One of the thing’s I feel like the vintage style realm gets right that the wider fashion world doesn’t is the appropriate level of love for mustard yellow–which is to say, a lot of it. Sure, you can go out and buy a mustard handbag, shoes, cardigan even, but a dress? That just doesn’t happen a lot, even in the vintage-inspired world. So there’s almost no point in telling you how happy I was when I saw this Collectif dress for the first time, is there? No, exactly, you get it.
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.
If there’s one item of clothing that works as a perfect wardrobe staple for vintage-style lovers, it’s a gathered skirt. They’re easy to dress both up and down, you can use them to create a great 1950s inspired outfit but you can also just rock them in a dozen ways to look entirely modern. They’re easy to wear, offer variety, and, if you’re super lucky, they have pockets, like this awesome Victorine 50s skirt by Hell Bunny.
There are many ways it’s hard to be a small business. Having limited resources, the financial pressure of making it work so you can meet your bills or pay for your kid’s after school clubs, the gamble of stocking a new product you believe in that customers might not ‘get’ at first, trying to build up your return customer base as well as your brand recognition so you can reach new potential customers. And if you’re a small business owner who has bigger dreams, who wants not just to stock and sell but to design, to manufacture, to create, it’s harder still to build up and spend out the cost of fulfilling that dream. To create something that is yours and yours alone to offer your customers, something you made with love and passion and great hope. I’m not sure that kind of vision and bravery is something I would ever find in myself, but the beautiful thing about having my own tiny corner of the internet is that I can share the lovely things made by braver, more imaginative people than I, and today I do just that. Today we’re looking at the first dress made for Cerys’ Closet’s own brand, and it’s a made in UK beauty!
Last spring Collectif released their Jemima dress, an instant favourite that sold out in both then-available colours. It came in cream and navy, both sporting multi-coloured polka dots, making it ever so cute and sweet and fun. This season? Oh, this season Jemima is back in a big way, not just in new colours but also in new prints. And me? I’m a little bit obsessed with this palm print.
Well the last outfit round up in March was unusual in and of itself, being mostly comprised of past outfits that I’d forgotten to post in a timely manner. This round up though? This is certainly a first.
In ‘normal’ life I only get pinned up for social events, not for work. Since social gatherings no longer exist, essentially, I’ve had very few reasons to get all dressed up over the past couple of months. I’ve been furloughed, so I have used some of that extra free time to create additional blog and social media content. That aside, I’ve only bothered to get pinned up for about half of the video calls I’ve had with family and friends, on the days when I felt I could face the effort full hair and make-up takes, as my patience for that process has been fairly low compared to usual. My birthday was in May, so there were even a couple of instances near the big day when I got fully glam for that week’s food delivery to my mum and her elderly friend, or to my sheltering best friend who sometimes needs me to pick up and deliver her meds to her. What I’m saying is, the glam has been very sparse lately, and that’s been what I needed in this particular circumstance. I hope you’ve been able to indulge in the level of glam or of comfort that you’ve needed, too, to feel as reassured as one can be during this time. Me? I’m compiling this list for you in my favourite sweatpants, so I’m a happy girl.
There are two colours that are woefully under-represented in my wardrobe, brown and grey. Happy days, then, that this Baran-Blue dress by Miss Candyfloss features a delightful abstract graphic print on a background shade that is a perfect mix of the two.
I’m a pretty equal opportunity colour-wearer. It’s only really pink that I consciously avoid wearing as a block colour, but despite that there are several colours that don’t make it into my wardrobe often, with coral and brown among them. Seeing me in this dress, therefore, has probably come as a bit of a surprise, for you and I both.
Right now a pretty dress that turns out to be comfortable and lightweight enough to wear even on a hot, sunny day at home in lockdown feels not only like a happy surprise, but a total lockdown delight. The fact that this Elina-Lou dress is also so elegant that it will serve as a beautiful occasion dress once things return to normal makes it even more special.
Last week I shared with you a review of the Polka Dot Claudia Max dress by Alexandra King for Deadly is the Female, a piece that immediately became one of my favourite dresses of all time. I bought it using money I had been given for my birthday specifically for buying myself some treats from my favourite small businesses, so Deadly is the Female of course had to be top of that list. At the same time I also bought myself the Navy Flutter Sleeve Claudia dress, because its understated chicness but clear practicality had been calling to me like a siren song ever since I had first tried it on in early March. Genuinely, I’ve been thinking about this dress at least a couple times a week since. I’m so, so pleased that my memories of it live up to it’s beauty.
