Not Novelty Wednesday

So you know how I said I was lazy and unmotivated? Yeah, I didn't wear novelty prints today. Possibly because it's not as cold as it's been here lately (despite being the very middle of Winter) so I took this opportunity to wear The Best Dress In The World. Let me tell you a story about this dress.

As I'm sure every person on the internet is, I've always been a huge fan of Effie of The Snail And The Cyclops, which was one of the first blogs I ever read. Her outfits and styling are such a huge inspiration, and I still have a big creepy folder in my computer full of my favourites from her outfit photos. I saw these photos on her tumblr a few months ago, and immediately fell in love with the dress she's wearing.




I adore anything with a rose print or motif, they are lurking all through my bedroom and my wardrobe and my name. So I went on a quest to find my very own painterly red rose 1950s dress, dreaming of all the outfits I could wear it with. I Googled and Etsy'd and Ebay'd furiously for months, searching every day or so for 'red rose 1950s' and 'rose halterneck fifties' and every possible combination of words that could possibly lead to this amazing garment. I thought I might find something similar, but I never imagined I'd actually find THE dress. But I did, not by searching for any keywords but by browsing Croatia Vintage, one of my favourite Etsy shops. The dress had been listed a few hours before I found it, and was in my size too. It was possibly the fastest purchase I've ever made.

And when I was waiting for it to arrive, even more Googling lead me to believe this dress must've been mass manufactured and quite a popular design, because I've found lots of them! There is one still for sale here, some already sold here and here, and apparently an identical one was even worn by Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex and the City. There's also this one which is made of the same fabric but in a different style. So there's basically a league of extraordinary ladies (or gentlemen) who own these dresses, strewn across the world. AWESOME. I wonder if this sort of thing will happen 60 years in the future with dresses from Glassons or Forever21. My guess: no. I wear mine all the time alone as a dress, but today I'm wearing it as a skirt with my faithful fifties knit tee.




(Wearing a 1950s red rose halterneck dress from Croatia Vintage, 1950s mustard knit tee from an opshop in Taranaki, Goldenponies t-bar ballet flats, and the neighbour's cat Poppy)

My regular photographer is back, yay thanks Kita. She took these on the balcony outside my room, which has an awesome view of all of Mitchelltown. Today she roasted and ground her own coffee beans, so now everything in the house smells delicious and roasty.