Southern Yacht

My little take on plus size fashion, life, travel and smurfs

Wednesday 23 July 2014

Keeping cool and keeping smart - impossible?

Hello everyone

Is it hot enough for you all? I must admit I love the heat. I think I was born to live in a hotter climate.

But sometimes, it's hard to look smart and keep cool. Esp when all you want to do is put on your loosest, coolest top and your comfiest shorts (shorts! that's a post for anther day...).

Well, in my last post I discovered the joys of a maxi dress but as smart as some people make them look, I wanted something a bit more dressy.

Cue this fab dress from the Inspire range at New Look. I picked this up in the sale for £12 a few months ago and as soon as I saw it, I fell in love.

Dress - New Look Inspire (size 22)
Shoes - Primark
 
 The dress didn't come with a belt, so I played around with a few colours. I think anything would go with this print and so far the blue and silver belts have been my favourites. Which ones do you like?
 
 

Blue belt from Marks and Spencer (old)

Silver belt from New Look

Brown belt from Primark
 
 
So far I've worn this dress with black pumps and in the hotter days, some purple strappy sandals. It's managed to make me feel smart and not get too hot and bothered! It never needs ironing and isn't too short. It's fast becoming my very favourite dress (until the next time I hit the sales).
 
 
Thanks for reading and hope you're all keeping cool :-)
 
Cathy
xx

SHARE:

Thursday 10 July 2014

Braving the maxi dress

Hi everyone,

Well, I took the plunge - I got me a maxi dress!

I must admit, I always veered away from them. I thought I was too short at 5'3 and when I tried a few on some did end up looking like I would need a little army of helpers behind me to carry the train of material that was left dragging.

But they always look fab on other people. And surely something that covers up so much of the bits I hate must be good - right?

So I kept trying them on - and jackpot! Good old Marks and Spencer, in particular their Indigo range. Now this range I really love. I can't seem to walk past without finding at least 3 or 4 items I want to take home with me every time (living within 10 minutes of a huge out of town Marks and Spencer store with free parking doesn't help my purse at all!).

The Indigo range seems to have a laid back, beach/hippy style which suits me down to the ground. This dress is quite a heavy jersey material which means I don't have to worry about it being see through (no Princess Di moment for me). It hangs well and doesn't gape too much on the top half. Quite often dresses which fit my bottom half are then way too big for the top. It doesn't come with a belt, but I added a brown one from Primark as I felt it needed a bit of structure plus it helped lift it that extra few cms.



 
Dress - Marks and Spencer, Indigo range (size 20)
Belt - Primark
 

I was barefoot in the top 2 pics and I don't think it looks too long - what do you think? I wore it the other day with some great shoes that I bought last year from the Jeffrey and Paula range at Simply Be .


 
Now I fell in love with the colour of these shoes - I love everything raspberry/fuschia coloured. Plus I have a bit of a dodgy ankle at the moment so needed something fairly easy to balance on! Now - after an afternoon and evening wearing them, I can't say hand on heart these are the most comfortable - but they did add a good bit of extra height and a great pop of colour. I think I'm just not used to wearing anything higher than an inch - so more practice needed.

Anyway - I'm sold on the maxi dress - I may even have bought another one for the holidays!

Oh - and did you spot the nail varnish? Getting in the spirit of the World Cup and painting them the colours of Brazil - not that it helped Brazil much!



Thanks for reading

Cathy
xx
 
SHARE:
Blogger Template Created by pipdig