Dress shopping, the actual factual event.

Went in to town with my mother on Saturday to look for dresses and stuff. Not that it needed to be a sappy 'mother daughter' experience (saying I was dress shopping with my mother conjures this image) but rather, I dig her no-nonsense approach to shopping, her practicality, and her creativity. Also, she's one of the few people I know who isn't kidding when she suggests we need to lunch at a licensed venue, because shopping is, well, horrible.
So after surveying some overpriced (are they actually over priced? Really and truly, I mean, "out of my price range") dresses at some cute little shops on Rundle St, and the pain of knowing that not only was most of what I saw in Miss Gladys Sym Choon unaffordable, but also wouldn't look as awesome on me as it did on a gorgeously tall model, we made our way to a couple of fabric stores to see what we could sew.
We found some gorgeous antique-looking ivory coloured french lace, sketched a pattern to suit and went through pattern books to find a pattern to match what we'd drawn. Pattern found, we needed something to put under the lace. My mother was initially suggesting some gorgeous cream coloured fabric, very light with gorgeous drape, but it was transparent. Now, I accept needing to wear a slip of some description under the dress, but this was too sheer. We found something similar in black, and realised that the lace on the black looked freaking gorgeous. The dress will have a deep v neckline, empire waist and fall to around the knee (just above or just below? Not sure). The pattern also has gathering around the bust in the centre where the v meets the waistline, which I'll finish with a brooch of some kind. I hope.

Meanwhile, here's some inspiration for me to go running:

from here.

Man, this would all be so much easier if I was like, the seventh wife, or something

Because then no one would expect anything of me. You know.


Of course, I jest.


So, an almost completely fruitless day of op-shopping made me realise that for the money I spend on a second hand dress, and altering it to suit, I could just make a freaking new dress. Turns out that, as usual, my mum was right all along. Ergh. I hate it when she does that.
The trouble is, I'm not finding anything in the pattern books (well, websites, but you know, same diff) that particularly inspires me. And that's kind of the whole point of making your own dress, right? Of doing something completely off-the-wall in it's uniquely you kind of way. (Or doing something really boring and normal, should that be what you were hoping to achieve...)


So, here are some images for inspiration. Credits are below.


I dig the style of this one. But needs sleeves. And more length. And a model that isn't practising her best farrah fawcett (and therefore making me want to punch her in her stupid perky little nose)

from here

The dress below is cute. Not sure about the second layer of lace, but I deffo dig the sleeves. Flower can go though. Model's cutesy looks are option, ie piss off and go do your homework or something.

from Bridal Bliss Designs on Etsy

And this one, without the hippy flower shit:

from hippiebride on Etsy

So then, if all these dresses were to like, do naughty dress things to each other, and then make a demented, but curiously beautiful and appealing dress baby, it'd look like this:

from English Dept on Etsy

Except without the price tag, which was like, $650, and poss with a symmetrical hem. Not sure about the layers, either. Still figuring that out.

I pinched this off a private forum, the OffBeat Bride tribe. No linkies, sorry, but it was someone's inspiration board, so NFI who the originals are from.

Finally, the dress in the top left corner - without all it's disgusting lace overlay on the skirt, minus the train and sans the length, well, I love it.


I really am a bit in love with the empire waist line thing, in spite of its sappy Jane Austen "Mister Daaaarcyyy" implications. I tend to think of it as having more, erm, Bronte sister inspirations - only, shorter, thus making it more suitable for wandering through those moors. Or whatever it was people did in moors, I don't know.




(Just quietly, Austen novels have their place, you know, and while it belongs NOWHERE near a film containing Keira Knightly, I have enjoyed the odd J. Austen - ie, all- novel. However, you simply CANNOT tell Oscar Wilde that).


Last dress picture -- love the beaded gold bit, but I can't imagine it'd look nearly as nice on me. I'm much too short, it'd just chop me in half. Plus, who wants to draw attention away from my fabourly sequinned drag queen shoes?

from pink galoshes

And it's late and I'm nearly asleep on account of it being 2 a-freaking-m. Night peeps. Or myself, as I am the one reading this.

'your mum' jokes don't work so well on your kids

N's parents came around and 'helped clean'. Now, while I accept my house is untidy (cleaning and folding washing isn't a priority for me, OR anyone else in this house) the whole experience was...demoralising at best. N's mother made a great deal of the amount of clutter and dust everywhere - while doing little to actually resolve any of these issues.
I endured it by rearranging my bedroom, cleaning out my wardrobe (necessary - I could barely close the doors) and vacuuming under my bed. My dad helpfully replaced the broken tap and leaky showerhead, and my little brother helped paint the back room with N and his dad. Oh, to have been one of them.

So, I spent international women's day cleaning my house (and refusing to feel guilty for not being a better housekeeper) in preparation for an upcoming wedding. Ironic, no? I'm still trying to scrub the stench of horrible, hateful anti-feminist behaviour from my body (fortunately, I can now do this in the bath - thanks dad!). Might have to cut my hair shorter, or something.


At any rate, my mother, who is an expert on such things, says that wearing a white, repurposed wedding wedding dress will look like I'm not taking the whole thing seriously. Of course, the white wedding dress could also look too earnest, and I'm starting to feel that I lose either way. Thus, she informs me the only thing I can convincingly wear with my sooper-dooper-awesome shoes ("drag queen shoes, as my mum called them) is black. Minimal, a-line, v-neck black.
Now, rationally I know this, but when shopping patterns I found little that really jumped out at me and said, "OMG WEAR ME WHEN YOU GET WEDDINGED" ... .hence I am still looking.
Knowing, of course, that I will more than likely resort to the black dress.

Meanwhile, still clinging to hope, I also like this

Maybe I SHOULD just weare jeans...

Man, this whole dress business is a lot harder than I realised.
At some point I got it in my head that it'd be really cool to wear a vintage wedding dress that had been repurposed to look funky and edgy, while still maintaining its cool retro look.
Inspiration came from here:

from the Lynns Rags' Etsy Shop, unfortunately a one of a kind she made (and sold) back in 2008 or something.

However, when I contacted her about this awesome dress, she said she also does cute wedding-ish dresses from new petticoats - such as this one:

Which is an interesting avenue I haven't pursued. I've done an etsy alchemy request thingo, which, fingers crossed, will come up with something awesome.. failing that I'm planning on hitting the op shops hard over the coming weeks.

Trouble is, now I've got this idea in my head, I can't get it out!

the bride wore black and the little girl ate deer meat.

from Sodahead

No, not this kind of black.

It's just the kind of result I envisage when googling with search terms such as "black wedding dress"  and the like.


On a completely unrelated note, I found a story written by Y, on a brown paper bag.


'Once upon a time there lived a girl called "Ella". Ella was 7 years of age and she lived in the forest alone. One fine day Ella had no food so she ate blackberries and deer meat. The end.'

I like Ella. She sounds resourceful.

all the captions I can think of are totally, totally wrong. Pic from here.

In other news, I found my spellcheck, it was in blogger draft. Doofus!

like a freight train, hurtling down a hill...

And with no freaking idea how to use the controls.


Am finding this whole dress shopping thing vaguely depressing. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted to wear: black, scoop neck (or something vaguely similar) dress with empire waist, cut to just above the knee, with black opaque tights and:

these peep toes from Zu. It occured to me that I could also throw on a black ruffle bolero similar to

these ones that I've seen on etsy. Indeed, I've even found a how-to for something similar on Cut Out and Keep! So, I'm moderately excited about what to wear, but completely unmotivated about the actual dress shopping aspect. Finding a simple black dress becomes infinately more complicated when short and kind of funny shaped (read: feelin real tubby). Lots  of styles I like, with structured bodices and spaghetti straps or frills or layers or a pencil skirt or WHATEVER just don't look nearly as nice on. So, ok, I'm no Sienna Miller (or whatever) but... you know, I'm feeling a little isolated out of the market here. Conventional dress sites show stuff that is too formal, too white, too frou frou or whatever, and if it manages to extend beyond these categories, then it is generally designed for someone much, much taller and slimmer than me... with the hips of a 12 year old boy.

Meh.

It's frustrating, mildly depressing, and at times, when I'm feeling vulnerable, kind of soul destroying. 

So I'm going to continue to handwrite invitations and feel cranky and sorry for myself.