I think about whatever loveliness I'm considering purchasing in terms of 'will it make dressing easier?'. My new striped dress does JUST that and here's why:
1. It goes with all my shoes and hats and necklaces, which means:
- I can run on autopilot. With no thinking involved, I can grab this dress and literally anything else in my closet and I've made an outfit.
- It can be worn for any occasion - casual/formal/day/evening. Because my days involve a million scenarios: from working from home or a local coffee shop; to grocery shopping or running to the park after school with my daughter; to grabbing a drink with a friend, it's SO lovely when I find something I can wear all day.
2. It fits well. Here's the other dress I tried on that same day.
Because it was tight and with horizontal stripes, there was a lot of sucking in that was involved when I took this picture. I knew I wouldn't wear an annoyingly tight dress very often.
This is the one I ended up getting. It. fit. perfectly. I didn't have to suck in, or wear a weird girdle device, or worry about panty lines and all that nonsense.
In Conclusion
It all boils down to the fact that this dress is a well-fitting basic.
A basic, like a little black dress, goes with a lot and you can dress it up or down. But basics that are too basic, kind of bore me.
When you broaden the definition of 'basic', then it starts to get interesting. My dress is navy, not black. And it's striped. And it has that little bell sleeve that's too cute. I'm wearing this dress as a basic, by putting it with everything in my closet. But because the dress itself has some personality, it adds additional interest to my outfit. I get bored with little black dresses. But when I substitute little navy and white dresses for black dresses, then I feel all spicy and fashion-forward. Like, 'look at me world, I mix stripes with other things!'
Here are some additional notes:
1. I spent my March budget on this dress. Have you read about how and why I have a budget?
2. This dress is a perfect example of how adding black and white to your closet helps all the colors and patterns get along (though this is technically navy). You can read more about that here.
3. A full length mirror was absolutely necessary in the process of finding this dress. I even left the fitting room and went out to the 3-way mirror to really give the dresses a good thorough review. That's how I figured out that the tight dress was too tight, and that the one I ended up purchasing looked better in a size larger (it hung better). More on full length mirrors here.
Have a wonderful day!
XX
Emily