is more from that second category but not really, because while I’m not often into novelty prints they do occasionally court my fancy, and such a summery print on a classic vintage dress shape, printed on that blue? I don’t know how I was supposed to resist.
Sunny Dominique [Hell Bunny]
With the sun making more regular appearances, it finally feels like the time to make the switch from my autumn/winter wardrobe to my spring/summer pieces. Into storage go my tartans, checks and velvets, and out come the florals, brights and ginghams. This Dominique number will gladly join them, as one of those rare specimens of which I have very few in my closet–an unmistakable summer dress in pure neutral tones.